WAAS in Canada

[+Yo Yo Man]

I was looking through the Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx maunal and came across a link to an FAA website suggesting WAAS is now availble in Canada. Anyone up on this...is it true...does it improve accuracy?

 

The link

http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headqu.../news/index.cfm

 

Navigation Services

Satellite-Based Augmentation System Office - News

WAAS Service Expanded into Canada and Mexico

September 28, 2007 - Today, the FAA GNSS Program Office announced that WAAS service is now available to users throughout Canada and Mexico.

[+tabulator32]

Its been my experience and opinion that WAAS definitely increases accuracy.

 

I have also heard (although I doubt it is true) that it also consumes battery power more quickly. I don't know why it would do this.

 

Can someone correct me about the battery power thing?

[+Yo Yo Man]

I realize, if available, it does increase accuracy. My question was, is it really working in Canada and has anyone experienced increased accuracy by enabling WAAS is Canada?

[+tabulator32]

Maybe this will help...especially the links within that page.

[+Timpat]

I realize, if available, it does increase accuracy. My question was, is it really working in Canada and has anyone experienced increased accuracy by enabling WAAS is Canada?

I can not speak from personal experience at your location in Canada, but reading on WAAS you sure should get good differential corrections in Victoria, BC. Check out this link on WAAS. And if you get WAAS corrections, yes, it will improve accuracy as stated in your 60Cx manual: <10 meters 95% typical normal operation, and 3-5 meters 95% typical with WAAS.

 

FizzyMagic has a free program called FizzyCalc that will calculate the position and altitude of the WAAS birds from your Lat/Lon. I checked for your location, and your Garmin will "see" SV #35 at azimuth (AZ) 204°/ 32.3° above the horizon, SV #48 at AZ 193°/ 33° up, SV #51 at AZ 159°/ 32.3° up, and SV #47 at AZ 245°/ 11.8° up (quite low for this one). Good luck, and report back on your observations in the field!

[+EraSeek]

Yes, WAAS has been usable in lower Canada for quite some time. The coverage area has recently been expanded. WAAS corrects for Ionospheric delay of the GPS signal which can throw your position off, and clock and ephemeris errors as well.

Will it increase your accuracy? Yes. Keep in mind that the errors from the ionosphere increase and decrease depending on the suns activity and your areas exposure to it, so there are times when you will require more correction than others. For instance, during solar storms more corrections will be needed. The further north you are generally the less corrections you will need, as well as at night when you are exposed to very little ionospheric disruptions. Still, the clock and ephemeris corrections will be helpful.

[+EraSeek]

This gif demonstrates quite well how the ionosphere works. Note that it is more active south than north, and in the middle of the day: http://gpsinformation.net/exe/iono-day.gif

[QuigleyJones]

It works if you can get a good enough signal.

Generally when I have it turned on and am under a canopy, it doesn't "activate". But when I have an excellent sky view it "activates" and works well.

[+RRLover]

It works if you can get a good enough signal.

Generally when I have it turned on and am under a canopy, it doesn't "activate". But when I have an excellent sky view it "activates" and works well.

Proximity to the up/download ground bases stations used for the computations helps immensely,

I used to get extremely accurate locating(less than 20 miles from the up/down station), sometimes

I could set my XL right on a benchmark or spend less than 20 sec. searching, not any more, mines

"Living in the past" so to speak. It wasn't used during the period of time that the old satelites told

the GPSr audience(handhelds) where to look for the new ones. eXplorist users . . . think long and

hard before doing a 'memory clear to factory settings' you may be negatively affected, WAAS wise!

 

Norm

[+PDOP's]

In my experience WAAS is only usable with a clear open view of the sky to south so that a GPSr can receive the correction signals from the geostationary satellites in orbit over the equator. (link).It certainly doesn't hurt to have it enabled on your GPSr.

 

Four new WAAS Wide-Area Reference Stations (WRS) stations at Winnipeg, Goose Bay, Gander and Iqaluit were integrated into the WAAS system on 2007/09/28.(link) The addition of the 4 stations in Canada extended coverage to the eastern provinces to about 55N latitude while the addition of more stations in Alaska extended coverage into the Yukon and western part of the NorthWest Territories.

[+DENelson83]

Here. The graphic on the page linked below should clearly show that WAAS is now available across Canada:

 

http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov/24Hr_WaasConusLPVCoverage.htm

 

I checked for your location, and your Garmin will "see" SV #35 at azimuth (AZ) 204°/ 32.3° above the horizon, SV #48 at AZ 193°/ 33° up, SV #51 at AZ 159°/ 32.3° up, and SV #47 at AZ 245°/ 11.8° up (quite low for this one). Good luck, and report back on your observations in the field!

It won't see #35 or #47 anymore. Those satellites stopped transmitting WAAS signals on July 30, 2007.

Edited December 26, 2007 by DENelson83

[+Yo Yo Man]

Thanks for all the input! Two of my geocaching partners and myself all received identical Garmin 60CSx's for xmas. I'm going to enable WAAS on mine and the other two won't. We'll see who's is more accurate over the next while.

[+trainlove]

WAAS satellites being on the geosynchronous/geostationary belt will work in Canada if you have good southern exposure. At home in Massachusetts the WAAS's that currently work, east coast, is at about 33 degrees elevation so if I'm less than 100 feet from a forest I can't get any reliable reading from them. The west coast, or central, WAAS has not been available from here for months and it was at an even lower elevation.

 

Whenever you can get a reading from them you will have better accuracy.

 

If you can't get a WAAS signal, you should turn off WAAS in your GPS to free up a channel for use with the regular sats.

[+EraSeek]

[Proximity to the up/download ground bases stations used for the computations helps immensely,

Actually, not. The beauty of WAAS as compared to the other land based broadcast system is that you don't have to be close to a station to get the best corrections because the data is input, modeled for the whole coverage area, and applied by your GPS and no longer has much of a relationship to the stations.

[phern47]

In my area (Quebec), my WAAS signal seems a bit weak. The signal indicates about 50% on my IFinder. Often, I get no WAAS and when I do see that I have WAAS, the error does not change anyway. The least error I have gotten so far has been about 7 meters. Most of the time, I have between 10 and 15 meters of error. I can live with that since I have not done any geocaching yet. I am using 1 second update rate on my IFinder. I don't think I can even turn off the WAAS on my IFinder if I wanted to.

 

I can't see how using WAAS will consume more power. I can see where using a slower update rate will decrease power consumption.