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Gps Satellite Outage?


draconis

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We (draconis) were heading back home from caching on the first of the year (2005). At about 4pm CST, the gps satellite signal strengths on both of our gpses dropped to almost nothing, then a few minutes later, the signals went up to almost max for almost all of the satellites.

 

Mind you this was on a cloudy day, on an open highway with nothing obstructing the sky at all... :D

 

Has anybody else noticed this event happening, (or is it just us) and does this have something to do with president Bush (what he said about gps satellites) or the Department of Defense?

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My GPS acted strange today, too. At first it couldn't get any satellites at all, then when I put my external antenna on it, it went to above the top of the line for only a few satellites, lost everything, came back, etc. It was very erratic all afternoon. I have no idea why. This was in southeast Texas.

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I had a few problems today, also; (I just assumed it was a hangover) my trusty Garmin12 was jumping all over the place.

 

It didn't help that I had (incorrectly) entered the coords manually and was embarrassed that some newbies I was caching with made me look like a newbie.*

 

*I hate that word--newbie. I hope I'm a newbie all my life.

I reckon if you don't learn something every day, you're...well, dead. :rolleyes::unsure:

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We hit 8 caches today (7 of them were night caches), and our Garmin which is usually dead-on accurate was skittering all over the place. I rotated in fresh batteries twice trying to correct the problem but to no avail. Our readings were sometimes jumping by well over 100 feet. I had heard on Friday on a radio news report (quite probably Paul Harvey, I'm addicted to him! ) that the earthquake/tsunami in the Indian Ocean was so powerful that it had created a harmonic "wobble" in the Earths' axis, and that this was reeking havoc on the GPS sattelite system. Just my 2 cent's worth...

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While I have not seen anything official on this (USCG or USNO sites), I do know that there has been some very high solar flare activity the past few days including a powerful X2 Class flare just after midnight on New Years. It is possible that this may have caused some brief anomalies in reception.

 

As far as the earth wobbling on its access after the quakes (that caused the devastating tsunamis) last week. The earth always wobbles on its access and while I have seen reports that maps may be inaccurate for that immediate area, the GPS network will correct itself almost immediately.

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If there's a general outage or extensive position uncertainty, it's almost sure to be due to solar activity. If you want advance notice of predictions, you can send a message to majordomo@sohomail.nascom.nasa.gov

The subject line should be empty

The message text should be this:

subscribe sohonews

 

You will then receive predictions of upcoming problems in RF communications systems.

 

If you don't want to subscribe, for up-to-date info go to the NASA SOHO website and click on What's New or the other links in the Left-hand frame.

 

BTW, on Dubya's orders, we Texans have started poking pins in geocaching voodoo dolls to screw up all visiting geocachers' GPS receivers down here.

 

Seriously, if you're concerned that there may be a Government-directed shutdown or "selective availability" program on the GPS system, you can go to the FAA Notices To Airmen Website here and click on the most-recent date to see if any changes are occurring. Changes WILL NOT BE MADE without informing pilots on this website.

Edited by valleyrat
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We did seven caches finds yesterday in the Saratoga and Glens Falls area and noticed some fluctuation in signal as well. The GPS read poor signal several times but regained in a few seconds. Some of the coords seemed off on the finds we made but not enough to keep us from finding them. I just thought maybe it was the clouds that kept rolling in and out of the area we were in.

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It's good to know that it wasn't just the new GPSr that I got for Christmas. Somehow my son-in-law and I went 18 for 18 yesterday, but we realized that every thing was 20 to 40 feet off because we started with ones that I had all ready found and then adjusted accordingly for the rest. The strangest thing was when while in a belt pouch ( hiking out from a find in the rain ) alarms started going off and then when I pulled it out back at the truck I had lost all stored way points. Anyone out there have an expaination for this? Thanks for the help.

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The strangest thing was when while in a belt pouch ( hiking out from a find in the rain ) alarms started going off and then when I pulled it out back at the truck I had lost all stored way points. Anyone out there have an expaination for this?

 

I have a Magellan Meridian Gold. Sometimes.. the buttons get pushed like turning the thing on/off when I put it in a pouch/pocket. Occassionally the menu button gets hit also.

 

Yesterday after logging a cache.. pulled out my MeriGold and dang.. lost all my waypoints loaded into it. AND it needed to be "Initialized". Now whether that has anything to do with GPS signals.. i pretty much doubt it.

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Was it possibly due to maintenance? After the horrific events in Indonesia and surroundings, the earth's rotational speed changed and the earth tilted on its axis. Maybe the satellites were being reprogrammed to take these new issues into account.

 

Just a thought ......

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i posted a similiar topic earlier. glad it wasn't just me! fortunately i found the first one i was hunting about 10 minutes prior to the weirdness occurring.

made the second one not even worth the trouble. and i was pretty sure i hadn't moved a 1/4 mile in the middle of the afternoon. <_<

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Compass?  What do you mean?

At the same time I was having GPS problems, my compass, a pretty good Silva, started pointing almost due SOUTH! I was having visions of Lt. Charles Taylor!

this might explain it . it from the arrl solar activity update. it also affects ham radio thats why we monitor it.

 

Solar activity stayed about the same this week compared to the previous period. Average daily sunspot numbers declined slightly from 32.1 to 28. There weren't any disturbed days. Expect solar flux to stay above 100 for the next 10-12 days. Recurring coronal holes could cause a mild geomagnetic upset around January 2-3. Geomagnetic Institute Prague predicts unsettled to active conditions January 2 and 3, unsettled conditions December 31, January 1 and 4, and quiet to unsettled conditions on January 5-6.

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Interesting stuff here, thanks all for posting. I was using my GPS on January 2nd, recording a track. And there is a blank stretch in the track on the map. It recorded the waypoints and kept them, but I noticed even as I was walking that the track wasn't being recorded for a short distance, then it started again. Could this be related to the solar flare activity referenced here?

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