Source for military (surplus) GPS receivers?

[LouhenSudet]

I used to use a Trimble Trimpack III receiver for caching and also for hiking. Yes, it's huge, yes, it's old, yes it eats lots of batteries. But it has a great sensitivity and it's robust like hell, not to mention the big control elements which are easily manipulated also at -30°C with gloves. The battery problem was easily solved with taking a dead NiCd battery pack apart and putting LiPo batteries in the casing.

Since August 2009, the unit shows the wrong date and the time to first fix takes almost forever. According to the Trimble support, they know about the problem (Firmware bug) but they will not release any software update because the unit is obsolete for many years.

So, since fall 2009, I am looking for a new military GPS receiver. Of course, the really new ones are impossible to get, like the DAGR. And even if they were available (ITAR, ...), they would still be too expensive.

Does anybody know a source for surplus mil. GPS? I'm looking for a handheld unit which also can be used in a vehicle with an external antenna.

I just prefer mil. GPS because of the robustness and because they are operable also with gloves. No mapping, etc. functions are required. Just positioning and waypoint navigation.

Edited April 29, 2010 by LouhenSudet

[+coggins]

If it's even legal for you to posses one, it's going to be illegal to get one surplus. Here's a quote from the Trimble Trimpack III cutsheet:

 

Note: U.S. Government policy restricts the sale of Precise Positioning Service

(PPS) equipment to users who have been authorized access to the PPS by the

U.S. Department of Defense. Non-U.S. authorized users must purchase PPS

equipment through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) process.

[LouhenSudet]

If it's even legal for you to posses one, it's going to be illegal to get one surplus. Here's a quote from the Trimble Trimpack III cutsheet:

 

Note: U.S. Government policy restricts the sale of Precise Positioning Service

(PPS) equipment to users who have been authorized access to the PPS by the

U.S. Department of Defense. Non-U.S. authorized users must purchase PPS

equipment through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) process.

 

The Trimpack III does have a L1/L2 receiver BUT is not PPS capable. The firmware doesn't have a keyfill option.

As I wrote, the newer handhelds are all practically impossible to get for civilians. I' am looking for an older (that's surplus ) SPS receiver but military equipment because of the mentioned benefits.

I have tried a Foretrek as it was/is used in IQ/AFG but I am not satisfied with the handling with gloves and I broke the display while climbing. I just need a big ugly indestructible box .

Edited April 29, 2010 by LouhenSudet

[+coggins]

OK, let me be clear on this. I know what surplus means. Also, military GPS units such as you mentioned the DAGR do not go into surplus sales, it it illegal for that to happen, it maybe possible for a civilian to get one that way, but is illegal. Rockwell makes the Polaris Guide that is SPS, you might have better luck with the standard model, but finding one surplus might be a chore.

[LouhenSudet]

The Polaris Guide is not available in Europe yet because RC "forgot" to take the HAVEQUICK feature out of the non-ITAR software . I already talked to them. However, it would be a bit over my budget atm.

I am pretty sure, there were other mil. SPS receivers like the Trimpack III which WOULD be legal to sell via surplus and which do NOT have any firmware bugs.

 

In Europe, every once in a while, you find European versions of the PLGR in surplus shops or on eBay where the PPS key has been deleted and the keyfill connector has been disabled. Those are legal to sell inside Europe, even to civilians.

 

I suppose, there are not only US-based cachers reading this English forums...?

[+Entropy512]

The Polaris Guide is not available in Europe yet because RC "forgot" to take the HAVEQUICK feature out of the non-ITAR software . I already talked to them. However, it would be a bit over my budget atm.

I am pretty sure, there were other mil. SPS receivers like the Trimpack III which WOULD be legal to sell via surplus and which do NOT have any firmware bugs.

 

In Europe, every once in a while, you find European versions of the PLGR in surplus shops or on eBay where the PPS key has been deleted and the keyfill connector has been disabled. Those are legal to sell inside Europe, even to civilians.

 

I suppose, there are not only US-based cachers reading this English forums...?

I'm really surprised by that, I would have thought that the unit would still be considered CCI until adequately destroyed. (With disabling the keyfill connector being nowhere close to the level of destruction required.)

[NordicMan]

Instead of trying to get a "military grade" GPSr,, why not look for a "commercial grade" model instead? Probably a lot less red tape to stumble over & it should still be much more accurate than our consumer grade models..

