European Market

[qman2]

I was looking at information on a GPS unit and it talked like they used a separate GPS unit for European market. Since the sats we use in the US circle the globe, what is the difference in the European GPS or market?

[+CYBret]

A European GPS wouldn't have any use for WAAS, would it?

 

Bret

[+erik88l-r]

My Garmin came with a base map covering North and South America. That wouldn't be of much use in Europe.

 

~erik~

[+garri]

A European GPS wouldn't have any use for WAAS, would it?

Here in the west of Europe i use WAAS and EGNOS both.

 

But our basemap is european not american.

Edited December 1, 2003 by garri

[+Divine]

My GPS unit is so simple that is doesn't have a map at all. It works everywhere in the world.

[Wanderingson]

I have seen Garmin units here in Japan that have local maps and Kanji(which is the language characters) loaded. Pretty cool. I'm trying to find someone who has one so I can upload the maps onto my unit.

 

I would assume the European versions have local maps as well as language options.

[+JohnnyVegas]

Outside of the USA. Maping software is very limited. In most countries you will not be able to get any type of TOPO software. Your choices of street software are a little better but not much.

[+Marty..]

I have a Garmin Legend bought through the American military clothing store and have had no problems.

 

I currently use Mapsource and don't have any problems with the loaded German maps (roads and bike trails).

Edited December 2, 2003 by Marty.

[Kerry.]

A European GPS wouldn't have any use for WAAS, would it?

Here in the west of Europe i use WAAS and EGNOS both.

In the west of Europe you certanly wouldn't wouldn't be using WAAS. You would however might want to use EGNOS but certainly not both. Both are WADGPS (Wide Area Differential GPS) but WAAS is only applicable (limited) to CONUS and ENGOS to much (most) of Europe.

 

Similar reasons one wouldn't even be interested in trying to use EGNOS in the US, totally not applicable.

 

Most manufacturers have now limited the access of "different" WADGPS in different areas so that users can't use Satellite differential systems that are not relevant to their area and hence give erroneous and invalid results.

 

Cheers, Kerry.

[team_tar]

To my knwledge, the differences in the GPS units are (where applicable) in the basemap: in the "european" version is, obviously, european. Another difference may be in the language, but being most of GPS softwares multilingual, until you remain in Europe I think that no difference has to exist. Obviously asian versions have different character sets.

 

A strange case is the etrex yellow, that is sold in the "European" version, with the software of the Camo (fish-hunt, moon phases etc.). I suppose this to be due to the fact that the one of the camo is the "lowest" multilingual software (I believe american yellow etrex does not have any language except english, correct me if I'm wrong).

 

The mapping is significantly different. No topo at all in Europe. Metroguide is quite detailed in Germany and Italy for example, but poor in Spain and in some scandinavian countries. Anders made a nice detailed review of Metroguide Europe: Metroguide Europe Review

 

About WAAS/EGNOS, I believe that at least the eTrexes (Legend/Vista) must have a software check that avoid to use such satellites when outside the "corrected" ares, for example should not use eastern WAAS satellite when in western Europe where is visible (Spain, Portugal, Great Britain...). Would somewhere there confirm it?

[+New England n00b]

I would think the GPS manufacturer would simply flash the units as needed - ie a WAAS firmware for North America & whatever Europe uses would be a different firmware - I certainly can only use WAAS (to turn ff or on) with my Garmin eTrex Legend. It doesn't give me any other options.

 

Incidentally, I like the new Galileo GPS system Europe is proposing - 1 meter accuracy to start, available to civiies... nice. Can't wait for it to make my Garmin 60CS obsolete. Not that I can afford one right now...

Edited December 2, 2003 by New England n00b

[team_tar]

I would think the GPS manufacturer would simply flash the units as needed - ie a WAAS firmware for North America & whatever Europe uses would be a different firmware - I certainly can only use WAAS (to turn ff or on) with my Garmin eTrex Legend. It doesn't give me any other options.

There's no option because waas and egnos are identical for the end user. If EGNOS would already been totally operating, while in Europe by turning WAAS on the receiver would pick up egnos signals instead.

 

Maybe next year(when EGNOS is supposed to start normal operation) they will substitute the option name with WAAS/EGNOS, but now the european system is still under testing and available only sometime.

 

But when available you simply pick it up by turning WAAS on.

[+Brenin Tegeingl]

Unfortunately EGNOS has 3 modes 2 of which are test modes for different parts of the signal. These actually distort corrections, Garmin software is set to ignore these, Magellan uses these signals for correction, and can have a epe double what the GPSr shows. The difference between US and European GPSr's is just the basemaps. European Topo maps software for the Garmin and Magellan are not available to the same level as in the US, due to the cost of the Topo information in Europe, can cost several times what it costs in the US, making less commercially viable. Dave

[team_tar]

Unfortunately EGNOS has 3 modes 2 of which are test modes for different parts of the signal. These actually distort corrections, Garmin software is set to ignore these, Magellan uses these signals for correction, and can have a epe double what the GPSr shows.

This explains a lot... before Garmin updated the firmware to ignore these signals, my best friend's Vista some days picked up EGNOS and had EPE<3m, and somedays had a much worse EPE than with EGNOS off. Now he has upgraded the software, and most of the time the Vista refuses to pick up the EGNOS correction.

 

Now is clear why! Thanks...

[Cholo]

Since the sats we use in the US circle the globe, what is the difference in the European GPS or market?

When those sats cross over Europe they switch to kilometer mode.

[+hedberg]

In our brand new Legend can we choose between a variety of languages, and also which referenssystem (WGS84), height (meter), speed/distance (metric), vert.sped (m/sec) and deep (metric).

