Alaska To Minneapolis

[Team Cinnamon]

I took my 60C on a cruise to Alaska two weeks ago. I used an external antenna and enjoyed it tremendously on the ship while hooked up to my laptop in the room,(using "nRoute"), showing all the inlets, bays, etc. along the Inside Passage. It also worked fine, most of the time, on the train from Anchorage to Fairbanks. My question is this.....after leaving Fairbanks, on the starboard side of the plane, headed for Minneapolis it seemed that I completely lost signal strength for MOST of the portion of the flight across Canada and regained it almost immediately upon crossing into the USA at the N. Dakota border. Is this coincidence or is there some reason that I wouldn't have good strength of signal over Canada? (BTW, I flew Northwest and they were very nice about allowing use of the GPS. I used a small square of Velcro and tucked the receiver of the remote antenna just under the window shade to hold it in place.)

[+Klemmer]

Check this out: Look at the Proton Flux section in particular.

 

Note that Canada and Alaska have their own separate section. I doubt your observation was anything sinister, like the US / Canada border, but just the physics of the GPS system. I don't know when you flew, but I think the website above has historical data also.

 

I have flown over pole (last year), from Seattle to Stockholm [nice flight!], and notice a HUGE loss of signal from central Canada thru about Northern Sweden. Lookd at the site when I got home, and - yep - moderate sunspot activity.

 

Interesting - huh? And you thought GPS was not affected by weather - it is, by SPACE weather!

 

Oh yeah - don't miss the section on FORECASTS for the next day or two also.

Edited July 5, 2005 by Klemmer & TeddyBearMama

[drew]

I took my 60C on a cruise to Alaska two weeks ago.  I used an external antenna and enjoyed it tremendously on the ship while hooked up to my laptop in the room

Sounds like fun. I'm leaving for an Alaskan cruise out of Seattle next month; won't be bringing the laptop, though, just the Legend C. Hopefully, if I place it near my porthole, it will keep me up to date on location; otherwise, it's up to the deck. Hope you didn't get too much rain!