[+splashy]

Surplus is a lifestyle.

[LouhenSudet]

@Entropy: inside Europe!

Fotunately, we don't have any laws (very few exceptions excluded), which would make the possession of military equipment (ex. firearms, of course) illegal for private citizens. Partially, the industry follows some self-restriction as e.g. Gen4 NVGs are not sold to civilians or Class IV vests.

Some things need a permission if being exported out of the country, some things need a permission if exported out of Europe and some things only need a permission if being exported to certain countries.

 

If you check the website of the German Federal auction agency VEBEG, you will find surprisingly often stuff which you would think, civilians can't buy. Like relatively modern radios with encryption and/or frequency-hopping functions. Either the keys are deleted or the memcards with the hopping tables are removed. Otherwise, they are free to buy for civilians and also to operate for licensed radio amateurs. But if you want to export them even out of the coutry, you need a permission (easy) or out of the EU an export license (hard).

 

@Nordic Man:

Well, new GIS GPS are again way over my budget and as splashy stated correctly, surplus is a way of life. Not neccessarily mine (also I work in the defense business) but for lots of people, so the availability of military surplus is better. Also because the military has a tendency to buy truckloads of stuff and if they buy new equipment, the old becomes available in masses and for reasonable prices. Commercial grade products usually are used until they fall apart and also not really in masses on the market, so IF they are available as "surplus", they are usually rather expensive.

Besides, I don't care too much about the accuracy. 15m RMS is perfectly fine for me. Not all cache-coordinates are precise and the searching at the location is part of the fun for me.

I am looking for a mil. model because those are extremely rugged and easy to operate in wide temperature ranges and with gloves, etc.

Ahja - and I really don't like signal colors - which most of the GIS stuff is in .

[Andronicus]

I borrowed a military GPSr from work last summer to see what it could do. (shh, don't tell anyone) Turns out that because they do not use WAAS (or the Euro equivilant), without the key or whatever it is that increases the accuracy, it realy sucked. I wouldn't bother trying to buy one.

[Andronicus]

Double post.

Edited April 30, 2010 by Andronicus

[+coggins]

I'm really surprised by that, I would have thought that the unit would still be considered CCI until adequately destroyed. (With disabling the keyfill connector being nowhere close to the level of destruction required.)

They have to be returned and destroyed without exception. Also, ITAR covers USML items as far as re-export.

[+Wolf at the Door]

A large, large number of AN/PSN-11 PLGR military GPS receivers went into the scrap bins alongside Pentium I computers and old HP printers in the early days of disposal and then straight to China in electronic scrap containers for recycling. They were removed from said containers and have wound up on Ebay from sellers in China. They are PPS. If you have around $280 USD not doing anything, as of November 2010 you can battle it out on Ebay for one. (PLGR is L1 only.) Any suggestion that there are any lingering national security concerns in light of this fact is beyond ludicrous, especially given they've been out since 1993 and anything to be learned from 17 yr old cryptech has loooong ago been learned.

 

South Korean vendors are also selling AN/PSN-13 DAGR. I don't know how those came out, but came out they did. Combat losses, exercise losses - who knows - but again, non-U.S. vendor selling to European nationals...I don't really know the legalities there but they're sold - like the PLGR - two/three times a month - prices in the $600-$1300 range. (DAGR is L1/L2)

 

The AN/PSN-11 PLGR has a civilian SPS-only counterpart you can sometimes find on Ebay - usually the tan colour - with the model number HNV-500 (the PPS/Gov model is the HNV-560.) They sell for about $250-$400 and usually from U.S. vendors, and are fit/form and functionally identical to the PPS model right down to the 'ZEROIZE' on the front panel. Those very worried they'll get a visit from the Black Helicopters might want to look into getting one of these units as they contain no PPS facility whatsoever.

 

US Government and UK Government released several lots of PLGR-II, also PPS, used by MOD UK as the 'SPGR', and by U.S. Navy Seals and other special outfits that were equipped with PLGR-II coupled to the Vector 21 Laser Rangefinder. Fact. Not rumour. All came out through usual civilian sales.

 

For every dozen or so genuine PPS PLGR units that show up for sale on Ebay, DoD will pick one seller and harass them. That's so far been limited to "you can't sell that", though one or two have been told to "return it to your nearest Federal Government Agency." It is not applied universally at all. The only seizure I'm aware of was because the unit concerned was stolen several owners prior and had paperwork filed to that effect from waybackwhen, so DoD had to follow up.

