Egnix

Received the following advisory on Friday: SVN49 (IIR-20 (M7)) was the satellite which launched in March of '09 that had a demonstration L5 component. It was never set "usable" due to signal refection issues indirectly caused by how the L5 component was integrated into the satellite (technical details at this link (Note that the articles says the problem was fixed, but it never really was (there's a bunch more articles on that))). The good news is that SVN63 (IIF-2) will be launching soon (currently scheduled for July 14th). This will be the second "Block IIF" satellite. The more IIF satellites we get up there, the closer we'll be to having a second usable civilian signal which should give us greater accuracy.

That's not technically correct. The civilian signal (L1) is not and cannot be encrypted. However, the accuracy provided by the signal can be degraded (i.e. "selective availability").

Actually, there are 3 "retired"/spare satellites. There's also SVN49 up there, but I'm not sure what state it is in. It is not usable. There needs to be a minimum of 24 for whole-earth coverage. The maximum operational (broadcasting/usable) is 32. There's a new one to launch late June.

I just got today's Operational Advisory. It did show that SVN62 went into "maintenance" yesterday. SVN62 is the first GPS satellite of the new "Block IIF" flavor. I'm going to guess they might playing with one of the new capabilities if this bird.

There's not even anything on the GPS Testing Notices page. Hmmmm...

I find this to be really odd. There has been no NANU (I forget what it stands for, but it's a notice of possible change in GPS service) on this. See herefor the latest GPS constellation status and NANUs.

Just to clear up some misinformation... GPS satellites do not wander all over the place. Each one is assigned a specific orbital plane and a slot within that plane. Think of a plane as a circle around the earth. A slot is a position on that circle. A GPS satellite will circle the earth roughly twice a day. As someone else mentioned, "There is no such thing as a WAAS satellite, per se." I just wanted to add that the satellites which carry the WAAS payload are not a part of the NAVSTAR GPS constellation.

I just used Base10 to convert numbers from one base to another for a multicache. I've also used Hintdecoder for decoding hints that aren't in ROT13.

Thanks to all the cachers how helped Joe on his way, keeping him safe, providing him with new adventures, and adding your favorite quotes to his book!

A little over 8 years ago when I was living in Ohio, I got an instant message from a friend of mine from Seattle, WA which said "check out my new hobby" and the text was a link to geocaching.com. I read what it was about and plugged in my address. I saw the closest cache was about a half hour away. I replied to my friend: "brb", wrote some notes down to get me to the right street for parking, grabbed my yellow Etrex and was off. The coords took me to Damm Hike, a cache (as you may have guessed) which was near a dam at the Nimisila Reservoir in NE Ohio. After a short, but scenic hike I found my first geocache. I was hooked and upon returning home I ordered my first set of travel bugs. The TBs arrived quickly and I sent the first two off with goals to reach my other geocaching friends (the one in Seattle and a mutual friend in WI who was also introduced to caching by the Seattle friend). For my third travel bug I thought I'd send out a small notebook for people to share their favorite quotes. I named him 'Joe'. On my sixth day of caching, I took Joe to Brecksville Reservation Cache and wished him well on his travels. Over the years I got to read about its travels around the country. I met people and received emails from people saying how much the liked Joe. I even heard Joe inspired a least a couple cachers to send out similar travel bug books. As time went on I would be continually amazed that Joe was still out going from cache to cache. For some reason he didn't meet the same fate of most of my trackables: going 'missing''. Then a week ago I got a "posted a note" log saying that Joe was being brought to Colorado. I thought, "Wow! I'd really love to see Joe again" and emailed the current holder if I might be able to see him again. I didn't receive a reply.* So yesterday when I was browsing through some old emails I came across the "posted a note" email again and thought I'd ask the holder again if Joe might still be in town. I went to Joe's tracking page and saw that he had just visited Tarryall (lucky bug! I haven't even been there yet!). But Joe had just visited; he wasn't still there for me to run out and grab. So I emailed the holder again and she replied quickly saying that she was still in town but packing to leave. I jumped in the car and was off. Fifteen minutes later I was at her hotel and she reunited me with Joe. 8 years, 18,160.2 miles, 16 states, 49+ caches, and 60+ cachers later, Joe's book is almost completely full of quotes and writings from people all over the country. Way to go, Joe! Job well done! I think it is time to retire Joe... ...and time to send out his successor... link: Joe, the Quote Bug (* Note: Apparently a reply was sent and I just missed it somehow along with the email that Joe had visited Tarryall.)

