Galileo (European GPS) id down

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by az_r2d1

Let's drop the chatter about Loran. It's a dinosaur and no longer needed.

You are correct when talking about Loran A & C. There has however been a fair amount of discussion within the military, commercial aviation, the Coast Guard, and other organizations about ELLoran, or Enhanced Loran. The concern is that GNSS, or Global Navigation Satellite Systems, are vulnerable to outages and their failure could have serious consequences that are unacceptable.

Congress has at various times stopped the dismantling of Loran stations and authorized, subject to available funding, the continued development of ELoran, most recently in December of 2018.

ELoran is compatible with Loran C receivers (possibly also with Loran A receivers, but I am not sure). It is viewed by the military, Coast Guard, and others as a back up for not just navigation, but also for timing. It uses a very different technology and solves at least one of the afore mentioned pillars of reliability.

As they said in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it's not quite dead yet.

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by az_r2d1

And you think they will just hand it out till the last drop ? At some point it's done except for critical needs, like a nuke plant.
boating? Use the sail !

That was exactly my point. They will not hand it out to things unless it serves an essential purpose.

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by ArmyDaveNY

There are at least three separate parts to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve (1 Million barrels), the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve, and the Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves. The systems has at best 150 days supply at their draw down maximums of 4.4 million barrels per day.

In a serious emergency, I am not sure that diesel would be available for recreational boating.

The good news is that for those with diesels, other forms of fuel can be used in lieu of diesel, with varying degrees of success.

The strategic reserve, which is crude oil stored in salt domes, is intended to get us through an oil shortage. Not a collapse of the power grid. It's unlikely the refineries could produce diesel without power and GPS timing for all their automated plant processes. There'd still be diesel in tanks, but pumping it out of those tanks would be a challenge.

All these technologies are interdependent. One goes down, the whole house of cards comes down.

Be thankful you have a sailboat. You could end up having the only functional form of transportation around - provided you know how to sail without an engine.

[a64pilot]

Guys, remember the millennium bug, how it was going to end civilization?
Do you think, just maybe loss of GPS timing signal might just be a little like that, or do you think people who installed super sophisticated systems didn’t plan on degraded operation?

The solar flares and the satellites, even back in the 1980’s every critical, even non critical Military systems were “tempest” hardened, EMP is pretty well known, if you know about solar flares, don’t you think maybe the satellite manufacturers were required to harden them against it?

Seems to now be widely available for anyone who wants it?
https://www.trustedsys.com/images/st...data-sheet.pdf

[Cpt Pat]

Just a 13 microsecond GPS timing error caused chaos in Europe:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35491962. We didn't see the effects here in the US because the problem got fixed before the "bad" satellites made it over the US.

"do you think people who installed super sophisticated systems didn’t plan on degraded operation? "

Answer: no. Why? Because it's cheaper to synchronize with GPS, the accuracy needed would otherwise require cesium or rubidium clocks ($$$) - all synchronized to each other - and mostly because the design engineers' bosses are just as asinine as everyone else who believes "GPS will always be there." What do you think happens when a design engineer says: "Boss, we'll need an extra $20,000 for a cesium clock and a protocol to interconnect all the other clocks in case GPS fails"? Answer: "Unless our competition is doing that, forget it." That's the reality of design engineering in private enterprise.

There is terrestrial network time protocol (NTP) as a backup, but that requires Internet connectivity, and in many cases it isn't as accurate as needed (less than 500 nanosecond errors). Typically, terrestrial NTP (not based on GPS) is only accurate to within 5 milliseconds (10,000 times less accurate).

It's disgusting, but the timing oscillators in many systems are as accurate as a cheap wind-up watch. Just deprive your computer of time synchronization and see how fast it drifts. And with cell services using time-domain multiple-access (TDMA) and "trunked" communications (like fire and emergency services) a very small amount of drift will shut it down.

"remember the millennium bug, how it was going to end civilization?"

(Actually, the "Y2K" bug.) I don't know anyone knowledgeable who said it would be that dire. Only the idiot press pandering to idiot viewers. But without a few tens of thousands of software coders fixing the problems, it would have been a real mess. Companies aren't in the habit of throwing a hundred million dollars at imaginary problems. It was real. It got fixed. You're welcome.

