Page 6 - Martin Downs Bulletin - January '25

Page 6, Martin Downs

book review

Pinpoint: How GPS Is Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Polynesians had already split the atom. They crossed
to the South of England,
the ocean in canoes roughly 60 feet long, built from
Changing Technology, Culture, collect data from satellites hollowed-out trees, with sails made from woven leaves.
And Our Minds coming over the horizon, … And yet, with no compass, sextant, or any other modern
navigational aid, explorers in canoes found tiny oases
noting speed and trajectory
based on 1,200 different scattered across one-third of the planet, an expanse nearly
By Nils A. Shapiro protocols that tell how the as vast as Europe and Asia combined.”
Nils began his career satellite is performing. There • As part of its ongoing attempts to prevent civilians
as marketing director for a is no room for error. Among from deriving the full benefits of GPS technology the
major book publisher. He other uses, all the world’s Pentagon in April 1990 established a two-tier coding to
has since edited the authors’ atomic clocks base their enable the satellite service. The restricted one was labeled
manuscripts for more than timing on these satellites. SA, which stood for select availability and was reserved
20 published books, written And for drivers, if a satellite’s for the military. Four months later Iraq invaded Kuwait
more than 200 book reviews, timing is off by one millionth in Desert Storm and a private American company, which
served as publisher of several of a second the directions can had developed a highly efficient small receiver called the
million-plus circulation send a driver as far as 200 miles from the desired destination! Trimpack, filled a Pentagon order for 1,000 units that
national magazines, created • America’s first interest in developing a technology that enabled U.S. forces to know where they were in the open
the official yearbooks for would later become GPS began in earnest during World War spaces of the desert, providing one’s latitude and longitude,
teams in Major League Baseball, the National Football II. Its purpose: to kill people more efficiently by making our directions to another location and even store the GPS
League, National Basketball Association and National airplanes’ bombing raids over Germany and Japan more accurate. coordinates of special battle maneuvers. In order to do so
Hockey League, and “retired” as president of a successful Although the facts were kept from civilians at home, the truth it needed to have Pentagon clearance for SA access. But
telecommunications company. was that the Army Air Corps’ doctrine of high-altitude bombing when that company ran out of their Trimpacks another
As miraculous as is the now common practice of being guided to avoid hazardous daytime raids resulted in targets often being firm, Magellan, offered a substitute of their own that could
by an invisible voice as you drive miles through streets and down missed by more than a mile. provide most of the same benefits. “Despite a price tag of
highways, making left and right turns on command until you And then, for decades, the military rejected to the point of $1,000 soldiers wanted these Magellans—even if they had
arrive at your predetermined destination, the true background sabotaging at every opportunity the use of GPS for civilian to pay for them out of their own pockets. Their families
story of how this technology—the Global Positioning System purposes! This is one of the most frustrating themes that called the company, which directed them to marine retail
(GPS)—was created and developed is equally extraordinary, and runs through much of the book, a constant example of the outfits. The most enterprising soldiers would manage to
it is told here in impressive detail thanks to the clearly exhaustive shortsightedness of the American military in its obsessive concern call Magellan directly from the Gulf and arrange for the
depth of research by author Greg Milner. After 266 pages of text about technology getting into the hands of an enemy. It was left company to ship the receivers directly to them.”
there are an additional 50 reference pages. to private industry to do the job. • When the private companies began to develop GPS
I must state at the outset that so fascinating to me is the way Interestingly, one of the individuals who played a role in its technology their focus was on the mariner (boaters’) market,
that the GPS technology is able to provide its driving directions development was an immigrant who, hating and fearing Ayatollah not automobile drivers. In 1989, Gary Burrell and Min Kao
to the general public. I was sufficiently intrigued to keep turning Khomeini, fled from Iran hoping to work hard and bring his wife started their Garmin Company (named from the first parts
the pages to the very last one, even though, because of other and children to the U.S. He was hired in 1981 by a tech firm, of both their names) and soon proved them wrong. “By
important events in GPS’s history and other ways in which it Trimble Navigation, was fascinated by the concept of GPS and 2006, Garmin controlled 60 percent of the U.S. [market] for
is used, the author took many narrative detours that (ironically, was instrumental in the introduction three years later of their first navigation equipment. Americans bought five million Garmin
considering this book’s subject matter) it frequently left a “non- GPS receiver. GPS receivers that year, as the company posted $1.68 billion
techie” like me lost for a while. • The book’s first two chapters are fascinating in describing in sales, a 64 percent increase from 2005. Fully half of the
But it has been well worth the trip. And here are just a few centuries of mankind’s search for an answer to the question, company’s revenue came from GPS units, with sales in that
of the hundreds of things you will learn here to underscore my “Where am I?” On a planet that consists more of water than land, segment growing at an astounding 140 percent annually.” U.S.
recommendation that you dip into Pinpoint … especially if your with no identifiable markings and a flat surrounding horizon, News & World Report Magazine credited Garmin with opening
technology IQ exceeds mine. travelers on the open ocean were forced to reckon by the sun, up a new consumer category.
• There is a constellation of 31 GPS satellites orbiting more moon and stars. I may have gotten lost a few times learning about GPS in
than 20,000 kilometers above planet Earth. Every few minutes As the author notes, “In seafaring and navigational these pages because of my low technical IQ, but you shouldn’t
16 U.S. Air Force monitoring stations around the world, from terms, while the Europeans were discovering fire, the let that stop you from heading straight for a copy of this book.
spotliGht

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