[dorset_treg]

Anybody else had problems with Sat nav getting confused? Trying to find our way out of Nottingham on saturday. Couldn't remember myself as a few years since I was last there so thought would rely on trusty sat nav. Got well confused and kept telling me I was off road in the middle of Nottingham!!

Eventually got it's knickers untwisted after a couple of attempts, none of the roads were new so should be in the database, is this a fault or just a glitch in the system?? :think:

 

[pilgrim]

The sat/nav does sometimes get confused and sometimes the US military divert the system or shut it down, for their own reasons!!! If this happens there is not much you can do. If its software glitch shut everything down and restart it will take a few minutes to lock on to the satellites if that does not work remove the disk and reinsert this will flash up the memory and all should be OK. If all fails get the maps out

 

[Mark II]

As Pilgrim said, your experience sounds like a technical glitch but it doesn't help that the mapping on most disks is way out of date to start with.

I used to have occasional problems with mine but having replaced my 2004 disk with one of the 2006 TMC enabled disks Meld3 was selling I have to say the probs have disappeared - IMO thanks to more up to date mapping

Cheers Meld

 

[Robert2006]

the US military divert the system or shut it down, for their own reasons!!!

What are they planning in Nottingham :w00t: .

Must be checking out which Naval base should stay open and have diverted to Plymouth and Portsmouth to have another look.

 

[BJS]

and sometimes the US military divert the system or shut it down, for their own reasons!!!

The US do not turn off GPS. The nearest was that they used to introduce errors deliberately, called Selective Availability (SA), which was turned off in May 2000. All that did was make the system not as accurate as it could be, so that it couldn't be used to guide missiles etc for other countries.

If they did, you'd have commercial aircraft, commercial boats, and pleasure boats, all hollering to high heaven, as they use it all the time.

The EU will be launching a new GPS equivalent satellite system, so the paranoid will no longer have to be in the hands of the US military.

 

[pilgrim]

Yes you are right but they sometimes reduce the number of satellites available this causes some of the problems. The codification of the signals can also give the effect of not available on some systems. The European system goes under the name of Galileo but will be available in a couple of years allegedly, its run by IMARSAT.