Trevor Laffan: Where would we be without GPS? Maybe in the right place

There was a time when, if you wanted to drive to a place you had never been to before, you had two choices. Either drive in the general direction and ask for directions whenever the opportunity arose, or use a map. An actual fold-out road map. The kind that never went back to the way it was before you unfolded it.

You had to rely on road signs, route numbers, landmarks and all sorts of witchery to get from A to B. The front seat passenger was usually the navigator, and their map-reading skills were vital. It didn’t always work out, though and many a road map ended up in several pieces when tempers flared.

That all ended when GPS came along. The Global Positioning System seemed like the answer to all our prayers. Just type in your destination and up pops the route map and off you go. The nice lady in the machine would even tell you when to turn so it was stress-free.

Where would we be without it?

Well, to be honest, we might not always end up where we are supposed to be. It turns out our GPS friend isn’t infallible. An article in The Times in Britain pointed out that the problem with the Global Positioning System is that it can be interfered with by a number of things that can generate a false reading.

It described one incident where a GPS blocker was accidentally left on a car ferry. The type used by some van drivers to block their location from their employer. The captain’s instrument was telling him he was above Norway and travelling at supersonic speed. He was sceptical about this given that he was at sea off Portsmouth in a 3,500-tonne ship.

I had my own experience with a GPS handheld unit when I was working with the United Nations in Cyprus. One day, I was sent out into the Buffer Zone to check the co-ordinates of a plot of land that was being farmed by a local man.

The Buffer Zone is in effect, an area of no-man’s land stretching from the east to the west of the island, separating the Greek Cypriot part in the south from the area in the north occupied by the Turkish Cypriots. The buffer zone exists to prevent renewed hostilities between the opposing forces in the Cyprus conflict.

While Cyprus has been peaceful for a long time, shots have occasionally been fired into the buffer zone. In addition, land mines still lie dormant between the de facto ceasefire lines.

These are some of the reasons UNFICYP, United Nations Forces in Cyprus, does not allow any activity within the buffer zone without prior approval, except within specially designated Civil Use Areas. Safety and the operational requirements of UNFICYP come first, followed by adherence to ownership rights of the land within the buffer zone.

In order to manage activities within the buffer zone, UNFICYP’s Civil Affairs Section manages four permit schemes: for construction, farming, work and access. All permits have a limited duration, and permit holders must apply for their renewal prior to expiration of the permit.

Approval from UNFICYP is necessary for farming on owned or rented land in the buffer zone and part of this process involves regular physical checks on the plots to ensure compliance with the permits. This was how I ended up on a particular dusty piece of farmland one scorching hot day in June.

First, I contacted the farmer by phone to arrange a meeting at the plot. The farmer in question was also a very successful, and busy businessman. He imported and exported farm machinery. As it turned out, he was also a very nice guy. We met at the plot, and I walked the four corners of the site and recorded the GPS co-ordinates.

When I returned to the office, I sent the details to Headquarters in Nicosia and that was that. Only it wasn’t. They got back to me a few days later and asked me to check it again because the co-ordinates I submitted didn’t match the co-ordinates for his plot. According to my GPS readings, his plot was in the wrong location.

There was nothing for it but to ring him again, apologise for the inconvenience and arrange another visit. We met and I measured the plot again. I thanked him and sent in my co-ordinates but again a few days later, I was told the co-ordinates were still wrong.

Now I had to pull this man away from his business for the third time, and I was starting to get embarrassed. He didn’t seem even slightly concerned about this problem though and was taking it all in good spirits, which got me thinking. He was very sure of himself so before I met him this time, I made my way to the nearest military camp and borrowed a GPS unit from them just in case there was a problem with the one I was using.

We met at the plot, and this time I got different GPS readings. I was again apologising for being a nuisance, but he was smiling as he put his hand on my shoulder and said; “My friend, I don’t know anything about your GPS, but I can tell you for sure that my grandfather used to bring me here as a child.

“He would point to that little dried-up river bed over there and would tell me that’s where our plot started and he would take his measurements from there. I know your GPS is faulty because that riverbed hasn’t moved in a hundred of years.”

He was right. It was faulty, and the new co-ordinates were correct, and so was his granddad. You can’t always rely on signals from space.