 

The languages we can choose between are:

 

English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Portugese, Dutch, Finnish, Polish (Poland), Cesky (?), Magyar (?).

 

The new Legends has also contain 1000 waypoints instead of 500.

 

We get the basemap for Europe, but I have tested and I can move the GPS maps to the States and right now I am at Jacksonville that seems to be in the northeast corner of Florida (?). It's 7414 km away from here at West-direction

Since I don't have detailed maps loaded into the GPSr, I can't see any details, but I can see the whole world in it, but not any details.

[Kerry.]

As far as the pure GPS side of things is concerned there's absolutely no difference, GPS is a global utility, the worlds first. Things like mapping, tides, language etc then that's different but that secondary to the system proper.

 

WAAS, EGNOS & MTSAT are all "compatible" Wide Area Satellite Differential systems (WADGPS). One just needs to receive the correct satellite corrections for the supported area. Manufacturers have supposedly now plugged the capability of receiving satellite corrections outside the intended coverage area.

 

.... I like the new Galileo GPS system Europe is proposing - 1 meter accuracy to start, available to civiies... nice ....

 

1 metre not unless one is prepared to pay for it, the more accuracy the more it will cost, lets face it Galileo will be a commercially run operation. Civiies can have that type of accuracy now, as long as they are prepared to pay for it.

 

This type of accuracy misconception needs to be quantified as Galileo will be no more accurate than GPS and for statements like this one needs to be comparing similar levels of service.

 

Cheers, Kerry.

[+New England n00b]

I got my information from an article in the Register (www.theregister.co.uk). I'm not British (or European for that matter), so I haven't paid much attention to Galileo until I read that article.

 

My only question, if it is not going to be any better... why bother? According to the article I read, they are going to use frequencies that can easily be jammed by the US in times of war. This effectively creates a Selective Availabilty on Galileo. Since this is the case, why not just use the existing GPS network if the resolution is comparable?

 

(Sorry to go off topic, if I have... It's still 'European' )

[Prof. Y. Lupardi]

Totally off-topic off course but the Japanese are going for their own GPS-thing called Quasi-Zenith Satellite System

Why? if there is GPS and Galileo is coming.

And 10 years from now: will American civilians boycott the Galileo system? Will there be no market at all in de USA for recievers combining GPS and Galileo reception? Or will they be very happy with using 2 independent but compatible systems with so many satellites in the sky?

 

As far as the surveyer community is concerned: nowadays their professional GPS equipment also uses Russian(!) Glonass satellites

 

The American tax payers gave the whole world the GPS. Now the European taxpayers are going to cough up money to do the same for the whole world.

A nice gesture from one group of tax payers to another

[team_tar]

My only question, if it is not going to be any better... why bother? According to the article I read, they are going to use frequencies that can easily be jammed by the US in times of war. This effectively creates a Selective Availabilty on Galileo. Since this is the case, why not just use the existing GPS network if the resolution is comparable?

Well, I'm not an expert of this, so I'm curious: how is supposed USA to jam Galileo navigation?

 

I mean: I know that GPS (and Galileo of course) can be jammed locally by transmitting a disturbing signal in some area affecting the receivers in that area. But I don't see any easy way to jam the signal globally without destroying the satellites, the ground control stations or, maybe, launching a satellite constellation dedicated to signal jamming. In all these cases US would in fact destroy or damage the functionality of european property, something that is conceivable (I hope) only in the case of an Europe-USA war. In which case, at least hypothetically, Europe could do the same with GPS (but we are deep in science fiction here)

 

If I'm right, so, in any other case USA cannot impose an SA equivalent on the european (or russian) sysytem, but only jam it over a specific area. Galileo-based communications, transportations and in general navigation in the rest of the world would remain unaffected even by a re-introduction of GPS SA. This may be one of the many reasons why Europe is developing Galileo: to offer (or sell, just to be realistic) a navigation service indipendent from the points of view and choices of USA administration.

 

But I think that the main reason to develope Galileo is commercial. I don't know the details, but I understand that the system would support a range of kind of "premium" services not availables to the "free" user, but that are supposed to be interesting for professionals. Such services, I suppose, are no available with GPS. Of course I have no idea of how commercially successful this offer will be. We'll see...

[Kerry.]

Galileo and the politics is rather a long story, been a long time coming and still yet to become an operational system.

 

Essentially some countries that make up the EU don't want to or have this thing about relying on another countries system, which is fair enough I suppose. However just getting ALL the EU countries to agree on the initially funding has been a drama in itself. In essence it also has a lot ot do about commercial issues and obviously if the countries/companies putting in the money weren't going to get something out of it then presumeably Galileo wouldn't be a consideration.

 

European countries have this thing about a military controlled system but then some have an issue with a civilian controlled system and some other issues with Galileo.

 

As for some of the commercial services being muted by Galileo, similar type services have been available for 10 years or more but have been provided by third party providors using GPS as a free platform, where as Galileo will provide the platform as well as provide the services all in one, for a fee of course, just like what the third party providors commmercially market GPS based products.

 

Galileo being basically a "civilian" system some of the questions with regards Galileo and integration with GPS are

 

- The interoperability of a free open system (GPS) with a fee based encrypted system especially with consideration to safety of life applications.

 

- Prevention of misuse. Yes, there's probably more to worry about a civilian controlled system with regards misuse.

 

- Open specifications and standards. GPS has a total open freely available non-propriety signal structure for all civil services. How can an encrypted fee based system be totally open and available to all markets?

 

Cheers, Kerry.

Edited December 3, 2003 by Kerry.