WAAS down under

[+EraSeek]

On the GPS units boards, we are discussing WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System). It is only useable in the US at the moment because that is where the modeled coverage is. The POR satellite (47) should be visible in Australia however. Where I am I get both 47 and 35 and with a good lock it will get me down to a few feet. Here is the deal. I'm wondering about a couple of things that you may be able to answer.

 

When you have WAAS enabled in your units where you are how does it affect you position accuracy, if at all? Can you achieve some sort of lock on the sat, and does it display the little ''D's'' showing up on the Sat strength bars? Do you keep it turned off? In Garmin units you can turn it on and off easily. However, in Magellen units it is in an ''always on'' mode without performing a somewhat tricky reset. Is this recognized over there and is it a problem?

 

I know that you should not be able to use this data if you recieve it, but I'm curious if it throws you way the heck off, or simply does nothing.

 

[Jedda]

Over here on the east coast of oz, with my meriplat I can see one waas satellite on my gps, but the unit does not seem to use it. I can get accuracy down to about 3m or 10ft, but usually it is around the 6-10m mark or 20-30ft. Once while on holidays up north I noticed that there were 2 waas satellites on the screen, but the unit still did not use them. Another thing that Ive noticed is that I dont get a satellite strength bar for the waas sat

[+tonyjago]

It just throws the GPS off track. There is not augmentation data transmitted for Australia so WAAS does not help at all here unfortunatly.

 

Tony

[+EraSeek]

Thanks for the response. It's pretty much of just a Gee Wizz kind of thing anyway. If you can get a good lock here it works great, other than that it eats batteries rather quickly.

 

[The 2 Dogs]

I have actually spoken to the techinical department at Magellan Australia about this very thing as my unit is marked WAAS capable. Of course there is no WAAS stations in Australia so their advie is....

 

Keep it turned off. If the unit is looking for the WAAS stations that are not there you not only give your unit an extra and pointless task to do (i.e search and lock on) but you cause it to take longer to settle on a fix as it always factors in all sat info including 'missing' ones and in the end this effects the final position reading.

 

Hope this helps

 

Hounddog

[+EraSeek]

Yes. Certainly. The unit will be attempting extra processing (using up batteries and processing speed), as well as not utilizing the best possible satellite configuration because the unit is holding out the hope of locking on to the WAAS sats. This dedicates 2 of the 12 channels to the WAAS sats. It can still use WAAS sats for postion navigation if it can lock on, but the WAAS data itself is either useless or perhaps degrades position accuracy. The WAAS sat may not be the best one to use anyway for the best configuration to obtain position.

 

Hope you Magellen guys know how to turn it off.