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

The strategic reserve, which is crude oil stored in salt domes, is intended to get us through an oil shortage. Not a collapse of the power grid. It's unlikely the refineries could produce diesel without power and GPS timing for all their automated plant processes. There'd still be diesel in tanks, but pumping it out of those tanks would be a challenge.

All these technologies are interdependent. One goes down, the whole house of cards comes down.

Be thankful you have a sailboat. You could end up having the only functional form of transportation around - provided you know how to sail without an engine.

Exactly! What production, if any, would go for critical needs. We're not going to get any.


They say that the mark of a good sailor is how well she or he can sail in light air. I first learned that when I was given a "free" boat. Two and a half hours into the trip, the engine died (in case you're wondering, I was given no time to check things out.) The winds never went above four knots. What should have been a five hour trip took seventeen hours, but eventually I got there I think I'd rather have ten knots of air and be called a crappy sailor!


You are right though about needing to know how to do it. There are a number of well known sailors who have sailed the world with no engine, perhaps none more so than the Pardeys. It is a valuable skill.


I was doing some research on sculling oars, and those in the know claim that one can use a sculling oar for boats up to sixty feet. That certainly meets a number of criteria of the pillars of reliability. I have to see if it is practical to get one for my boats.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by az_r2d1

I don't agree with your statistical approach. For one, the 3 (4/5 ??) systems are based on different levels of technology. Second, the solar flares will only affect sats/ground stations on the side of the earth that gets hit. The shielded side will be much less affected. So we at least have a partial system.
Third, the recent Galileo event shows they don't all go down at once. Fourth, Galileo is too new to be reliable at this point. The US system has been around decades longer. You think the US system never had issues ? They sure did when it was new. Today, hardly ever. and if it there is a problem, it won't last.
Commercial airliners do not rely on gps. They have routes at different altitudes. They're fine.

As for the fools who enter the oceans without the skills... well, who's fault is that?

+ on different points of technology, valid point imho


+ on the shaded side, I did not think till you said it aloud,


-/+ on gps in commercial aircraft, true when in range of radars,


Airlines would be OK over the continents, but lost on the intercontinental routes (?). They, unlike the military craft, do not have inertial systems onboard. And the currents (=the jet streams) up there - you know.


Old Ruskie subs had inertial systems too. Said to be the size of a room. Modern military inertial unit is about the size of a brick. I have seen one - commercial grade to err only 1 mile per each 1000 miles traveled. Someone told me it was onboard early 747 but retired later due to gps becoming the thing.


If only we could have them inertial things in boats!



Cheers,

b.

[az_r2d1]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

Just a 13 microsecond GPS timing error caused chaos in Europe:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35491962. We didn't see the effects here in the US because the problem got fixed before the "bad" satellites made it over the US.

"do you think people who installed super sophisticated systems didn’t plan on degraded operation? "

Answer: no. Why? Because it's cheaper to synchronize with GPS, the accuracy needed would otherwise require cesium or rubidium clocks ($$$) - all synchronized to each other - and mostly because the design engineers' bosses are just as asinine as everyone else who believes "GPS will always be there." What do you think happens when a design engineer says: "Boss, we'll need an extra $20,000 for a cesium clock and a protocol to interconnect all the other clocks in case GPS fails"? Answer: "Unless our competition is doing that, forget it." That's the reality of design engineering in private enterprise.

There is terrestrial network time protocol (NTP) as a backup, but that requires Internet connectivity, and in many cases it isn't as accurate as needed (less than 500 nanosecond errors). Typically, terrestrial NTP (not based on GPS) is only accurate to within 5 milliseconds (10,000 times less accurate).

It's disgusting, but the timing oscillators in many systems are as accurate as a cheap wind-up watch. Just deprive your computer of time synchronization and see how fast it drifts. And with cell services using time-domain multiple-access (TDMA) and "trunked" communications (like fire and emergency services) a very small amount of drift will shut it down.

"remember the millennium bug, how it was going to end civilization?"

