WAAS Active for South African Geocachers.

[+LeonW]

After being alerted by GlobalRat and Cape_Gypsy about their GPS'r receiving WAAS signals; I confirmed the availability of WAAS through the Satellite number 39 over the Kongo sending out WAAS signals.

 

My EPE on the 60CSx dropped to an unbelievable low of 1 (one) meter.

[+Metro Nomad]

Good news, Leon.

Any idea if it will cover most of South Africa?

 

I had a bit of a funny response when I mentioned about a year ago somewhere else that I picked up WAAS in the Hartbeespoort area......

[+LeonW]

Hallo MetroNomad, from my research on the Internet I believe that the satellite -39- will cover the whole of Africa. See this link about the WAAS

 

I do hope it was not me that made that remark last year, I don't believe the rate of progress, sometimes...

 

Could be in experimental/testing phase, but that does not matter for me. I am going the WAAS route from here.

[+Jors]

I am going the WAAS route from here.

 

Had an interesting conversation with Richard Wonacott from Directorate Surveys and Mapping earlier today and he advised:

 

DO NOT ENABLE WAAS/EGNOS.

 

You might be receiving the signals, but it's a "false" signal which is nót corrected for Southern Africa, and using it will more likely than not be counter productive.

 

Also, there are no plans in the near future to make WAAS available in South(ern) Africa.

 

WAAS on mý GPSr is still very much switched off.

 

However, accuracies of 20-30cm can be achieved country-wide using a NTRIP enabled receiver (which Garmin is nót) and a mobile phone with a GPRS internet connection.

[+LeonW]

Thanks Jors for that advice!

 

To do or not to do, that is the question?

(Typical South African male, I would first need to convince myself.)

[+Jors]

(... I would first need to convince myself.)

Good luck with that, LeonW

[+DamhuisClan]

However, accuracies of 20-30cm can be achieved country-wide using a NTRIP enabled receiver (which Garmin is nót) and a mobile phone with a GPRS internet connection.

 

Does anyone know of Geocaching software on a PPC that supports NTRIP?

I am looking at either GPS Tuner, or BeeLine GPS, to buy on my new HTC P3600, but neither seems to support NTRIP.

 

BTW does anybody use either package? If so what do you like / dislike?

[+Jors]

Does anyone know of Geocaching software on a PPC that supports NTRIP?

 

Anton,

My previous post might've been misleading, I'll try to explain.

 

It would appear that NTRIP-enabled GPSr's are only available in the higher end mapping and GIS spectrum, but many Garmins are DGPS capable.

DGPS GPSr's are able to receive RTCM corrections through the GPSr's com-port, for higher precision position.

NTRIP is only the internet protocol used to get the RTCM corrections to the user, and can easily be received by mobile phone through GPRS/EDGE/3G, running a small application.

The only challenge would really be to connect the internet connected phone to the capable GPSr via com port, for two way communication.

The GPSr then sends its position by NMEA to the NTRIP application, and in turn receives corrections for that position from the NTRIP app. The GPSr then displays the corrected position to under 0,5metres.

 

The P3600 has an internal GPS, so I'm not sure how one would handle the flow of data - by virtual com ports, perhaps?

 

Get the (free) NTRIP app. at the GNSS Data centre.

 

Hoping it's somewhat clearer now.

 

Glossary:

WAAS (Wide area augmentation system)

DGPS (Differential GPS) similar to WAAS but not simple compatible

RTCM (Radio Technical Committee for Maritime Applications)

NTRIP (Networked Transport of RTCM via Internet Protocol)

NMEA (National Marine Electronics Association)

GIS (Geographical information system)