Anyone else's GPS acting up lately?
 

I've noticed over the past few days that the GPS's have been acting wierd...

First in the rental car I rented it started acting crazy... and then tonight my own GPS was acting all crazy.. My GPS tonight was only accurate down to 100ft or something.

Maybe the US Gov has lowered the GPS accuracy during a time of war? Anyone else notice this? Has anyone seen any reports about this or anything?

-KC

I'm too poor for a GPS :(

i still use a compass

huh... saw the exact same thing, and didn't really think to hard on it... your right, mine has been acting really strange, and the absolute positioning has been dropped to a very coarse resolution... werd..

I'm too poor for a compass :(

Yes, my GPS (Giant Penis System for those of you who don't know what KC is referring to) has been acting up lately as well. It's is only adding about 1/8" in lengh per usage and, yes, the accuracy of my pop shots is down to 100 feet.

It makes sense that they would have turned the "Selective Availability" back on... I just can't seem to find anything online about it.

The government is limiting commercial and personal satellite transfer in preparation for the use of the satellites in war.

Heck.... a wild guess :)

its like your in the bermuda triangle or something

Peekers, You ICQ ignorer! ;)

I just turned mine on.

Accuracy: within 100 feet. It's always been accurate within 10 feet.

And for some reason it says the elevation of my back yard is 53 feet higher than it was a few weeks ago.

Something happened with my speaker driving and I wasn't getting sounds like "uh-oh" for I don't know how long. Just found out the other day.. rebooted and it worked.

..oh and..
http://ripley.wo.sbc.edu/departmenta...geo/global.htm

"Selective availability: the US Department of Defense creates clock errors in the satellite clocks in order to reduce the users ability to collect accurate position data. This reduces the accuracy of the GPS to 100 meters. The selective availability is turned on and off randomly; we never know when it is on or off."

Good find PKers..

They must have turned the SA on this weekend or something..

I don't know how reliable this is, but I once saw a television show on Discovery that stated whenever the US was preparing for some kind of combat situation, they did some switching of the satellites, and it would cause the Global Positioning System to be a lot more accurate.

military GPS are pretty damn accurate down to a meter

My GPS seems to let me stop at every damn bar!

Oh. I thought you meant "Greasy Phil Sandwich". An elusive, yet obtainable lesbian 3-some.

Phil - Just hope you never run into "Gooey Pussy Syndrome" !
I came across a case of GPS in 1992 that still gives me nightmares.

Some years ago I did some work on GPS software. As I remember, there is a facility to introduce large errors into the system to limit its use for enemy missile guidance, while automatically compensating for those errors in "friendly" missiles.

But I don't really remember very well so that may be bollocks.

Anyway that facility was only intended for use in war time or in case of national emergency, so that obviously isn't it.

There have always been 2 levels of GPS service. Miltary with a resolution of 1 meter and civilian with a resolution of 100 meters.

Civilian use of the Miltary resolution wasn't available until the mid 90's. And that availabilty is based on a peace time environment. It's not peace time any more, is it...

Would you really want your enemy using your own sats to figure out where they are with in 1 meter?

I didn't think so.

Someone flipped the switch and put the civilian gps's back in a less useful mode.

edited to add links:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...=Google+Search

http://www.computerworld.com/news/20...,44296,00.html

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030307/12/dux4w.html

http://www.rbbi.com/news/2000/gps1.htm

I was wrong about when the miltary version of gps became available to civilians. It was in 2000 not mid 90's.

;)

another explanation is that the GPS satellites is beeing used by military during the iraq war, which sets aside the normal civilians use. Therefore theres been issued warnings about that GPS equipment here in Denmark, Europe (and prob. also around the world) might not be working, and if it should, its only up to 200 meters / 650 feets accurate...

I just walk around with a big red plywood arrow that says "YOU ARE HERE"

I never get lost.