All things GPS (recommendations, tips, etc.) - merged

[Gayson]

I do hope you realize it's six "figure" grid and not 6 "finger" grid, right?!?! Just checking....

Al

Oh SHIT!  that's embarrasing!  I learn something new everyday!

I have a Magellan Meridian.

I have both displayed at once because I'm just to lazy to reconfigure the display whenever I get one of the other datums.

 

[MadNad]

Sorry guys for the little misunderstood,

You know that it would be unrealistic to says that every soldier would have them all the time and this was my mistake. But, With the buy rate that DND is going through with the new one. It will probably be issued on the large scale. From what i heard (Unofficial). They are planning on Section commander, 2I/C (Infantry) and up. Plus all attached Sigs(Part of the comms gear). As for other unit type(Field Amb, SVCS BAT i dont know).

Those GPS unit do a little more then map and direction (Like the Old Unit, But we can't talk about those options here), but is much more user friendly and dummy proof. As for map and compass, I can tell you the new Sigs generation don't know much about them anymore. They don't teach that much anymore.

As for jamming GPS, or making display the information you want. It is very easy. And you can get the equipment on ebay. Nothing high tech there.

The easy way to put it, the signal from a satellite is very low power and not encrypted when it reach the GPS(Civilian), So you just have to transmit what you want at a higher power output in the area you want for any GPS to receive. Basic Electronic Warfare. It applies to everything that use radio frequency even satellitte. The danger is really there.

But yes, the new model will be widely distributed, As part of kit.

 

[Prophet]

so can you use any gps software on any gps divice?

 

[Kat Stevens]

Check for compatibility with your unit before uploading anything to your GPS.  Garmin software will not run in Magellan units, and vice versa.  Look for easy gps on line (google finds it very quickly), it's a good all-round GPS utility.

 

[chrisf]

You know that it would be unrealistic to says that every soldier would have them all the time and this was my mistake. But, With the buy rate that DND is going through with the new one. It will probably be issued on the large scale. From what i heard (Unofficial). They are planning on Section commander, 2I/C (Infantry) and up. Plus all attached Sigs(Part of the comms gear). As for other unit type(Field Amb, SVCS BAT i dont know).

Perhaps we'll even get Athena used on a larger scale...

 

[MadNad]

That is coming,

There as been so many changes and upgrade from Ver 1 to Ver 2 that it will be a complete different system, The back bone will stay the same but the user interface is looking different. To start, workstation are being replace. New high speed radio and upgrade on the super highway bandwith (Wide Area System). And there is much more coming. The new GPS will interface directly with the Control indicator in vehicle and that will permit the user to get GPS info directly on the CI display and CPU display. Sigs people will need to keep sharp on the new technology if they don't want to miss the boat.

 

[Posthumane]

Regarding jamming of the GPS signal - you can easily jam any receiver, be it a civi one or the PLGR. You just have to transmit on both bands, L1 and L2, with a high enough power. Spoofing the PLGR would be more difficult, as you can't easily spoof the encrypted P-code on the L2 band, but spoofing L1 only receivers (civillian) is not difficult.

 

[MadNad]

Hey.

The encryption is one of the safety that civilian GPS dont have for luxury and it is one of the major reason why i said that it could be dangerous to use Civie GPS unit in Theater.
But there are other safety feature on the new Mil Spec GPS unit. Collins DAGR

 

[Grayth]

I'm really enjoying this thread as I have just finished a long research on GPS's and map and compass work.
My goal was to be able to get rid of the paper map, yet still have it in electronic format. The end result was the following set up be interested to hear modern soldier's point of view on this as I haven't been in the service since the late 80's...when we had none of this stuff...

note that you can get low rez topo maps off of the government site commonly reffered to as toporama.
These can be easily calibrated to use in OZiexplorer etc... The result. I was surprised just how accurate they were. I tested several grid references on my regular paper topo map vs..the low rez website one. The result very close...was only off by 20m on average using 10 finger grid. I pulled manual bearings using my compass and compared to those given by Oziexplorer again found they were the same. The only downside to Ozi I found was when I asked if they will support MILS as opposed to degrees they answered no but their competitor Memory Map thought that was a good idea for future releases...

However using the low rez toporama images I was able to hold most of Canada on 1 SD 1 gig card chip.

So I my end set up landed up being like this. My pocket PC, put inside an otter Box to make it suitable for field use. Running Oziexplorer and my SD card of maps and I could technically walk out my front door and hike it to the yukon, without needing any paper maps. Plus the screen on my pocket pc is bigger than any GPS unit

Most of the work still being done by map and compass, and now that changed my GPS needs. I no longer needed a big mapping GPS, instead a lower Etrex model suffices as long as it had at least WAAS. I only need it to once and awile tell me here you are...plug those coord into my pocket pc...proper topo map is loaded...and I can start making waypoints and...I'm off.

Works great...and if in the field for any extended period of time the crappy tire foldable solar panel can keep my pocket pc charged up for extended lengths..

If your real savvy you can even take the sattelite images either off of toporama or google earth calibrate them...and then in photoshop combine the 2 images so you can see the sattelite image superimposed on top of the topo map, and you got one hell of a nice map to work on. And for FREE too.

for those who want the higher rez maps you can get the exact paper maps scanned in electronic format from etopo.ca. Same setup but it file sizes are bigger you may land up using an addiotional SD card..

So, wondering how this setup would fair in theatre. Since GPS use would land up being very very limited the jamming issue almost becomes redundant. add in the Wifi and bluetooth technology which I haven't quite messed with and one could potentially call in motar strikes etc...off of your pocket pc just by clicking on screen which creates ythe grid reference and sends that off to company HQ for fire command control.

But not so sure if the pocket pc itself can be jammed.

