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Old 04-27-2012, 07:02 AM   #20
psneeld
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Quote:
Originally Posted by alormaria View Post
We no longer have the space shuttle program. The older satellites are well past their 'sell by' dates. We can't go up and fix them anymore and must rely on other countries (China??) to put new ones up.

Every prudent mariner uses two forms of navigation. Relying exclusively on GPS is risky. Take for example that new land based cell phone provider trying to get his transmitters approved when they blasted nearby GPS receivers off the air. He went to court claiming GPS receivers were inaccurate and he should be allowed to continue expanding. GPS can be jammed very easily - apparently by accident.

That said, almost every cell phone has a GPS unit inside. Why not take advantage of them?
OK...we can't send up reapir teams but the "constellation" is designed to lose sats and still work. The US still has satellite launch capability and for how useful GPS is to the nation...launching a satellite every onceand awhile is chump change.

The flap over LightSquared was a temporary road bump....I doubt it ever will be a threat. Claiming GPS was inaccurate would have been foolish as every Congressman with GPS in their car knows it will put them in their driveway every day.

Maybe GPS can be jammed easily...but only on a local level...the type of equipment to jamb it widespread would be a national security threat and a SEAL team would fix that pronto...

Why deal with cell phone GPS at all? GPS units for boats are widely available with screens you can actually see...plus a lot of boating is done beyond cell towers...
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