Woke up to a Coast Guard daily report and seven NANU's this morning.
Never ever have I seen so much satellite activity in such a short period.
Paul in PA
Yes I was looking at that it was PRN 5, 12, 15, 17, 31
And still coming.
In the order that I have received them so far:
17,12,05,15,31,07,29.
That is 100% of the IIR-M satellites. I suspect they have set them up to send a revised or operational L2C message.
Just hope it does not mess up my legacy receivers.
Paul in PA
Good catch Paul. I dug this up:
*** GENERAL MESSAGE TO ALL GPS USERS ***
THE PURPOSE OF THIS NOTIFICATION IS TO INFORM USERS OF AN UPCOMING EVENT RELATED TO THE GPS SATELLITE CONSTELLATION. AIR FORCE SPACE COMMAND WILL BE IMPLEMENTING CNAV MESSAGES ON THE GPS L2C AND L5 SIGNALS BEGINNING J118/1430Z WITH UPDATES FROM THE CONTROL SEGMENT APPROXIMATELY TWICE PER WEEK. THE MESSAGE POPULATED SIGNAL CONTENT WILL INCLUDE BROADCAST MESSAGE TYPES (MT) 10, 11, 12, 30, AND 33. THERE ARE NO PLANNED GPS SATELLITE OUTAGES OR DEGRADATIONS FOR THIS ACTIVITY. L2C AND L5 CNAV MESSAGES SHOULD BE TRANSPARENT TO GPS RECEIVERS THAT DO NOT PROCESS L2C OR L5 CNAV MESSAGES. THESE POPULATED SIGNALS ARE INTENDED TO FACILITATE USER FAMILIARIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF COMPATIBLE USER EQUIPMENT.
NOTE: UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, THE L2C AND L5 SIGNALS ARE CONSIDERED PRE-OPERATIONAL. A PRE-OPERATIONAL SIGNAL MEANS THE AVAILABILITY AND OTHER CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BROADCAST SIGNAL MAY NOT COMPLY WITH ALL REQUIREMENTS OF THE RELEVANT INTERFACE SPECIFICATIONS AND SHOULD BE EMPLOYED AT THE USERS? OWN RISK. THEREFORE THESE SIGNALS SHOULD NOT BE USED FOR SAFETY-OF-LIFE OR OTHER CRITICAL PURPOSES. ANY MILITARY OR CIVIL USERS WHO ENCOUNTER USER EQUIPMENT PROBLEMS FOLLOWING MESSAGE POPULATION OF THE L2C AND L5 SIGNALS SHOULD CONTACT THE APPLICABLE POCS IDENTIFIED BELOW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. AVIATION USERS SHOULD FILE REPORTS CONSISTENT WITH FAA-APPROVED PROCEDURES.
*** GENERAL MESSAGE TO ALL GPS USERS ***
I remembered that message, but had cleared it out.
With 19 of the 31 active GPS L2C capable it may be time to go to operational messages.
Paul in PA
When Trimble came out with the first R8 the only thing that really differentiated it from the 5800 was the ability to track and use L2C.There was a period of time when you had to leave L2C disabled or you wouldn't be able to initialize, but that was a LONG time ago; we've been tracking and using L2C with no problems for about ten years.
I got a response back from UNAVCO regarding the sequential outages on the GPS IIR-M satellites.
"hi Lawrence,
This from Dr. Freddy Blume, head of our D&T group:
"This is likely associated with the power level tests I alerted the [UNAVCO] staff to a couple
of weeks ago. SV's were sequentially reprogrammed with the higher levels. I looked through
NANU's which forecast and describe then unusable periods for each SV."
The notification, from General John W. Raymond, USAF, dated 19 Jan 2017, reads in part:
"Beginning 25 Jan 2017, Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) will conduct a limited duration test
implementing an increase of the L1 C/A power level on the GPS Block IIR-M and IIF satellites
(19 vehicles). The C/A power will remain within IS-GPS-200-H specifications and the power
increase is not expected to increase the noise floor by more than 0.3 signal-to-noise ratio
in the worst case."
That is all the information I have at this time.
cheers,
--lou
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Louis H. Estey, Ph.D. office: [+001] 303-381-7456
UNAVCO, 6350 Nautilus Drive FAX: [+001] 303-381-7451
Boulder, CO 80301-5554 e-mail: lou unavco.org
WWW: http://www.unavco.org http://jules.unavco.org
"If the universe is the answer, what is the question?"
-- Leon Lederman"
Paul in PA
