GPS problems today???

[Daveroo]

i first heard this after lunch today west coast time....a CalFire gumman S2T air tanker called in and said he just lost the function of his GPS and want to request flight following..

then about thirty minutes later i heard a Kingair that was enroute to socal somewhere that he had lost his GPS..it suddenly stop functioning and he wanted flight following to a point then he would fly VFR,and after that ive been hearing dozens of flight following requests...much more than normal..and they are also talking about the VOR....im in auburn and they talk about passing the mustang VOR...they havent talked about that in years...but theyve said dozens of times this afternoon.

[OBIO]

It's those pesky aliens again...messing with the magnetic field and the stationery satellites just to drive us nuts.

OBIO

[TeaSea]

Pretty typical GPS day from the OAKLAND ARTCC. GPS NOTAMS from the FAA:

GPS 04/044 (KZOA A0193/11) ZOA AIRSPACE GPS IS UNRELIABLE AND MAY BE UNAVAILABLE WITHIN A CIRCLE WITH A RADIUS OF 400 NM AND CENTERED AT 393316N/1174400W OR THE LOCATION ALSO KNOWN AS 13.14 DEGREES AND 60.96 NM FROM THE MVA VOR AT FL400; DECREASING IN AREA WITH A DECREASE IN ALTITUDE TO A CIRCLE WITH A RADIUS OF 345NM AT FL250; A CIRCLE WITH A RADIUS OF 265NM AT 10,000 FT MSL AND A CIRCLE WITH A RADIUS OF 265NM AT 4,000 FT AGL. WEF 1104131330-1104140730

!GPS 04/038 (KZOA A0192/11) ZOA AIRSPACE GPS IS UNRELIABLE AND MAY BE UNAVAILABLE WITHIN A CIRCLE WITH A RADIUS OF 400 NM AND CENTERED AT 393316N/1174400W OR THE LOCATION ALSO KNOWN AS 13.14 DEGREES AND 60.96 NM FROM THE MVA VOR AT FL400; DECREASING IN AREA WITH A DECREASE IN ALTITUDE TO A CIRCLE WITH A RADIUS OF 345NM AT FL250; A CIRCLE WITH A RADIUS OF 265NM AT 10,000 FT MSL AND A CIRCLE WITH A RADIUS OF 265NM AT 4,000 FT AGL. WEF 1104121430-1104130815

!GPS 04/032 (KZOA A0191/11) ZOA AIRSPACE GPS IS UNRELIABLE AND MAY BE UNAVAILABLE WITHIN A CIRCLE WITH A RADIUS OF 400 NM AND CENTERED AT 393316N/1174400W OR THE LOCATION ALSO KNOWN AS 13.14 DEGREES AND 60.96 NM FROM THE MVA VOR AT FL400; DECREASING IN AREA WITH A DECREASE IN ALTITUDE TO A CIRCLE WITH A RADIUS OF 345NM AT FL250; A CIRCLE WITH A RADIUS OF 265NM AT 10,000 FT MSL AND A CIRCLE WITH A RADIUS OF 265NM AT 4,000 FT AGL. WEF 1104112330-1104120815

So, there's still a reason to carry a good compass.

GPS is wonderful, but it's still a radio signal and is subject to disruption by all kinds of things, including problems on board the platform, issues with the constellation, or electromagnetic interference in the atmosphere or solar flares.

And those stationary orbits aren't as stationary as people make out.....

[Curtis P40]

It's true...I've seen em :jump:

[PeteHam]

'Aint nothing wrong with a compass, chart and Mk1 eyeball :wavey:

Pete.

[stansdds]

And the FAA is looking at GPS replacing VOR? GPS is great, until there is a big interference with the signal or the satellite fails. I certainly hope that VOR is retained as a back up to GPS.

[JoeW]

We may be talking apples and oranges but It takes at least 3 sats for my Auto GPS to get a fix. Most of the time I'm connected to at least 4 to 8 sats.
Being connected to one sat ain't gonna do much.

[rhumbaflappy]

I believe there was a large solar flare on the 4th or 5th of this month. It may be a residual effect of the radiation affecting the satellites.

Dick

[Willy]

The Garmin in my truck worked fine yesterday on a trip to the Memphis area.

[TeaSea]

And the FAA is looking at GPS replacing VOR? GPS is great, until there is a big interference with the signal or the satellite fails. I certainly hope that VOR is retained as a back up to GPS.

I hope we retain much of the VOR equipment also, however VOR's have their own sets of issues.

The bottom line here is that no one system is perfect. Best to have some redundancy.

Also, recently the Aliens have had some problems getting their brain reading machines to transmit properly around the VORs.....