Navigation, gps not working in Washington DC area

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>

Click to expand...

I drive on the DC beltway every day, my NAVI is always on and I have never had any problems with GPS.