GPS Lovers listen Selective Availability is GONE

Bagheera · May 3, 2000

Hi everyone,

Those of us using a GPS to pinpoint our location can do so as of May 2 12:00 AM central time with mind boggling acuracy.

The President of the United States Decided to stop degrading the Global Positioning System.

This means that for us GPS users the accuracy has been increased to 10-20 feet.

You can read the Presidents declaration at: http://www.gps-gear.de/SAaus.html

By the way if you want to come visit me, you are allowed to place your tarp/tent at the following location:

N 51 45'39.9 and
E005 47'04.9

This should put you on by backyard lawn about 10 feet from the backdoor and fridge with some nice cold Dutch beer and 10 feet from my chicken hen, sorry no testing of knives machetes and axes on my "ladies"

Possible position deviation +/- 10 feet so the cold beer could even be closer to you

Cheers from Holland,

Bagheera

------------------

Cesar · May 3, 2000

Why was this done to the GPS system? Not being too familiar with it, wasn't it originally developed (like all great things) for the military and didn't the "built in" inaccuracy have something to do with national security and missile systems being used against us?

Bagheera · May 3, 2000

Hi Cesar,

Any terorist wanting to lay his hands on a encrypted military GPS receiver probably gets one faster then I had to save before being able to buy a civilian model one.

I once was offered in a Dutch military Surplus shop a Military GPS and I thought it was a demilitarized model and starting looking on the Internet for the company that made it and when found I asked them some questions about the modelnumber of the offered unit etc.

Some time later I got a visit on my work from 2 military policeman who were not really kind to me. It turned out this GPS "fell out of a box

" during a transport back to Holland from some military training of Dutch troops in Norway tgether with some rifles and nightscopes (Demaco!)

If this sh.. happens under normal, a terrorist organization can certainly get these encrypted models.

Read the presidents Statement about why he stoped the degrading GPS accuracy.

Cheers from a happy civilian GPS user,

Bagheera

------------------

[This message has been edited by Bagheera (edited 05-03-2000).]

Cesar · May 3, 2000

Thanks for the info! Didn't know there were two types of GPS (one for military and one for civilian). Being a Marine and with the smallest of the budgets, I'm just happy if we get issued compasses.

Stryver · May 4, 2000

Cesar:

Marines don't need GPS! They just need someone to point them in the general direction of the bad guys, everything else is history!

I'm glad you're doing the job! If you ever need CAS, give me a hollar, and if you ever meet up with me, I'll buy you a beer.

Stryver

Hoodoo · May 4, 2000

Bagheera,
I've faxed those coordinates to my private helicopter in Amsterdam and will be landing there soon via jumbo jet where my chopper pilot will wisk me to your backyard as soon as I arrive. My pilot wants to know how big your backyard is and if you have any wires around there that will interfere with the helicopter blades. I hope that beer is really good. See you soon!

Cheers,

------------------
Hoodoo

The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stonethe light-pressd blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
Sparkles from the wheel.

Walt Whitman

Bagheera · May 5, 2000

Hi HOODOO,

You must be succesfull as a biologist, I finished University as a biologist too but the big money has not arrived during the past 18 years.

If you keep the it hovering 20 yards above my backyard you can slide down a rope, it will also clear my backyard from leaves and so

.

The beer will be good.

Cheers,

Bagheera

[This message has been edited by Bagheera (edited 05-05-2000).]

Hoodoo · May 6, 2000

Money? What money? I do biology 'cause it's fun!

Uh oh. Gotta run. My personal secretary is waving at me from the limo. Guess it's time to go to the airport.

------------------
Hoodoo

The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stonethe light-pressd blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
Sparkles from the wheel.

Walt Whitman

Griffon · May 15, 2000

Originally posted by Bagheera:
This means that for us GPS users the accuracy has been increased to 10-20 feet.

Well, the potential is certainly there, but FAI has done some tests in England and found that the probability is 100% that the position as accurate to within 32 m and the average to 13.8 m -- from a moving vehicle.

------------------
Urban Fredriksson
www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/
Latest updates Al Mar Falcon Ultralight, Moki Hana, Fällkniven WM1 neck sheath

"Smooth and serrated blades cut in two entirely different fashions."
- The Teeth of the Tyrannosaurs, Scientific American, Sep 1999

Bagheera · May 14, 2000

Hi Griffon,

Yep your correct I saw these test also on Joe Mehaffey and Jack Yeazel's Website.

