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The U.S. government activated a new and improved GPS signal several days ago, which will ultimately benefit commercial users

L2C, the new GPS technology activated by the U.S. government, offers new technology that is supposed to offer better cell phone communications in areas where current signals are unstable.  The signal is currently available, and is designed specifically for commercial users.

"For example, it is transmitted with a higher effective power, so GPS receivers work better in urban areas and indoors. And it requires less energy to receive the signal, an important feature for battery-powered devices such as mobile phones."

The activation of the L2C comes just a few weeks after the European satellite constellation Galileo, sent its first GPS signals earlier this month.  The existing civilian and military signals from the US GPS constellation will continue to broadcast as well.  Currently, only the US Air Force GPS IIR-14 satellite is broadcasting the signal.

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I thought it was a commercial sattalite?
By The Cheeba on 1/28/2006 9:13:56 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Currently, only the US Air Force GPS IIR-14 satalite is broadcasting the signal.


Uh, so a US military sattalite is broadcasting a signal for commercial use only?? Gee, i wonder what they are doing with it....

Cheeb.




RE: I thought it was a commercial sattalite?
By phaxmohdem on 1/28/2006 9:51:14 PM , Rating: 2
Dont you know anything, the American government is only in place to make our lives easier, and give us all kinds of cool electronic tracking toys with no strings attached.


By oTAL (blog) on 1/30/2006 12:52:53 AM , Rating: 2
It is pretty probable that the sattelite does more than just send that signal....It's just one of its functions and the most visible one. Would you put a multi-million dollar piece of metal on the sky just so it could repeat the same signal endlessly or would you "multi-task" it....
It's kind of a duh question....


RE: I thought it was a commercial sattalite?
By stash on 1/28/2006 9:53:09 PM , Rating: 4
Uh, what do you think the existing 24 GPS satellite are? They are maintained by the 2nd Space Operations Squadron of the USAF.


RE: I thought it was a commercial sattalite?
By weskurtz on 1/28/2006 10:24:19 PM , Rating: 2
I think there are more than 24 in the constelation now but yes.... GPS being controlled by the military is nothing new.
And they can scramble the signals at any given moment to make it useless to everyone else but the military. Come on guys, you think some Corpoartion put a bunch of satellites into orbit and are letting the consumers use them free of charge?


RE: I thought it was a commercial sattalite?
By sprockkets on 1/28/06, Rating: 0
RE: I thought it was a commercial sattalite?
By weskurtz on 1/28/2006 10:32:37 PM , Rating: 2
they can scramble it so only the US military can use it whenever they would choose to do it.


RE: I thought it was a commercial sattalite?
By Zurtex on 1/28/2006 11:43:52 PM , Rating: 2
As I was aware the reserve the right to stop broadcasting any time they want.

No matter really, won't be long until a more accurate EU funded system will be up in place.


RE: I thought it was a commercial sattalite?
By weskurtz on 1/29/2006 2:17:54 AM , Rating: 2
How much more accurate could it be? A couple of feet?


RE: I thought it was a commercial sattalite?
By AlexWade on 1/29/2006 9:24:22 AM , Rating: 2
Why so cynical about our military? GPS was originally used for the military, just branched out for civilian use. How do you think smart bombs find there way, get out and ask for directions? And why should they cut it off or scramble it? What harm could a terrorist do if he knew where he was? "Sorry, Mr Pres, terrorists are getting directions with our GPS system. This is a grave threat to the security of the United States, because there is no such thing as a map." Puh-lease.

GPS is accurate enough. My car has GPS, and it is never off.


By weskurtz on 1/29/2006 10:16:35 AM , Rating: 2
Not that they would cut it off because of some terrorist. But, with the rest of the world building technology that uses GPS, and the US constelation being the only one for the past decade or more, during a war making it impossible for another country to use GPS guided munitions against us or using it on aircraft would be a definate advantage. That is the whole point. Not like they are going to go out and scramble it tomorrow just because they can. It is strategic.


By Clauzii on 1/29/2006 9:47:55 AM , Rating: 3
I think it is 10 to 100 times...!!

BTW: http://www.useu.be/Galileo/

is pretty interesting reading on the subject.


By Samus on 1/30/2006 2:54:50 AM , Rating: 2
Seriously, even the old system is accurate enough to guide cruise missles. The new system is probably accurate to within a meter.


By Eris23007 on 2/1/2006 5:43:28 PM , Rating: 2

...an only-slightly more accurate EU system that will CHARGE MONEY FOR ACCESS.

F--- that!


By weskurtz on 1/28/2006 10:31:15 PM , Rating: 2
also....these are not for commercial use only.... they use the entire original constellation for GPS guided munitions and for all other military GPS needs.


By codeThug on 1/28/2006 10:34:59 PM , Rating: 2
I thought that was "Union Aerospace Corporation's" job.


It is far reaching!
By Clauzii on 1/29/2006 9:57:52 AM , Rating: 3
Here are the GALILEO project Press releases, with some info on how India, Korea, Argentina and more are being involved in the project:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/gal...




RE: It is far reaching!
By scruffypup on 2/3/2006 7:44:23 PM , Rating: 2
Great link,... The accuracy is important as well for other branches of science especially geologists to get precise measurements of continental drift, ice shelf retreat due to global warming, movement along fault lines in earthquake prone areas, etc,...


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