Bad news!

[Team_Pink]

Know what WAAS is? A satellite that is very important to WAAS is out of order:


http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/05/09 ... +(Slashdot (http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/05/09/2256256/Geostationary-GPS-Satellite-Galaxy-15-Out-of-Control?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Slashdot/slashdot+(Slashdot))

[BSA534]

Early on I was told to turn off WAAS on my 60csx. That it skewered the results. Not sure if it helps or not. Might be a good idea to make sure its turned off for the time being.

[astrodav]

After reading a bit more into that, it's actually a little disturbing. But it also seem that if we can weather a couple years of below-par accuracy .... if it does come down to that .... it'll get even better than it's ever been.

Hee's a couple of discussions, which seem to be from informed people, that state the entire GPS constellation may be in trouble fairly soon. (No, it's not one of those "the-world-is-ending" conspiracy theories. I despise those & wouldn't even lnk to one.)

http://forums.piperowner.org/read/1/145848/146133

http://www.malsingmaps.com/forums/viewt ... p?p=175316 (http://www.malsingmaps.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=175316)


If you read those entire discussions, or at least half of each, you'll see hints about the improvements in the works. Here's a link specifically dealing with one of them.

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/CORS/news.html


I don't like the sound of "resulting in a drop below the number of satellites needed to meet some GPS users’ needs, as early as this year." .... but as much as the military, oil companies, airlines, & entire nations now depend upon the GPS system, I just don't forsee any possibility of it completely falling apart anytime soon. And sounds like things are already in motion which might make non-WAAS usage even MORE accurate than current WAAS accuracy.

Just might have to tough it out for a year or two however. Hopefully the big-dogs-in-charge will figure out how to tape & patch it up until then.


P.S. Although I didn't know anything about this at the time, I MIGHT have been affected by some of this today. I've used a Garmin vehicle Nuvi & Magellan handheld Triton side-by-side for several months. They almost always agree within just a couple thousands of a degree & I don't get many complaints about bad coordinates on my own caches. Plus too, I have very little problem getting to the correct GZ on other peoples either. (Now that's NOT saying I always find the well-hidden cache, but I'm almost always standing on top of it anyway. :? )

Because of that combination, I feel my GPS's are doing their job well. However, I hid a cache today at about noon. If you want to read the long version of my troubles, it's the red part of the description over on "They Need More".

Basically, with a full charge on the Nuvi, fresh bunnies in the Triton, clear blue sky above, no powerlines around, & no trees within 100 feet .... I simply couldn't make the 2 GPS's agree with each other even as far as 50 feet or so. To top that off, they wouldn't stay connected for over 20 seconds or so at a time.

Then, later in the evening, I was working on a separate high-difficulty, soon-to-be-published cache. I wanted to make sure the coordinates were as exact as I could get them. Very similar situation as above, and this time even on top of a mountain .... walking down a nice clear road, the 2 GPS's were fighting each other all they could.

I actually DID suspect some type of satellite problem. The GPS's worked fine yesterday (Saturday), the skies & weather were good, so that pretty much just left 1 major possibility .... the satellites.

Dunno, but sure sounds suspicious now that I read about this.

[jclaudii]

I'll be turning that feature off for a while on my garmin 60c. Since we got it in December it has been flakey on sat locks compared to our older one that died. I turned WAAS on in FEB and it worked better, but I have noticed lately I'll be walking in the woods 100' away when SG finds the Cache.

I'm also thinking about how many people looked for one particular easter egg up at the overlook at Old Post...We had several different models there and we knew we were close, but we couldn't narrow it down from a 15' building outside area.

[wilddav]

so the 11 ammo boxes that i have should i hind them?? 0r wait??

[idratherbehiking]

so the 11 ammo boxes that i have should i hind them?? 0r wait??

No need to wait. Hide them now. :lol: :o :D :roll: :lol:

[wilddav]

i been useing google earth to see some islands that have cache's what do you think about placing cache's on islands ??

[jclaudii]

It's the greatest idea EVER. WE have a few around Russellville that me and Southerngirl have yet to venture to and grab...but we know there there...always just waiting. They usually go a long time between finds, especially in winter. You'll also want to muggle proof it extra because it will see more muggle traffic than geo traffic.

Yahoo Buzz picked up the Galaxy 15 satellite this morning and dubbed it "the zombie satellite" They make no mention of it's effect on WAAS, but did mention that the sat used to carry the SyFy channel :)
http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/93656?fp=1

[Team_Pink]

Cable TV could be affected:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37086846/ns ... nce-space/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37086846/ns/technology_and_science-space/)

[OldRiverRunner]

Time for some of President Reagan's Star Wars satellites to do their thing! Take it out! Take it out now!

[astrodav]

Yahoo Buzz picked up the Galaxy 15 satellite this morning and dubbed it "the zombie satellite"


Governator Schwarzengger tried to warn us about this 3 or 4 times in movies, but nobody would listen .... now it's happened.


P.S. NASA has just been able to decode the scrambled up signal from the satellite & also released a new picture of it closing in on the other satellite:

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/5410/zombsatb.png

[wilddav]

als0 notice that our phone is acting silly the othe rperson on the other end be talking and than at once they would like be talking real lound and the go out could not hear them :(
http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/display_ ... ?799344127 (http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/display_image.cgi?799344127)

[jclaudii]

President Reagan's Star Wars satellites That's great......you know there not going to release those until we are under eminent threat from other planets.