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GPS severe spike

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(@bruce-small)
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Two months ago there was a severe spike around 2 pm Tucson time. As expected last month it had drifted to noon, and is now at 10 am. The first warning for me is that the Leica stops re-initializing (the Leica does this automatically about every ten seconds). After a few minutes it takes much longer for a horizontal shot, and the vertical prediction drops. If I lose lock, it won't initialize for another hour.

My question for the GPS gurus is, how can there be a severe spike with 15 satellites in the sky, fairly spread out (both GPS and GNSS).

 
Posted : December 6, 2012 6:48 am
(@dougie)
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> My question for the GPS gurus is, how can there be a severe spike with 15 satellites in the sky, fairly spread out (both GPS and GNSS).

Solar flares?

I'm not a GPS guru, so I'm probably wrong.....:-S

 
Posted : December 6, 2012 7:03 am
(@roadhand)
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> The first warning for me is that the Leica stops re-initializing

[sarcasm]Ever since Trimble bought the Sun you will continue to have these problems until you purchase a solar flare deflection upgrade warranty[/sarcasm] :whistle:

 
Posted : December 6, 2012 7:40 am
(@stephen-johnson)
Posts: 2342
 

> Two months ago there was a severe spike around 2 pm Tucson time. As expected last month it had drifted to noon, and is now at 10 am. The first warning for me is that the Leica stops re-initializing (the Leica does this automatically about every ten seconds). After a few minutes it takes much longer for a horizontal shot, and the vertical prediction drops. If I lose lock, it won't initialize for another hour.
>
> My question for the GPS gurus is, how can there be a severe spike with 15 satellites in the sky, fairly spread out (both GPS and GNSS).

Have you checked your Space Weather lately? A couple of months ago we were getting bad data at certain times of the day, coinciding with the same time you mentioned. There were bad x-ray spikes at that time of day for about an hour to 2 hours.

B-)

 
Posted : December 6, 2012 7:43 am
(@dougie)
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According to Stan Deyo, in 2009

We are coming into a peak couple of years.....

 
Posted : December 6, 2012 8:10 am
(@norman-oklahoma)
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> My question for the GPS gurus is, how can there be a severe spike with 15 satellites in the sky...
Tedd would be able to explain more clearly than I can if he were here, sheeple. What we have here is clear evidence that government satellites are targeting Tucson with xray beams.

Seriously, I was given to understand that the Russians had recently applied a leap second to GLONASS which was not applied to GPS. This can cause some irregularies in initializations, which the latest firmware updates should fix. So it could be just a glitch in the software.

FWIW, space weather seems to be relatively benign right now.

 
Posted : December 6, 2012 8:40 am
(@bruce-small)
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I had considered the possibility it could be software related since I have not updated in several years, but I just hate to send the unit in for new firmware, partly because of the cost, but mostly because they re-set all of my favorite settings. I guess I better get it done. Better than losing an hour every day.

 
Posted : December 6, 2012 9:20 am
(@deleted-user)
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You can save ALL of the settings to your memory card, makes life easier!

SHG

 
Posted : December 6, 2012 9:37 am
(@scott-mclain)
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>
> [sarcasm]Ever since Trimble bought the Sun you will continue to have these problems until you purchase a solar flare deflection upgrade warranty[/sarcasm]
😀 :good:

[sarcasm]Could have been worse, Autodesk could have bought it and we would all have to pay for a new seat each year even though the old one still worked.[/sarcasm]

 
Posted : December 6, 2012 9:48 am
 RFB
(@rfb)
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> My question for the GPS gurus is, how can there be a severe spike with 15 satellites in the sky, fairly spread out (both GPS and GNSS).

Back when I used the System 300, occasionally I'd get 10 or even 11 satellites in view, this always took longer to fix, so I would raise the elevation mask, to knock out a few birds, and it would quickly fix every time.

It seemed that the software had too much calculating to do, with so many satellites.

Just a thought.

 
Posted : December 6, 2012 10:05 am
(@sat-al)
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Yeah, most likely firmware or some setting.

Space weather/solar flares is not the problem.

Constellation is great.

There is no PDOP spike with 15 satellites.

> I had considered the possibility it could be software related since I have not updated in several years, but I just hate to send the unit in for new firmware, partly because of the cost, but mostly because they re-set all of my favorite settings. I guess I better get it done. Better than losing an hour every day.

 
Posted : December 6, 2012 2:49 pm
(@bruce-small)
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Firmware

I had not realized my firmware was over five years out of date. That just might explain it. Worth the $900, easily. The units go off tomorrow. Thanks for the advice, guys.

 
Posted : December 6, 2012 6:31 pm