Re: New GPS comming soon/rumors?

From: PanEuropean (paneuropean_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 06/09/04 

Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2004 07:49:48 GMT

Gavin:

What's with all this high-falutin' discussion of CA, L5, dual frequency and
fancy technical stuff like that?

Everyone knows that what the world is waiting for is a GPSR with a
pushbutton on the top that immediately locates and routes the user to the
closest espresso joint. Doesn't matter if it uses a compass, flashlight,
and a map to do it. The only thing that would be better than that would be
a GPSR that actually dispenses espresso.

PanEuropean

"Gavin Scott" wrote:

> No rumors, but I can make an educated prediction or two. The first
> GPS satellite with the new second frequency CA channel is (was?) due
> to be launched about now. An even later generation of sats will add
> the "L5" frequency designed for aviation applications. It will still
> be several years before even the new CA channel is really practical
> to rely on.
>
> Sam and others have posted links here to documents describing this new
> plethora of frequencies that will be available for manufacturers to
> choose from, and these discussions have universally waxed poetically
> about how for this application one might choose this and that frequency
> while an entry level model might just use that one, etc.
>
> Each time I read this I start to giggle helplessly as I know what the
> GPS-buying public wants, which is of course "all mode all frequencies
> all-in-view all the time dammit". About 10 minutes after the first
> of the new CA supporting sats goes up I expect people here to start
> whining about wanting support for it in any new GPS they buy. The
> first consumer GPS company that can advertise their models as having
> a new "all frequency" receiver is going to clean up, even if the new
> capability really isn't all that useful for a few years.
>
> So, my prediction is that Garmin and/or Magellan or others will very
> shortly announce that they have a new "all frequency" receiver that
> will support at least the new CA frequency if not L5 as well. This
> will probably be available in the higher-end models initially (just
> to try to get people to buy a more expensive model than they otherwise
> would) but will eventually be standard across the entire product line.
>
> G.