After Long Time Some Egnos Activity...

[+Geovius]

Haven't seen WAAS signal in my GPS for a long time. Today I was getting almost constant signal. Anyone else noticed this or was I just in a correct place at last?

[+VesaK]

I've never had a lock on WAAS/EGNOS on my Legend. I've had some gray bars on satellite display but never a black signal indicator or those legendary little "D"'s

[mikahe]

Haven't seen WAAS signal in my GPS for a long time. Today I was getting almost constant signal. Anyone else noticed this or was I just in a correct place at last?

I've had my EGNOS capable GPSr for less that two weeks now, so I'm no expert to comment on this. Some days ago I had my first and so far last EGNOS fix. Maybe I was at the right position at the right time (61.5 deg lat). The effective fix time was less than 10 minutes in during a walk in mainly two different locations. The first fix was preceded by such a big GPS location inaccuracy and delay to get fix (when WAAS was enabled since power-on) that I was about to smash the whole thing. Finally the unit got fix and I was greatly surprised that it showed that EGNOS corrections were in use for the first time ever.

 

Officially EGNOS is not yet even at operational status, so maybe one shouldn't condemn its performance during test phase. The everlasting continuation of the testing period is another matter. I'm getting suspicious if EGNOS will ever be useful to hikers since it requires a clear view to southern (S, SE or perhaps SW) sky, which renders it useless in the woods. External antennas seem to make no difference. Can't they relay correction information through regular GPS satellites? If you happen to see 1 m accuracy at some location, it gives you that warm and cozy feeling of course. But if it goes back to normal 5-15 m when you move 10 m on the ground, so where's the beef for Nordic people?

 

EDIT: "Can't they relay correction information through regular GPS satellites?" Technically this is of course rather naive question, but you can always wish that high technology will put you high.

 

EDIT2: Today I got second EGNOS fix, this time during geocaching action 'Old railway station of Sääksjärvi'. Was it useful? Maybe (2-3 m accuracy). Was it necessary for the find? Nah.

Edited May 22, 2005 by mikahe

[p&k+a]

There are two parallel systems; the signal you've been recieving is ESTB (Egnos System Test Bed -- the experimental version of Egnos), and currently it is broacasted from IOR (PRN131) (Satellite #44 on Garmin recievers). Unfortunately this signal will be shut down on 27th May. ( http://ravel.esrin.esa.it/docs/egnos/estb/esaEG/estb.html )

 

The real Egnos signal should be available "any day now" (?!), and it is broadcasted from AOR-E (PRN120) (#33), Artemis (PRN124) (#37) and IOR-W (PRN126) (#39). This will give you a better coverage. ( http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/egnos/estb/egnos_pro.htm )

 

Some user comments/notes about WAAS/EGNOS/MTSAT: http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/dgps.htm#waas