(Actually, the "Y2K" bug.) I don't know anyone knowledgeable who said it would be that dire. Only the idiot press pandering to idiot viewers. But without a few tens of thousands of software coders fixing the problems, it would have been a real mess. Companies aren't in the habit of throwing a hundred million dollars at imaginary problems. It was real. It got fixed. You're welcome.

You're clueless, mate. Not only was this an excellent design, the satellites have been replaced over the years with newer even better designs. Solar flares will mess up things on earth, but these sats will still operate.
I've worked on gps and I've worked on Y2K nonsense. It was way way over hyped.

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by az_r2d1

I've worked on gps and I've worked on Y2K nonsense. It was way way over hyped.

Totally agree. The media hyped Y2K into a circus. Probably because the problem was easily explained and understood by technically ignorant reporters. They turned it into an impending Armageddon. It was just a minor software re-write. The hard part was finding old writers who could revise fortran and cobol. It was like trying to find native speakers of Latin. The software should have been fixed or replaced long before it became an issue. But that would have taken foresight and the willingness to spend a fraction of what was spent fixing it.


Left uncorrected, it would have been a mess, but it was so easily fixed by people who knew how, that it didn't deserve the press it got.

[az_r2d1]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

Totally agree. The media hyped Y2K into a circus. Probably because the problem was easily explained and understood by technically ignorant reporters. They turned it into an impending Armageddon. It was just a minor software re-write. The hard part was finding old writers who could revise fortran and cobol. It was like trying to find native speakers of Latin. The software should have been fixed long before it became an issue. But that would have taken foresight and the willingness to spend a fraction of what was spent fixing it.


Left uncorrected, it would have been a mess, but it was so easily fixed by people who knew how, that it didn't deserve the press it got.

Cobol programmers weren't THAT hard to find. I knew quite a few people who were ambushed in to come work on it. I did too. Believe it or not, there are still quite a few systems using Cobol and it's running just fine.
Now finding people who WANT to work Cobol is another matter. But there are plenty.

[crooks]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

His point of better reactors than water cooled is correct though.
We run water cooled because Rickover picked water cooled, it works, why blow money on testing something else.
Then Nuclear became a dirty word and no new ones can be built, but time will tell.
I do hope however that when we do build more. That they won’t be water cooled.

We are building nuclear in Georgia. With huge cost overruns.

They are having far more success with solar.

[JAFO]

Originally Posted by ArmyDaveNY

I was doing some research on sculling oars, and those in the know claim that one can use a sculling oar for boats up to sixty feet. That certainly meets a number of criteria of the pillars of reliability. I have to see if it is practical to get one for my boats.

Rather than bothering with a sculling oar, look into getting a yuloh instead. More efficient, and easier to use.


https://junkrigassociation.org/Resou...efficiency.pdf

[transmitterdan]

Cesium clocks are a bit more than $20,000 these days. Try 3-4 times that number. There are about 100 million precision GPS clocks in use in the US. Backing those up with cesium clocks would require up to 5 trillion dollars. Add in the rest of the world and you get a number that is about the entire planet GDP.

The problem is not “stupid people”. The problem is simple economics and physics.

[SeanPatrick]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

Richard Clarke's book describes how there are two types of people in risk management: foxes and hedgehogs. The hedgehogs have expertise in one field and try to apply that knowledge to everything. They are terrible at prediction because they tend to dig themselves so deep in their own field that they can't get out of their hole to look around. If I've learned anything in my field, it's not to argue with hedgehogs. It's pointless to try to change someone's fixed reality. What's lacking is curiosity and the ability to suspend judgement. There's no way to "connect."

...So, what does the fox say?


Sorry, I couldn't resist.

[barnakiel]

Reading Tolstoy early on does have a merit:


https://www.cio.com/article/3151060/...-or-a-fox.html


But reading other stuff, more recent, like say Taleb's Black Swan is to Tolstoy and Archilochus like understanding Newton's world to pretending we get what quantum physicists say.


So it is not so much that we got into an intellectual clinch or something. It takes some level of fluency in more than one field and some openness to being wrong or simply not having ready-made answers (yes).


And if you want to reason with people that BELIEVE then you are simply wasting your breath. Reason and statistics will not impress a believer. This has been statistically proven ...


Galileo tossing and turning in his grave.



Cheers,
b.