GPS Testing to degrade signal

[Thoraldus]

Got this from AOPA this morning.

GPS aerial navigation could become unreliable or unavailable again over the southeastern United States and adjacent coastal waters during a U.S. Navy exercise that will involve GPS interference testing this Friday, Aug. 30, and next Thursday, Sept. 5.

GPS testing to degrade signal

GPS aerial navigation could become unreliable or unavailable again over the southeastern United States and adjacent coastal waters during a U.S. Navy exercise that will involve GPS interference testing Aug. 30 and Sept. 5.

www.aopa.org

 

[Thoraldus]

Got this from AOPA this morning.

GPS aerial navigation could become unreliable or unavailable again over the southeastern United States and adjacent coastal waters during a U.S. Navy exercise that will involve GPS interference testing this Friday, Aug. 30, and next Thursday, Sept. 5.

GPS testing to degrade signal

GPS aerial navigation could become unreliable or unavailable again over the southeastern United States and adjacent coastal waters during a U.S. Navy exercise that will involve GPS interference testing Aug. 30 and Sept. 5.

www.aopa.org

These are all the locations where intentional GPS interference has been conducted by the Department of Defense in 2019, with the 4,000 foot agl impact radius depicted. AOPA created the image using MITRE's TARGETS software

 

[DanMan32]

Perhaps it will be postponed due to Dorian.

 

[Thoraldus]

Perhaps it will be postponed due to Dorian.

I would hope so.

 

[Thomas B]

Perhaps it will be postponed due to Dorian.

Might be viewed as the perfect time to test it.

 

[Thoraldus]

Might be viewed as the perfect time to test it.

Quite possible.

 

[Bigbird48]

I wonder if this is the reason we get disconnects and loss signals ,weak gps errors and such

 

[MaviCam]

This shouldn't be a problem if you are using Super-Patcher. I am assuming that the U.S.Navy won't be blocking Galileo and GLONASS since that could be seen as an act of war. Every day I like Super-Patcher more.

 

[ChrisOutdoors]

This shouldn't be a problem if you are using Super-Patcher. I am assuming that the U.S.Navy won't be blocking Galileo and GLONASS since that could be seen as an act of war. Every day I like Super-Patcher more.

This, patch your drone and you'll unlock satellites from other countries, making you less susceptible to these tests.

Quick note on Mavicam's post, GPS is US owned, Galileo EU owned, and GLONASS is Russian owned. The US does not "BLOCK" GPS, they modify it's accuracy and in times of major war would encrypt the signal rendering all non mil equipment unusable. Blocking would only occur near the enemy's position, point being, use super patcher and fly with accuracy during this test.

 

[gnirtS]

This shouldn't be a problem if you are using Super-Patcher. I am assuming that the U.S.Navy won't be blocking Galileo and GLONASS since that could be seen as an act of war. Every day I like Super-Patcher more.

Why wouldn't they? Its not an act of war. GPS is not life or death or a primary navigation method.

There's no point testing a "bit" of a GPS jammer. The whole point in the tests is to try to deny all navigation.

All previous tests they've taken out the lot, this will be no different. They did it in the UK a few weeks ago.

The US does not "BLOCK" GPS, they modify it's accuracy and in times of major war would encrypt the signal rendering all non mil equipment unusable.

Not correct. A lot of man and vehicle portable countermeasures jam GPS completely in an area. Not spoof or change accuracy, deny and jam.

The Russians are generally better at spoofing and have trialled it extensively. Its much harder to do and covers a far smaller area though.

Also, selective availability got switched off near 20 years ago now.

 

[sar104]

This shouldn't be a problem if you are using Super-Patcher. I am assuming that the U.S.Navy won't be blocking Galileo and GLONASS since that could be seen as an act of war. Every day I like Super-Patcher more.

It's obviously not an act of war to interfere with those signals in US airspace.

This, patch your drone and you'll unlock satellites from other countries, making you less susceptible to these tests.

Quick note on Mavicam's post, GPS is US owned, Galileo EU owned, and GLONASS is Russian owned. The US does not "BLOCK" GPS, they modify it's accuracy and in times of major war would encrypt the signal rendering all non mil equipment unusable. Blocking would only occur near the enemy's position, point being, use super patcher and fly with accuracy during this test.

As at @gnirtS mentioned, this is ground-based interference, not satellite signal degradation, as is obvious from the geographic patterns of interference radiating out from point locations with affected height increasing with distance.

 

[gnirtS]

The testing here 10 days ago gave an estimated affected area of 122nm and up to 40,000ft (FL400) altitude which is a huge area from a ground based transmitter (i first suspected it was aircraft based but NOTAM specifically said ground based).

It shows how weak GPS is though - the signal from the satellite is some 20db below the thermal noise floor at a receiving end so it doesnt take much power to overwhelm it provided you use the correct waveforms. You certainly don't need to be in-between the satellite and receiving station.

The drone jamming trial at the same time was a "smaller" box about 50 miles x 20 miles and max altitude 4000ft.

 

[ChrisOutdoors]

mentioned, this is ground-based interference, not satellite signal degradation, as is obvious from the geographic patterns of interference radiating out from point locations with affected height increasing with distance.

Should have read the article, you're correct! Those interference ranges are very impressive, amazed a NAVY ship can cover such a large area.

 

[sar104]

Should have read the article, you're correct! Those interference ranges are very impressive, amazed a NAVY ship can cover such a large area.

As @gnirtS said - the real GPS signals are just very weak and relatively easy to drown out.