Did you own a GPS before SA was turn off?

[Guest Linda]

quote:

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Originally posted by glenn95630:

Post for me. Just started a month or so ago. What does SA stand for?

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Selective Availability

[Guest redd]

I've only had my eTrex GPSR for a couple of months, so I would definately be a post-SA user. I've always known that SA existed, though, and that might have been why I was never really interested in buying a GPSR until recently.

 

As a hobby, I train and race homing pigeons. Regardless of the status of SA, my pigeons, and their ancestors before them, have had no problem at all in navigating hundreds of miles to their home.

 

They do fly over the trees, so I suppose tree cover doesn't affect them, either.

 

Scott

redd@interbug.com

http://interbug.com/pigeon

[Guest redd]

I've only had my eTrex GPSR for a couple of months, so I would definately be a post-SA user. I've always known that SA existed, though, and that might have been why I was never really interested in buying a GPSR until recently.

 

As a hobby, I train and race homing pigeons. Regardless of the status of SA, my pigeons, and their ancestors before them, have had no problem at all in navigating hundreds of miles to their home.

 

They do fly over the trees, so I suppose tree cover doesn't affect them, either.

 

Scott

redd@interbug.com

http://interbug.com/pigeon

[Guest exConn]

Post...

 

-exConn

[L'Ours Teddy]

I still have my Garmin 100, the first Garmin. I bought it in 1990. All sats were not up in the sky. Still working perfectly. I added an aviation database in 1994.

[+Rubberhead]

Pre-SA turn off.

 

I started in 1996 with a Garmin GPS 38 (8-channel single receiver).

 

I was good enough to find the mouth of the harbour or the reef bouys. We would use the depth finders to find the individual reef structures.

 

Believe me, we were happy with that level of accuracy, it beat drawing course lines and trying to follow a compass with a boat rocking in 5 foot waves.

[+ironman114]

found mine on the highway in 1999 but did nothing with it till nov 2003

[+DeadBird652]

Pre!

I started with a Magellan GPS 4000 in 1996. It worked well for pointing me in the right direction . As for finding a waypoint it left a lot to be desired. I used it for my first cache and if it were not for a real good hint I'd still be looking. Every now and then I fire it up. Waiting for it to lock up is like watching paint dry. I put it side by side with my Meridian Platinum and there was a 62 ft. difference in location.

[chemfed]

Pre. 1996. Lowrance GlobalNav 200. Pre SA accuracy usually within a/b 100 meters. I still used the unit up until Dec 03. It still outperforms my Garmin in some areas. It will get a fix with a weak signal when my Etrex is still spinning circles.

[+wildlifeguy]

I used a Trimble Scout when it was just a one line LCD screen. That was back in 1994 when I was marking points for an elk study I was doing on the North Coast of Ca. SA is selective availability. Man, I would get into some trees (redwoods) in some deep canyons (of course thats where the elk always go!) and never get a signal! Back then most of our plotting was just guess work from USGS maps. Then in 1998 when I was marking areas of disturbance for a construction project I was using a CMT machine that included a data recorder. I think our errors were in the 20-30 foot range. On the day SA was turned off all my coworkers and I took our Garmin 12xl's outside to see it happen! It was neat to be able to look at the average EPE on the net (it was being graphed somewhere) and the line just flattened. That was a cool day. Been using my 12xl ever since.

 

Peace!

[Hankhan]

Yes, I had a Garmin 45 or 45XL.

[Crow Peak Trio]

I'm a post SA guy too. I just got a new Lowrance I Finder Plus. Anybody have one of these units? How do you like it for Geocaching?

[+shawhh]

pre sa. garmin 12xl in 1997. was amazed at being able to know where i was within 100 yds anywhere in the world! lots of extra bells and whistles on gpsr's now, hunh?

[Bobthearch]

"Pre" for me, but only a few times for work. As I recall, the unit collected hundreds of measurements and averaged them together, and we downloaded corrected numbers from the internet that evening.

 

There was something about the entire system shutting down every day for an hour around Noon. Was that real, or was the crew yankin' my chain in order to get an hour lunch?

 

-Bob

Edited January 19, 2004 by Bobthearch

[+dino_hunters]

For work, in 1994 I got to use a Magellan Trail blazer. We were mapping some wetlands. Then I got a Magellan gps 2000 in January of 1996. I remember it taking 3-4 minutes to get a fix, and it lost the signal a lot too. Then I got an Eagle Explorer in 1997. That had a 12 channel reciever which worked a LOT better. I too remember trying it out when SA was turned off. It was amazing. I seem to remember a couple of times that SA was turned off, prior to 2000, because the army was doing some training exercises, because they didn't have enough military gps units.

[capt caper]

Pre for me but I always had differental correction with accuracy to 7 feet with my Northstar XD for almost 8 years now.

 

It wasn't til 4 years ago I also used Garmin 48 and a fixed Garmin on other jobs,both without corrections. I missed my Northstar when I was on those ships.

 

I can't wait til the USCG finish's setting up dual coverage for the entire U.S.

 

I had one of the first 76S's and it wouldn't show accuracy of less than 15 feet with WAAS. Drove me crazy until they changed the software and fixed that problem early on.

 

Capt.

[Neo_Geo]

POST SA for me! Got my first GPSr (Legend) back in April of 2003.

Edited January 20, 2004 by Neo_Geo

[+EraSeek]

Pre SA shutdown for me. '96,'98 somewhere in there. Garmin 45xl.

 

[+Andy and Robin]

Bought my Magellan Pioneer in 1997 I think. Still have the receipt somewhere. Found my first dozen or so caches with it no problem even though it is lacking a decimal place on the coords. Now I use a Garmin Legend which I really like.

[4x4van]

Pre-SA for me. I had a Magelan GPS 315 that seldom showed less than 75'-100' EPE. Then I read in the paper that SA was being turned off. The next morning, my 315 was showing 8'-12' EPE, with an occasional 0'-3'!!!! Talk about being jazzed!!

[+2Wheel'in]

Hi,

 

Yup, long before SA was turned off...using both a GPS 12 and GPS II+. The difference between pre and post makes me wonder why I didn't get lost more often

Regards,

Bill

[+blindleader]

Wood-fired? Luxury. Not only did we have to clean the lake, but it was half a cup of gravel for dinner if we were lucky. Our GPS had to be pulled by two oxen, and the read-out was on rotating wooden discs with Roman Numerals

 

Wait a minute..

Never mind.

I'm post-SA.

[+CharlieP]

I used GPS in my work and on my boat for a year or two in the SA days. By averaging readings over an hour or two, it was possible to get pretty good accuracy, 30 feet or less, but otherwise you had to remember that you could be way off the mark. I found that my average single reading accuracy was about 60 to 100 feet, but there was always the possibility of a 300 foot error. For instantaneous (un-averaged) readings, LORAN was more accurate in most areas, and since I had a LORAN unit on my boat, I normally used that instead of GPS. After SA was off, LORAN was obsolete.

 

FWIW,

CharlieP