 

Trimble products...Trimpack III, PPS Centurion and PPS AN/ASN-169 SAGR show up from time to time - prices all over the map. Trimble Centurion (PPS) was given/sold to many non-military Federal agencies (NOAA, USDA, BLM) for oceanic mapping, terrestrial mapping and other applications - and though those agencies were supposed to return them once obsolete -- that didn't happen *most* of the time, and ships going in for refit or aircraft off to the scrapyard tended to have those units left in them and later recovered by surplus resellers, or the agencies themselves sold them off surplus through GSA and other outlets without knowing any better. Many have turned up for sale in Israel over the years too. First generation Trimble Trimpack and OD-coloured AN/PSN-10 SLGR have a Y2K bug and report the wrong date, but otherwise still work as designed - though as previously mentioned are very slow to get an initial fix.

 

Many PLGR units especially, but also some DAGR units, evidently genuinely got lost in the US Postal Service system and/or Fedex/DHL/UPS when those outfits were used for shipping by the Gov. Once lost in the system they were sold off via the usual 'unclaimed goods' auctions/sales/disposals that USPS and the couriers have been having since they were born. Gov. knows that too, which makes prosecutions...unlikely...unless theft can be proven - especially given that both have been issued in their thousands and thousands to both mil and civil agencies alike. (I honestly doubt the Government really wants to do anything in the cases of those obtained by civilians unless there's outright actionable evidence of theft of Government Property - and not the passive "well...they were never sold so it just HAS to be a case of theft by default..." legally-lazy catch-all.)

 

Usability-wise, unkeyed DAGR and PLGR (i.e. equivalent of SPS civilian L1 signal only when unkeyed) are hardy units and will stand up to some abuse -- but my Garmin 60CSX kills them both dead in terms of TTFF, accuracy, user-friendliness, weight/bulk, sensitivity, battery life and just about any other parameter you care to name save for "drop from 15 foot cliff" - especially under canopy and in other marginal-signal environments where DAGR sometimes won't even get a fix. One day I'd like to borrow a keyed one rather than just the unkeyed ones they let me do some comparisons with and see if that makes a difference...but I somehow doubt it will (ha...and somehow doubt *they* will!)

 

Anyhow, I can't speak on the legalities of this and that -- only the realities of this and that after doing an awful lot of homework over the better part of fifteen years. <shrug> As always, mileage may vary.

 

Anon Y. Mous (Parting note: I don't know of a single, solitary instance of a keyed PPS unit changing hands. Not one.)

 

Check out: http://tinyurl.com/China-PLGR

Edited November 13, 2010 by Wolf at the Door

[usasniper1]

I used to use a Trimble Trimpack III receiver for caching and also for hiking. Yes, it's huge, yes, it's old, yes it eats lots of batteries. But it has a great sensitivity and it's robust like hell, not to mention the big control elements which are easily manipulated also at -30°C with gloves. The battery problem was easily solved with taking a dead NiCd battery pack apart and putting LiPo batteries in the casing.

Since August 2009, the unit shows the wrong date and the time to first fix takes almost forever. According to the Trimble support, they know about the problem (Firmware bug) but they will not release any software update because the unit is obsolete for many years.

So, since fall 2009, I am looking for a new military GPS receiver. Of course, the really new ones are impossible to get, like the DAGR. And even if they were available (ITAR, ...), they would still be too expensive.

Does anybody know a source for surplus mil. GPS? I'm looking for a handheld unit which also can be used in a vehicle with an external antenna.

I just prefer mil. GPS because of the robustness and because they are operable also with gloves. No mapping, etc. functions are required. Just positioning and waypoint navigation.

[usasniper1]

I have trimble trimpacks for sale. I THINK that they can be sold to any NATO country. If they require a export permit

the buyer will have to make the arrangements. The units that I have are 3 and 6 channel with optional 1pps,SA & I install

a new battery. The Antenna Kits are for vehicles under mach 1. Also, included in the GPS unit are two battery packs that I

made, Will provide 3 to 6 hours of operation. The original batteries cost usd 50.00(7500 mAh)to usd 80.00(11100 mAh). I

will provide the CYA paperwork from the DRMO.

 

dej (dej_1234@frontier.com)