OT: RE: [aprssig] Metric vs English Systems

[Dave Baxter]

>From an Englishman, born and bred etc....

We do still have distances mostly shown as Miles on road signs (there
are a few exceptions though) though in industry and for regulatory
purposes km is almost exclusively used.

I was taught the SI system, temperature in 'C, km, kilo's etc way back
in the 60's onwards.  It's only the vociferous few in power who keep us
stuck on the imperial system for many things, I'm, told that for
instance it is a requirement for the broadcasters to tell the populous
the weather forecast with temperatures in 'C and 'F!  Goodness knows
why, I have *Never* used 'F, and I'm now in my 50's.

What makes me laugh, is the US...  They keep on quoting miles and 'F,
but their own military use km and 'C all the time, we have to work with
them so I know first hand.

As to car Speedo's etc.  Here in the UK, the speed in MPH is most
prominent, with kPH shown inside that in a smaller font, and often a
less prominent colour.   All cars on "The Continent" I have ridden in or
driven over the last 30 years at least, have the speed only shown in
kPH, and distance clocked in km.  For quick mental conversion, 8km is as
near as 5M as makes no difference worth noting.  That's "Statute Miles"
by the way.  The "Nautical Mile", was originally based (I believe) on
one minute of Arc on the earth's surface, yes I know that varies, the
earth is not a true sphere, but back in those days, I don't suppose that
was known...

Cars with the two scales, but kPH being more prominent, may be "Grey
Imports" from Japan or Australia?  Certainly I've seen some "Grey
Import" Japanese vehicles with scales like that.

Cheers.

Dave G0WBX.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jan T. Pharo 
> Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 3:36 PM
> To: TAPR APRS Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [aprssig] Metric vs English Systems
> 
> Derek Koonce <derek at dkoonce.com>, Tue, 04 Sep 2007 06:02:59 -0700:
> 
> >England still uses British units - miles, etc.
> 
> AFAIK, they still use it, but are changing, like the rest of 
> the Commonwealth. In new cars I saw this summer, the km/h 
> scale was dominant, and the mph scale was there, but smaller 
> (not a stasticial significant number of observations, but 
> that's what I saw)
> 
> --
> 73 de Jan, LA2BBA
> Hvaler, Norway
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