A couple other links: NGA's 'Current GPS Satellite Data' page (nice quick reference on the constellation) NASA's DGPS site

I'm not sure which "status info" you're referring to. Some of it I get from the Coast Guard email lists while some I get at work (GPS isn't just my hobby, it's also my job. ). Go to the Coast Guard's Navigation Center website. The left column under "Current Operational / Safety Information" is all GPS related. You can also sign up for status and "NANU" emails using the links on the far left: "Receive Free GPS Status Messages" and "Receive NANU Updates". Sorry, I don't work with for follow news on WAAS.

Press release with more details.

Yep. The signal is completely "backwards compatible". You'll see it as (PRN) #25 on your (really old) receiver.

In the near-term, we'll benefit from a stronger signal (I was seeing almost a full bar with the satellite on the horizon (other satellites in similar positions had very low signal strength). Long term and with new receivers we'll be able to make use of 2 signals instead of one. This is handy in correcting for error introduced by the ionosphere...thus improving accuracy.

Okay, it's official now:

Oops. Looks like I spoke too soon. I just got today's Operational Advisory, and it's not listed as being set operational. Perhaps it is now being included in the almanac in the other satellites, but its own health status hasn't been set "healthy" yet. It's gotta be soon though... Apologies again for speaking too soon!

Got an email this morning saying they were expecting GPS IIF-1 (SVN62) to be set operational today and it looks like it was. I just checked my GPS receiver and saw that PRN 25 (which is the PRN for SVN62) was on the horizon! Woohoo! This is the first satellite of the new Block IIF. It's been a long time coming. Very happy to see it's finally live!

I'm assuming he meant L2C and L5 when he said "both". BTW, 90 days isn't the average checkout time. The last bunch of IIR(M)s were around 2 weeks. Obviously they want to do and extended checkout with IIF-1 as it is the first of its kind, but I don't think 90 days will become the new norm. The next launch is scheduled for 11/17, but I don't expect that date to hold.

Thanks! That was the kind of answer I was looking for!

I've read through most of the posts in this thread and I'm still a bit confused... I had moved all of my trackables that I keep in my book for allowing others to discover into my personal "collection". Now I see I can set the item's status to "collectible" or "non-collectible" Based on the definitions in the knowledge book, I'm not sure what status to give to these items. From the knowledge book: Collectible: The coin may be collected by another player. Non-Collectible: The coin cannot be collected and should continue its travels from geocache to geocache. In my case, my trackables are in my collection, should not be collected by other players nor should they travel from geocache to geocache. My best guess is that my trackables should be set to "non-collectible" but that seems at odds with being in my collection. Perhaps the definitions need to be refined or another state needs to be defined?

For the record, this was caused by a problem with certain receivers made by Trimble. There was no problem with the satellites or the ground system software.

The military already has their own separate signals which are better than the civilian signals. Yes, there are methods to give the US troops an advantage, but obviously they can't be discussed.

I don't see how that would be technically possible. Adding some kind of subscription scheme would require a major interface change. The IIA satellites aren't reprogrammable like the IIR and IIFs are, so you're not going to see an interface change while there are still operational IIAs. Even then, I don't this kind of change happening. IIRC, Europe's Galileo GPS system was going to be subscription based but then they scrapped the idea.

No, the current receivers won't be able to receive the new L2C channel. I'm not even sure if L2C is being used yet as IIF-1 will only be the 9th satellite to have it (and one of the 9 (IIR-20) still isn't available for our use yet).