GPS.

This is coolbert:

This is so very apropos! The business section of the Chicago Tribune today has a long article on the Global Positioning System [GPS]. A military system of satellites that has had unexpected applications for the civilian market as well.

A system of 24 satellites in orbit, the first going into space in 1978, now to be upgraded with an entire "family" of 24 NEW updated "units", the new "family" having an even more impressive capability than did the original!!

"Business"

"Stellar upgrade due for GPS"

"24 new satellites to sharpen locating, triple available signals"

"Without it, ATM's could stop spitting out cash, Wall street might blunder billions of dollar in stock trades and clueless drivers would get lost."

"It's GPS, and it's everywhere."

"Now, scientists and engineers are developing an $8 billion GPS upgrade what will make the system more reliable, more widespread and more accurate."

"The new system is designed to pinpoint someone's location within an arm's length, compared with a margin of error of 20 feet or more today."

NO LESS than 1 billion GPS receivers are now in general usage!! I would think the vast majority of them in the hands of the lay public.

Comments:

* Over thirty years now since the first satellite of the GPS "constellation" has gone into orbit. And the system has proved to be extremely reliable, robust, very useful in ways not originally foreseen? Who says American can not make anything good anymore?

* The original GPS had an accuracy for civilian use, so I understand, of about thirty meters or so. MUCH more accurate for the military. AND WITH A SURVEYED RADIO TRANSMITTER AS AN ADDITIONAL SOURCE OF SIGNALS FOR GPS RECEIVERS, THE ACCURACY THAT COULD BE HAD WAS DOWN TO CENTIMETERS? What will be the degree of error now with the improved system?

* The Russians, Chinese, European community, etc., all have now or are planning their own GPS? American military users in time of war or emergency can scramble the U.S. GPS in a manner to make the system "unavailable" to hostile forces or opponents!

* There was talk too that the GPS suffered from a Y2K syndrome. The ten-bit "word" as used by GPS computers meant that in the year , the GPS would suffer a "melt-down". NOTHING OF SIGNIFICANCE [OR ANYTHING FOR THAT MATTER] HAPPENED!! Presumably whatever problem originally existed will be remedied with a new system in place.

"GPS technology will face not one but two critical rollover dates over the next eight months [1999]. One is the millennium (Y2K) rollover. The other is the GPS week 1024 rollover also known as the GPS End of the Week (EOW)."

coolbert.