What's the statute of limitations on swiping cranberries in NJ?

[Pan]

...
Hey, what about that guy in that crop dusting biplane who swooped down and sprayed a bla bla bla

But it's my claim to fame! WW1 ended almost 100 years ago. How many guy since then have been strafed by a biplane!?

 

[dogg57]

Hey, what about that guy in that crop dusting biplane who swooped down and sprayed an innocent tourist? That must be some kind of felony and serious violation of FAA and New Jersey rules and regulations!?[/quote]

I say Welcome to New Jersey

 

[Pan]

The Pine Barrens should secede from New Jersey.

 

[Pan]

Getting towed.

When my low slung rented car got bogged down in that remote part of the Barrens for two days 6 or 8 years ago (appropriately enough near Lost Lane), and I finally hiked out 8 miles through the Air Force bombing range ("All persons are forbidden to enter!!!") in the rain, and a cop finally pulled in by me and told me they had picked up someone trying to call out on their cell phone (me) but couldn't make anything out because cell phone service was virtually nonexistent in there, except for very intermittent one second bursts when I climbed a hill. He called a tow truck which finally arrived where I was sitting wet and cold and hungry by the closed gas station I had hiked to.

I was afraid that the tow truck guy would balk at entering the woods where I came out because it was the bombing range and had more of those big Entry Forbidden! signs on it, but he barreled right in, and in fact went so fast that I totally lost track of the neat little arrows I had scraped in the sand at every turn on my exit route, so now we were totally lost, or rather my rented car was totally lost, except for one thing, I had saved the coordinates on my Garmin II GPS. But more problems - the double A batteries in my GPS were almost dead. I had hoped to buy some more at the store I hiked to after I left the woods whose sign I saw in the distance, but it turned out to be out of business,only a big sign, and the tow truck driver had no batteries. I did have a cigarette lighter adapter but the cig. lighter in the tow truck was broken.

Meanwhile the tow truck dude was barreling through the woods, trying to follow the arrow on my GPS - an earlier version with no roads or maps - and we kept running into dead ends and roads that narrowed out so bad that tree limbs were crashing into the truck, knocking the mirrors and wiper blades around, so hard that I was afraid they would break his windshield. And I was afraid that any minute he would say, OK, enough of this, the hell with this, I'm outa here!

The tree cover in there was so thick that the car wouldn't even have been visible from the air - and the rental car agreement does have some fine print about not being allowed to drive off paved roads...

Anyway, with my GPS batteries on their last leg we finally came upon the car, buried so deep in the sand,over its axles, so that I had been unable to dig it out at all or get it to move more than a few inches after digging for two days and one cold night with the only digging tool I had with me, a big seashell. I was also afraid that with my arm extended way under the car trying to dig, the car might settle down and trap my arm, and then what? I didn't see any sign that anyone had even been on that stretch of road for many many years.

Anyway, all's well that ends well. The tow truck dude followed me out to make sure I didn't get bogged down again. How much do I owe you, asked I. Ah, $50 should cover it, said he. He was a good guy. Only thing is a week or two later I got a call from his boss who said, Look, he spent hours in there and beat up the truck besides. He didn't charge you enough. He asked for another 50, and I thought he was right, so that made it $100.

Here's where I was stuck:

N 39 45.317
W 74 26.544

I just came across the receipt from the tow truck company:

Note: The owner of the tow truck company later called me up and said that the tow truck driver who saved me undercharged me. I agreed with him. We were out there quite a while on rough roads, getting lost ourselves, and his tow truck took a beating including I think a broken mirror, from the trees, so I paid him extra. I forgot exactly but I think I paid $200 instead of $132. Better than what the rental car company would have wanted if I told them I lost their car (which in the fine print said I was forbidden from taking off paved roads).

 

[Pan]

So Pan, Did you take the Cranberries?

I got nuttin to say til my mouthpiece gets here, see.

 

[bobpbx]

Here Pan? I've been there, the road takes a mean looking downward turn to the stream area and I said "nope".

 

[bobpbx]

Actually, it can't be there. I'll check those coordinates again. Is that degrees/minutes/hundreds of a second?

I put in the numbers like that and it shows above, which is north of the oswego. You could not have crossed that. I don't think you were on the bombing range.

 

[Boyd]

Those are the coordinates Pan posted

https://boydsmaps.com/#16.00/39.755280/-74.442400/legacy24k/0.00/0.00

The format he used was degrees and decimal minutes, so for example:

39 + (45.317 / 60) = 39.85528

 

[bobpbx]

Those are the coordinates Pan posted

https://boydsmaps.com/#16.00/39.755280/-74.442400/legacy24k/0.00/0.00

The format he used was degrees and decimal minutes, so for example:

39 + (45.317 / 60) = 39.85528

Thats the same thing I have. 39 degrees and 45.317 minutes.

 

[Boyd]

Right. But seconds are not part of the calculation, the decimal shows 1/1000's of a minute in his example. Degrees-minutes-seconds is another format and you might use 1/100's of a second there. Really, I don't think any of that makes sense in 2024 (unless for compatibility with some legacy maps or software, I guess). Decimal degrees are so much easier to use, with negative numbers for Southern latitude and Western longitude.

Is that degrees/minutes/hundreds of a second?

 

[Pan]

Actually, it can't be there. I'll check those coordinates again. Is that degrees/minutes/hundreds of a second?

I put in the numbers like that and it shows above, which is north of the oswego. You could not have crossed that. I don't think you were on the bombing range.

