Waas In Canada

[+mrking]

Just wondering if anyone in BC or maybe even Ontario, get a quick and strong lock onto WAAS satallites?

 

I am located in the lower mainland (Vancouver) and get no lock whatsoever.

 

[+PDOP's]

I can get a lock at 53°N in Alberta so you should have no problem as long as you've got an unobstructed view. You're also very close to a Ground Reference Station in Seattle so the corrections should be good.

 

You can see the accuracy I was getting against a known survey monument at my webpage on "WAAS IN CANADA"

[+mrking]

Well that is encouraging. I have a 60C with the newest 3.8 firmware. I was excited about it as it locks onto birds fast, but as for WAAS birds it just keeps cycling through and cannot connect. Very frustrating.

 

All in all my accuracy is still good - 12 to 18 ft. I just want too see how much WAAS helps. Maybe I'll have to wait until I am on flatter ground with a better view of the horizon.

 

What degree above horizon are the WAAS satallites in Canada? On my reciever it shows them being so close to horizontal that even a house would obstruct the view to it.

[+PDOP's]

Well that is encouraging. I have a 60C with the newest 3.8 firmware. I was excited about it as it locks onto birds fast, but as for WAAS birds it just keeps cycling through and cannot connect. Very frustrating.

Go to this web page and scroll down to the section on "Loading the Almanac" for info on how to get your Garmin to load the WAAS information.

 

What degree above horizon are the WAAS satallites in Canada? On my reciever it shows them being so close to horizontal that even a house would obstruct the view to it.this weba page

 

About 15° above the horizon. You want to make sure you've got an unobstructed view and be able to sit for several minutes while the almanac loads for the first time.

[+mrking]

PDOP's.

 

Perfect. I just had to get to an area where I could lock onto a WAAS bird. Finally hit on #47 and let it download the almanac and got D's on 90% of all my birds.

 

Funny thing is the accuracy never really changed, eventually I saw it go down to 3m wich is a record for me, ususally it is at 4m with my external Gillson antenna. I was surprised it wasn't going to be more accurate.

 

I have to read up on this WAAS stuff a little more and see if it is worth it.

[+PDOP's]

Funny thing is the accuracy never really changed, eventually I saw it go down to 3m wich is a record for me, ususally it is at 4m with my external Gillson antenna. I was surprised it wasn't going to be more accurate.

 

Remember that the accuracy figure shown on your GPSr is an estimate and usually it's biased by the menufacturer to appear better. Find yourself a survey benchmark and collect some waypoints to really see how accurate you are.

 

I have to read up on this WAAS stuff a little more and see if it is worth it.

 

I don't use it for caching. More often than not the vegetation or topography will screen the WAAS satellites becuase they're so low on the horizon.

[+Gonzo-YT]

WAAS -- bah, humbug. You don't need better than 5m accuracy for geocaching, in fact 10m is plenty. Once you get close, you need to turn off the GPS and start using your mind.

 

Could just be sour grapes though, I rarely get it up here due to latitude.

 

Regards,

Anthony

[+dogbreathcanada]

I've picked up WAAS twice. Both times had completely unobscured sight of the southern sky. Didn't add anything to my geocaching, so don't really use it. Probably more beneficial to mariners and people in the prairies.

[ROCKMEISTER]

I have to have a small private chuckle as I read this thread. As an old fart, I remember when I put my first GPS unit on board my boat in 1993 to help in coastal navigation on Lake Superior. It was a Garmin GPSMAP 200, a big ugly thing that weighted about 20 pounds and bolted up near the helm. I was tickled any time I got an EPE under 300 feet. It sure wasn't perfect but it kept me off the rocks.

 

I had done some sport fish chartering in south Florida using Loran C to locate reefs that were hot spots for grouper and other gamefish, and if you could get within 200 yards of the target on the first pass you were having a good day.

 

Later in 1993 I attended the big EAA Air Show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin where I witnessed, along with about 100,000 other spectators, one of the first demonstrations of of a GPS guided "hands off" landing of a small private aircraft. They had some localized augmentation system set up which guided the plane to the middle of the runway and about 50 feet above it, at which point the pilot took over. Those of us who knew a little about GPS in those days were blown away.

 

I guess the point I am trying to make is fairly simple. As a newbie to geocaching (but enjoying it immensely) and if Moore's Law holds true, what fun is it going to be in a couple or three years if your hand-held GPS unit (under some super-WAAS) can place you within 12 inches of the cache? Are we then going to go back to 17th century treasure hunting based on offsets? I.E., find the GPS co-ordinates, take six paces north to the big oak tree, go west about 20 meters and look for the triangle shaped rock?

 

I guess I am on Anthony's side. Get within 10 meters and turn the thing off and WAAS be damned.

 

Regards to all,

 

Dave

 

P.S. The old Garmin GPSMAP200 is still chunkin' away up on Superior and we haven't hit any rocks yet.

[+mrking]

It's hard to believe a GPS would even be usefull with a 300 ft accuracy.

[+Half-Canadian]

It's hard to believe a GPS would even be usefull with a 300 ft accuracy.

My old Garmin 175 "Handheld" model (as big as a loaf of bread, used 8 AA batteries every three hours, and cost huge $$$) had 100 metre accuracy, which was plenty good enough to find my crabpots on my way home from fishing all day out in the Islands. A couple of times I was out on the water when the fog came in fast, and I used the trackback to weave my way through the pass and the channels to get back to home port. Sure beat Loran....

[Curious George]

I still use a sextant - got me from Miami to Puerto Rico, through the U.S. and British Virgin Islands and then up to Bermuda. We had GPS, Loran and radar, but rarely used them

[+geobc]

I guess the point I am trying to make is fairly simple. As a newbie to geocaching (but enjoying it immensely) and if Moore's Law holds true, what fun is it going to be in a couple or three years if your hand-held GPS unit (under some super-WAAS) can place you within 12 inches of the cache? Are we then going to go back to 17th century treasure hunting based on offsets? I.E., find the GPS co-ordinates, take six paces north to the big oak tree, go west about 20 meters and look for the triangle shaped rock?

No, we'll just start posting caches with positions that are 30 metres off.

 

;-)

 

GeoBC

[+fizbot]

Been there - Done that;

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GCG141

Accuracy. Who needs it?

Tells the story of my first MicroLogic GPS with the Y1K problem and has cachers find the hidden cache within the "error" box.

[+mrking]

Been there - Done that;

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GCG141

Accuracy. Who needs it?

Tells the story of my first MicroLogic GPS with the Y1K problem and has cachers find the hidden cache within the "error" box.

Hehe, that is a great idea. I can see it now... 100' accuracy in a dense bush and the clue is "beside a pair of mossy trees"