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Navigation, gps not working in Washington DC area

6756 Views 6 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  donlibes
Just came back from a trip to Virginia Beach, VA from NJ, and heading there by Dover Deleware right by Dover AFB, the navigation unit would not pick up the satellite any more. This continued all the way to Norfolk, VA. So I thought the navigation unit died. But on the way back, satellite came back with 3 green bars just past north of Dover AFB. Does any one know of any jamming? or had similar experiences??
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During the Gulf War, the government played with GPS a little to make things more difficult for someone with, shall we say, less than honorable intentions.

At this point, it wouldn't at all surprise me to find that GPS is being messed with for a 200-300 mile diameter around DC.
The Gulf War was over 10 years ago. Today, GPS works just fine in Washington DC. However, there is a strange force field in the area that makes politicians behave like idiots.

[This message has been edited by donlibes (edited 02-25-2002).]
Mine definately does not work there... Below is the actual path I took.

http://maps.yahoo.com/py/ddResults.py?Pyt=Tmap&tarname=&tardesc=&newname=&newdesc=&newHash=&newTHash=&newSts=&newTSts=&tlt=&tln=&slt=&sln=&newFL=Use+Address+Below&newaddr=&newcsz=D over%2C+DE&newcountry=us&newTFL=Use+Address+Below&newtaddr=&newtcsz=virginia+beach%2C+va&newtcountry=us&Submit=Get+Directions
In the past GPS's were not as accurate. The signal that civilians used had a randomly varying error to degrade the accuracy and limit its use by an enemy for military purposes. This was called selective availability (SA). SA was removed several years, I think it was April of 2000. The reason it was removed was that the military has developed methods to JAM the signal in localized areas. So if your GPS failed to work near a military area or other area demed critical by the military, then I suspect that the GPS signals were being JAMed.
As I said, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to find that GPS is being messed with in the DC area.
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by adam1991:
As I said, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to find that GPS is being messed with in the DC area.</font>
I drive on the DC beltway every day, my NAVI is always on and I have never had any problems with GPS.
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