Katakana - Phonetic characters for foreign words

After settling into my new surroundings it has become apparent that life will be much easier once I have settled down to learn how to read many of the road signs.
One of the symbol or character systems is called Katakana, and is mainly used to write foreign words, but can be found on almost every map. Definitely a help if you wish to take the transit system here.
Here are the characters in that system:

KATAKANA HYOU:



KATAKANA DAKUON:



KATAKANA YOUON:



For example, the name of my current city is Tokushima

So -> Breaking down the phonetics into one syllable representation we get

To - Ku - Shi - Ma

Which from the above charts we read as トクシマ

Yay now I can find my way home!! Well, many of the Express roads actually have English names for the cities. And I have learned that several main roads are numbered, so getting around has become easier. But this is a good idea to know so Katakana at least, to help read menus or warning signs, ingredients, prices etc.
For the time being I can pronounce the words by checking my Katakan cheat sheets, and eventually I hope I will have learned enough Japanese language to understand what they mean :P. For now I am just memorizing location names, and getting these characters memorized. The next step will be a similar character set known as Hiragana. Stay tuned for a progress report.

PS. My name in Katakana is roughly like this. Jody (or 'Jo Di') = ジョヂ