Interesting...
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Sep ... ps.TO.html
Gramps
Solar flares cause GPS failures... Cornell U.
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rotorfloat
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One day in the autumn, my lowrance handheld wasn't getting a signal (but the ol' trimble in the aircraft was 
). The one surveyor mentioned solar flare activity that day, and had already amended his day to less locations because he would have to leave his gps controls in place for twice as long or more.
He said there was a solare flare activity website that he monitored daily so he could know when to expect less accurate data. I guess he got burned a few times and had to go back and re-collect data on days he was unaware of a solar storm.
). The one surveyor mentioned solar flare activity that day, and had already amended his day to less locations because he would have to leave his gps controls in place for twice as long or more.He said there was a solare flare activity website that he monitored daily so he could know when to expect less accurate data. I guess he got burned a few times and had to go back and re-collect data on days he was unaware of a solar storm.
I've found the following site helpful. Many of you GPS users already know of this site, but some newbies may not.
http://gpsinformation.net/exe/waas.html
http://gpsinformation.net/exe/waas.html
Sorry if I bumped this up.
If you want to know status of GPS Constellation:
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/Ftp/gps/status.txt
If the sun is going to be a problem:
http://www.sec.noaa.gov/forecast.html
One reason why solar flares cause interference to GPS signals is that the flares themselves give off some energy, probably across the whole spectrum (incl. radio, GPS operates at L1 1575.42 and L2 1227.6mhz) and it interferes with the GPS signal. Since the basic principle of GPS is time and distance from satellites, anything that lengthens the path that the signal takes will increase its distance, thus providing an erroneous solution to the end user. Its called Multipath.
GPS will also be unreliable at the northern latitudes due to higher levels of interference. Better to use Loran...signals travel underground! Or an Astro Compass would go well....
Any GPS questions just pm! Yea. I'm being a big geek, but oh well.
If you want to know status of GPS Constellation:
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/Ftp/gps/status.txt
If the sun is going to be a problem:
http://www.sec.noaa.gov/forecast.html
One reason why solar flares cause interference to GPS signals is that the flares themselves give off some energy, probably across the whole spectrum (incl. radio, GPS operates at L1 1575.42 and L2 1227.6mhz) and it interferes with the GPS signal. Since the basic principle of GPS is time and distance from satellites, anything that lengthens the path that the signal takes will increase its distance, thus providing an erroneous solution to the end user. Its called Multipath.
GPS will also be unreliable at the northern latitudes due to higher levels of interference. Better to use Loran...signals travel underground! Or an Astro Compass would go well....
Any GPS questions just pm! Yea. I'm being a big geek, but oh well.
