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Natsu

Why does this make me wonder if something is going on with GPS due to the war in Ukraine?

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EDIT: the following is incorrect per a reply below. Will leave the original comment below.

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That was going to be my hypothesis. GPS resolution can be reduced in a conflict area.

I'll defer to someone with actual knowledge to add more info. :)

I believe the government promised not to ever reduce GPS resolution some 15 years ago, and new satellites supposedly do not even have the ability to do so.

Oh my sweet summer child.

I am old enough to recall when they did so post-9/11.

The US government would never give up such a capability, that would be out of character for them. But they would sure as hell pretend like they did, which is very much in character.

I think they would. There's at least 3 fully operational GPS alternatives, there's no reason to have this capability anymore. Some receivers will combine all of these systems.

All these systems are rigged to jam and spoof at the push of a button I expect.

They are owned by: China, Russia, India, Europe and Japan.

There was a specific technical capability that they used to reserve the right to use, and I believe they no longer need to use that capability. Obviously this would only be the case if they have some alternative capability. But I forget the name of the feature so I am having trouble looking up sources. I obviously do not take the government at its word, but I can believe that a technical capability developed in the 1980's might no longer be the most useful counter measure. Especially since there are now 5 GNSS constellation systems, with GPS only being one of them, and low cost off the shelf receivers can read all of them.

Years ago a government promise and .25 cents could get you a phone call. Today you won't even get the phone call.

TIL, apologies for the misinformation! Will correct my comment if it's still in the edit window

Reduction of GPS Resolution is limited to specific areas, it can be targeted. If they are doing it (probably are in Ukraine) then it only affects some areas. You can also bypass that restriction if you have the right military keys (read: Ukraine).

And your systems actually support decryption and entering the said keys.

You might be surprised what proportion of the hardware that operates in Ukraine (from both sides) is using civillian grade GPS receivers (i.e. almost anything with a price tag of less than 1M USD).

Yeah, that is what my (perhaps outdated?) understanding was.

What is said is the current capabilities. All other GNS systems have the same capabilities (though European GNS Galileo has some more modern features and the Soviet one is a bit of a shitshow)

This submission is worrying me a bit, my company's product depends on GPS+GLONASS with RTK assistance at high latitudes for high accuracy high frequency positioning.

The NTRIP RTK services we use just provides assistance for GPS+GLONASS, no Galileo or BeiDou. GLONASS is crucial because the satellite orbits are more visible at high latitudes providing better reception. Still, RTK should help cope with this problem but I might have to check last week's collections.

From the linked reddit thread:

>Does this happen when you're not using Glonass? I wonder if Russia has been 'tweeking' it.

>I've switched to Galileo and the problem is FIXED.

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