 

[NL_engineer]

I use the garman etrex Vista, it is one of the best gps' on the market, and can be programed to use MGR, and the built in map has some of the roads in the Gagetown training area (surprised me). It is on the pricey side but it is worth it, if you are going to use it. Another advantage is that it uses AA batteries.

Kat, the reason garmans are slower to find single can be due to the fact that they remember the satlite locations and calculate where they should be and then look in that place.

 

[Kat Stevens]

Every civ GPS logs its last position fix in its memory.  If you boot it up more than, say, 200 Km from its last known position, it will take some time to acquire a fix.  The issue I have with the Garmins, and I've done this side by side with Magellan, is that its ability to detect a signal is far and away less than that of the Magellan.  I own them both, I've used them both, a lot, and I much prefer the Magellan.  I have nothing to gain by saying this, as I already paid full retail for both..

 

[DG-41]

The newer Garmins have gotten much better at cold fixes.

When I turned mine on for the first time, it thought it was in Taiwan.

DG

 

[c_canuk]

I bought a Magellan SportTrac when I was in Bosnia from the American PX truck.

I love it, fits in my combat shirt pocket, has about 8 different screens including a general map of the world which marks the path I've taken while it's on, is WAAS capable and I can display 2 map datums at the same time.

I don't rely on it for mapping though, I use it as a navigation tool to complement my map and compass... I can navigate with the GPS alone, but the thought of getting rusty with a map and compass and my GPS crapping out on me in the middle of no where frightens the hell out of me...

(don't use wet erase marker on a mactaked map to mark a route, then use it as shelter from heavy rain unless you like 150km weekend patrols  :-[)

 

[42A]

I have an etrax vista which is the highest end etrax in B&W.  This fits nicely in the TV and has 24MB of memory.  I had one problem with the unit was it would turn off with out notice (yes the batteries were new)

Garmin replaced the unit within a couple of weeks without problem.

I have loaded both the street and topo maps on the unit and find the coutour lines sometimes diffcult to read however my buddy has a color one and they are quite easy to read.

Cheers

 

[NL_engineer]

I have the same problem with contor lines on my vista, but it is only when dealing with steep slopes. I can't figure out how to get the altimeter in the vista to stay zeroed.

 

[brihard]

As a reservist I know my chances of seeing a PLGR in unit training are basically nil, so I picked up a MAgellan eXplorist 200. $240 or so at Canadian Tire. Cheap unit, not many features, but I can get up to 3m accuracy, it supports WAAS, and it can give me 10 figure grip refernces- though of course at 3m+ accuracy that last figure is a bit spotty, but my point is that the eight figure references can generally be taken to the bank. It's a great time saver on patrol. My map and compass is good, I can get by easily enough without it, but hell, fi I've got it I might as well save myself the time- plus it's got a dull orange backlight that's bloody convenient at night. No more drooling on my maglight. It's got a keyring connected to it, and I've paracorded it to my spare mag pouch (I keep a mag on the rifle butt), so there's room in the pouch for the GPS and a couple spare batteries.

It's nothing fancy, but it does the job and has all the absicfeatures I need as a grunt plus a few neat little bonuses. I don't see any reason to buy a $600 unit.

The only downside is it's bright yellow. I'll break out the model paint and 'tactical' it at some point...

 

[Gayson]

Does anyone know if they have civvie GPS these days that allow you to use the Differential Global Positioning System, by say giving the GPS a corrected grid off a map for a set point, reducing the accuracy of 3m to the cm or even mm range?

 

[ZipperHead]

From my limited knowledge of the DGPS (from research I did while teaching PLGR classes over the years), DGPS is based on ground based towers that do the same thing as the satellites, but with much greater accuracy (because the towers location is always the same, versus the satellites, which are constantly in motion). And from what I have figured out while researching new civvy GPS's to buy, the WAAS system is basically the same thing, which is why you can get the better accuracy over "normal" GPS units, and why WAAS isn't available everywhere (link to FAA site: http://gps.faa.gov/Library/waas-f-text.htm.

I'm not really sure why you would need accuracy to within the cm or mm, let alone within 10m, for normal applications. I know that overseas when you are marking the positions of mines, UXO's, IED's, sure, you need to be as accurate as possible, but while going for a hike being within 10m should normally be plenty good. I am quite certain that the GPS's receivers that surveying outfits and other GIS companies would use would need to be very accurate, but you would probably pay a premium for that.

Al

 

[DG-41]

You can get GPS units that use a locally-erected secondary transmitter that do the same thing, and can get cm accuracy with respect to the transmitter.

These aren't really for large-scale navigation though. They are for things like race car data acquisition and robotics, where you don't care where the target is with respect to a map datum, but you do care about position relative to a start point.

At a race track, or a factory floor, that's ideal. Not so useful on a battlefield.

The exception is WAAS, which is supposed to be accurate enough to allow GPS-only aircraft landings, but also requires synchronization to a map datum. Same principle (GPS satellite signal to get rough position, then calibrated via a local transmitter) but less accurate than a differential setup because the "local" transmitter isn't as local as the transmitter on a differential setup.

DG

 

[trucker00]

I would wait a little before buying Civie GPS Unit. Since Sept 05 The forces took possesion of a new GPS Unit. I had the chance to run some testing on it last summer. Excellent unit. They plan on buying 5000 units a year until 2010. It look like they will be part of soldier kit by very soon. The integration already started and will be expanded after Xmas. This new unit as all the options of the PLGR, plus much more. Map display is one of the long waited one. Much much much more user friendly and dummy proof. And fits in your Combat shirt pocket.

Don't spend money now, on a GPS unit. Just wait

Yeah, knowing the CF, Combat arms will get them and us CSS guys will be issued a compass.