GPS "almanac" update starts today at 6 PM EDT

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

New information about when GPS problems might begin:

http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a2374reuff-19990818&qt=GPS&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486

[snip]

Rice and other Coast Guard officials at first said the weekend rollover coming up on Aug. 21 at 8.00 p.m. on the U.S. east coast (midnight GMT) was the key time to focus on.

But later they agreed it was impossible to predict how the older GPS units would react to the ``almanac'' updates to the satellites that begins Thursday at 6.00 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT).

``If it sees something that it just doesn't understand, we are going into an area where anything can happen,'' said Commander Gary Shank, chief of GPS planning for the Coast Guard.

The U.S. Air Force, which manages the GPS system, told Reuters Tuesday that the same receiver software bugs that cause problems coping with the 20-year clock rollover could trip up a unit on almanac changes that include their own five-year clock reset.

[snip]

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 19, 1999


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