Hiking in California? They be messin' with your GPS...

[ribuck]

The US Navy is messing with GPS on selected days this month for users in California. FAA notification here:
https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices ... visory.pdf

[Gadgetgeek]

Reasons to keep your map and compass skills up. Its easy to get in the habit of relying on GPS, but its a toy we get to play with only at the pleasure of the US military.

[GPSGuided]

'Weapon testing' out of China Lakes. How interesting!

So what's their expected outcome? A bunch of aircrafts crashing and traffic congestion in LA/SF due to failed GPS systems? Fortunately GLONASS will be still up and running. LOL

[Mark F]

Don't worry about GLONASS, see if the BeiDou gps system (Chinese) is still operational.

[Hallu]

What a bunch of morons... What if a guy is lost and his life depends on his GPS ? Can't they test it on a smaller range ?

[GPSGuided]

Beidou hasn't completed global coverage, has it?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Gadgetgeek]

They are probably testing there as most of the airports won't be reliant on GPS for anything besides lost tourists. The size of the area probably has a lot to do with the laws of physics, line of sight and all that. Also reasons why its a listed NOTAM, since autopilot systems don't have to use GPS. I'd suspect that they would also be testing to see if what they are doing disrupts the international systems as well, or rather that might be the primary goal of the testing.

Hallu, if someone is lost and their life depends on their GPS then they should have stayed in bed that morning. And I say that as someone who relies on my GPS for street nav far too much.

Keep in mind that the EPIRB system will still work since the sats can get a general triangulation, and the search aircraft can get a closer fix.

[GPSGuided]

More reason why I look forward to the general availability of the European Galilleo system along with a diversified network from GLONASS and BeiDou. I never liked the idea of how the US can easily disrupt US owned GPS network when they care to.

[icefest]

From the map given by the link in the OP's post, I think this is testing an interference based electronic countermeasure.

Probably testing whether they can block Galileo/GLONASS/Civillian GPS while still maintaining use of military signals.

I suspect this is ground and not satellite based (the remote site are only not working at high elevation).

[GPSGuided]

It's GPS specific by the advisory. Who knows what they are testing, classified.

[walkon]

In one of the gulf wars the us moved the goal posts then as well. Had users going all over the place. Marine users and hikers were getting lost then too

[GPSGuided]

I recall that the US GPS has been legislated or whatever since that time, in that the US military is no longer allowed to alter the signal to induce location errors. So in theory that users will no longer get to the wrong destination. The current testing seemed to be more about jamming, where users won't be able to receive the necessary GPS signal to achieve a location lock, a scenario where the user knows he/she is lost and can not get assistance from the GPSr.