Sipsey Street Irregulars: Praxis: Source for free topo maps.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Praxis: Source for free topo maps.

"Hey, ATF. There is an arms cache somewhere on this map. Good luck finding it." -- signed Ramsey A. Bear.

Received this praxis suggestion from a long-time reader:

Dear Mike,

First, let me say that I'm praying everything goes well for you in the hospital this week. You've been through a lot these last couple of years.

Now on to the praxis. I came across a source for free topo maps that allow you to get the detail you want and of the area you want. I found it on some bushcraft and camping sites. Given the importance of maps to any "insurrectionist", I thought this might be useful. It involves a free program called Gmap4. The linked articles below go into great detail on how to use the program.

Here are the links:

http://woodtrekker.blogspot.com/2013/07/wilderness-navigation-obtaining-free.html

http://woodtrekker.blogspot.com/2012/05/wilderness-navigation-obtaining-free.html

http://sectionhiker.com/gmap4-great-online-topo-maps-and-map-sharing-for-the-usa-and-canada/

Now off to finish reading American Guerrilla in the Philippines . . .

6 comments:

Paul X said...: It's almost getting to the point you don't need paper maps any more. Just get a cheap tablet? I haven't tried that but it should work. You should be able to store a lot of maps in one.

I've got a lot of USGS maps stored on an old netbook I bought used. It works fairly well but zooming or moving around on the map really taxes the old Atom CPU; you have to wait a while.

I also put Art Pejsa's ballistic equations into a spreadsheet on that netbook so I have a ballistic calculator.

Pejsa also has sold his own balistic calculator but I thought the user interface was a joke. Perhaps he's improved it by now.
http://home.sprintmail.com/~pejsa/indexballistics.htm

It might be the reverse can also be done; that is, people with ballistic calculators might be able to store maps too.; July 30, 2013 at 9:43 AM
Anonymous said...: @Paul X

Hate to point out the obvious, but if there's a large EMP blast in the area, those tablets won't be worth the plastic they're made of. Naturally they're good for now, but paper maps wouldn't be a bad idea.; July 30, 2013 at 5:00 PM
Bikermailman said...: Obviously paper maps are neccessary for a SHTF situaton, but I came across an Android app called Rmap. Downloadable offline maps of a couple dozen varieties including USGS topos. Precise coordinates, compass integration, seems like a lot of tools. Plan on giving it some testing this fall in the canyon country North of the Grand Canyon. Warning, large file sizes, if you have removable storage then no worries.; July 30, 2013 at 6:01 PM
Obvious Moniker said...: Keeping your tablet in a grounded metal container would protect them. Cheapest method: metal trash can, closed lid. Ground it out, store tablet in a static isolating bag for good measure. Less than $20 spent for a decently cheap faraday cage.; July 31, 2013 at 9:48 PM
Paul X said...: I think paper maps make sense if you are operating in one particular area. The tablet idea works better for storing huge numbers of maps. In case you have to go elsewhere you won't be stuck without a map.

Faraday cages don't need to be grounded to work, and in most cases probably shouldn't be grounded so the ground lead does not act like an antenna and make things worse. The external electric field is cancelled by the new electric field generated by the surface rearrangement of electrons; no need for any "drain".; August 2, 2013 at 8:56 PM
Anonymous said...: For those thinking of the tablet route, check this out:
http://www.meetearl.com/; August 5, 2013 at 8:42 AM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Praxis: Source for free topo maps.

6 comments:

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