I was near the bombing range. When i hiked out the next day - a dismal day threatening to rain - i had to go past signs saying "Bombing Range - all persons are forbidden to enter". Same when i finally made it to the road and then hiked to a gas station that i spotted in the distance hoping to be able to buy new AA batteries for my GPS on which i had marked the spot where i left the car as the batteries were almost dead, but the gas station was closed. When the police car came (in response to the calls i had been trying to make in the barrens with virtually noncell phone reception - I kept climbing hills to try) and summoned the tow truck, the tow truck had to enter the barrens through a fence with a sign saying ENTRY FORBIDDEN BOMBING RANGE, something likethat. I was afraid he wouldn't go in, but he barreled right through that and everything, including the marks i had carefully placed at every turn i took on the way out.

I'll check my computer because i saved the coordinates for the spot i was stuck.

 

[Pan]

Here's what I saved, the spot my rental car bogged down in sand 24 years ago:

N39 45.317 W74 26.544

Sorry, If I didn't format the coordinates properly. I'm a bit confused on that subject, and i don't even really use them anymore since my Garmin 276C GPS finally gave up the ghost.

 

[bobpbx]

Here's what I saved, the spot my rental car bogged down in sand 24 years ago: N39 45.317 W74 26.544

Sorry, If I didn't format the coordinates properly. I'm a bit confused on that subject, and i don't even really use them anymore since my Garmin 276C GPS finally gave up the ghost.

Then somehow you went over the dams at Sim Place. That's likely.

 

[Boyd]

The previous location we marked was correct in that case. In the position format you used, each degree is divided into 60 minutes. FWIW, the calculation would be

39° + (45.317 / 60) = 39.75528° - this is a positive number because it's North

74° + (26.544 / 60) = -74.4424° - this is a negative number because it's West

Garmin GPS devices will have a menu option to display coordinates in decimal format. I would suggest using that setting unless you have a good reason not to.

This map will show you the (approximate) boundaries of the bombing range, which might help you figure out where you went.

https://boydsmaps.com/#14.00/39.727957/-74.427251/darkstreets/0.00/0.00

BTW, I recently found a file with the boundaries of all US military installations. My next generation of maps will use these instead of the boundaries on my current maps, that I figured out myself based on parcels and the old 24k topo's.

 

[bobpbx]

Yes, I do use decimals exclusively (though you may have meant Pan?).

 

[Boyd]

Yeah, I meant Pan (and just as a general comment for anyone else who might be new to the site).

 

[Pan]

I had left Batsto. It was their annual October festival day and I was merrily tooling my way north through the woods. It was Rt. 539 that I hiked out to. All I had in the rental car was a big seashell I had picked up on the beach, my only digging tool, and one remaining bottle of Mackesons Stout. I have all sorts of survival gear in my own 4-wheel drive pickup truck, but that was far away.

Those bombing ranges are long inactive aren't they? When I walked through the scary "go away this means you!" signs I was hoping MP's would drive up from somewhere as it was threatening to rain. Thanks for the decimal format advice. I really didn't know which format to use. I still have 732 waypoints saved. If I get a new Garmin I can transfer those old waypoints, saved on MapSource, to it?

 

[Boyd]

Those bombing ranges are long inactive aren't they?

I don't think so... although the "bombs" don't contain explosives.

"Annually, approximately 1,000 sorties from fighter and helicopter users throughout the northeastern United States practice weapons delivery day and night at the range. Typical users seen at the range include the A-10 Thunderbolt II, F-16C/D Fighting Falcon, and F/A-18 Hornet fighters, AH-1 Super Cobra, UH-1 Venom, CH-53 Super Stallion, and HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters, as well as C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster III cargo aircraft."

https://www.njang.ang.af.mil/Units/Warren-Grove-Range/

If you export your waypoints from Mapsource in .gpx format (as opposed to Garmin's proprietary .gdb) they should be usable across a wide spectrum of devices and software, it's a universal format. But I got off the Garmin train a few stops back and have no personal experience with their new devices. It would be hard to imagine they don't support .gpx files however.

You can also import your .gpx files into the boydsmaps app on your phone and/or computer. Just press the flag (waypoint) button to get started.

 

[bobpbx]

I don't know why they would give such an extensive list of aircraft, I've never seen anything but A-10's there. Could you imagine a C-17 globemaster or C-130 making bombing runs? It's like they just took the standard list countrywide and went with it. Now, if they're only talking about communication and navigation tests, I can see it. But they don't have to fly to the range to do that.

https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/1529726/c-17-globemaster-iii/

 

[Pan]

I don't think so... although the "bombs" don't contain explosives.

"Annually, approximately 1,000 sorties from fighter and helicopter users throughout the northeastern United States practice weapons delivery day and night at the range. Typical users seen at the range include the A-10 Thunderbolt II, F-16C/D Fighting Falcon, and F/A-18 Hornet fighters, AH-1 Super Cobra, UH-1 Venom, CH-53 Super Stallion, and HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters, as well as C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster III cargo aircraft."

https://www.njang.ang.af.mil/Units/Warren-Grove-Range/

If you export your waypoints from Mapsource in .gpx format (as opposed to Garmin's proprietary .gdb) they should be usable across a wide spectrum of devices and software, it's a universal format. But I got off the Garmin train a few stops back and have no personal experience with their new devices. It would be hard to imagine they don't support .gpx files however.

You can also import your .gpx files into the boydsmaps app on your phone and/or computer. Just press the flag (waypoint) button to get started.

I saw no one on the bombing range that day, nor do i recall ever seeing military aircraft over those places in the old days, but maybe i just don't remember them.

All my waypoints are saved in Garmin's .gdb format. Is there a way to change them en masse to .gpx?