They appeared just very recently also with some tests from David Wilson and Wolfgang Rupprecht and these tests were from a stationary GPS and the following results came from a normal Garmin GPS 12 XL:

50.00% confidence: 2.5 meters
68.27% confidence: 3.8 meters
95.45% confidence: 7.0 meters
99.73% confidence: 9.8 meters

for Wolfgang and for David:

Horiz.
Cep (50%) 3.84 metres
mean 4.62 metres
RMS 5.62 metres
95% 9.98 metres

I averaged the position of our house, a point just 5 meters exactly from our "backdoor".
When driving home after a long day work it amazes me that each and every time lately when I walk toward the backyard of our house my Garmin GPS 12 MAP almost 100% stays within 8 meters of the position that I put in as the exact position of our house.
Most times it's below 5 metres.

One of the most amazing things however is the constant height that it reports.
It used to be very eronious with variations up to more then 100 metres but now it hardly varies.

To make a long story short, I'm very happy with how accurate my GPS has become and I already found it to be amazingly accurate with SA on !.
To know within 4-30 (absolute max) meters where you are on our globe with the help of such a small electronic device is just incredible.

Cheers,

Bagheera

------------------

[This message has been edited by Bagheera (edited 05-14-2000).]

e_utopia · May 15, 2000

Well, the height sensitivity increase makes sense, since SA was primarily a vertical innacuracy (great at preventing missiles and planes from being guided solely by GPS). Adding horizontal innacuracy was less important, as the civilian band of GPS could simply be turned off in the case of ground troop movements, which are harder to hide than a missile.

--JB

------------------
e_utopia@hotmail.com

Walt Welch · May 16, 2000

So, I know how GPS works and all, and how one circumvented the (now gone) dithering, but what I want to know is what is a good unit to buy?

TIA, Walt

e_utopia · May 17, 2000

What do you want? There are so many different units with so many different features that it is nearly like asking for the 'best knife.' Narrow down your criteria a little.

--JB

------------------
e_utopia@hotmail.com

Bagheera · May 17, 2000

Hi Walt,

Long time no hear from you.

Walt it depends on what you're looking for for your Porches you could go with a GPS for car use that has a large screen and can be loaded with memory modules containing very detailed road/street maps.
This kind of GPS is programmed in such a way that when you want to drive from e.g. Alamo to Indio Ca. it tells you which roads to follow and when driving with that GPS a software program keeps the GPS "pointer" on the road. Although with Selective Availability gone my "normal" GPS also "stays on the road".

For general use, like part car but also when you leave the Porche and go hiking

somewhere where there are no signs telling you where to go next you could get yourself an all purpose GPS.
I like the GPS12 MAP from Garmin, it has the capability to store some highly detailed "counties" from Garmin CD-roms that are accurate up to 100 feet and include a US rroads and recreational CD-rom, a TPOP graphic CD-rom of the US and in increasing number of forewign countries-including Holland- also get released.

The Garmin 12 MAP is small weighs almost nothing, when the box arrived I thought it was empty because of the weight, and you can download 1.4 Mb of extra detailed county maps in it.

It has loads of capabilities and is an all purpose little GPS.

Even smaller is the Garmin E-trax smaller then a box of filter sigaretes waterproof just go to http://www.Garmin.com.

The only critisizm I have on the Garmin 12 MAP is that I don't understand that they have not given it the capability to accept an extra memory module of 8, 16 or more MB's this would have given it the capability to store more counties from the CD-rom because Los Angeles for example is impossible to store all LA detailed counties in memory, they simply are to big to get in together in the 1.4 Mb memory one has.

Walt, drop me an email, in only 6.50 weeks I land in LA.

Cheers,

Piet (Bagheera)

------------------

ramius · May 24, 2000

Thanks for the tip on the e-trax. That's a slick looking unit, and not too expensive either. Might be time to start saving money again!

------------------
-Kevin
"Oderint dum metuant"
Riddler, Hoodlum, Bon Vivant.
The Polly Klaas Foundation

[This message has been edited by ramius (edited 05-24-2000).]

[This message has been edited by ramius (edited 05-24-2000).]

[This message has been edited by ramius (edited 05-24-2000).]