Paper Charts or Just Electronic

[CassidyNZ]

Originally Posted by StuM

If US DOD play around with it, there's still Beidou, Glonass, Galileo ...

Sorry, my intellect only stretches to one system at a time and right now that’s good ole GPS

[CassidyNZ]

Originally Posted by StuM

If US DOD play around with it, there's still Beidou, Glonass, Galileo ...

So now that you have prodded the ogre, who can tell me the practical ways that a person who uses Apple devices for navigation can use to access any of these new apparently GPS-killer systems.

Just a quick bit of research on the net already has me wondering how my Garmin bits and Apple devices use any of these systems.

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by CassidyNZ

So now that you have prodded the ogre, who can tell me the practical ways that a person who uses Apple devices for navigation can use to access any of these new apparently GPS-killer systems.

Just a quick bit of research on the net already has me wondering how my Garmin bits and Apple devices use any of these systems.

Redundancy

Get rid of apple or at least get a secondary non apple system that will very likely end up a primary system.

[CassidyNZ]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

Redundancy

Get rid of apple or at least get a secondary non apple system that will very likely end up a primary system.

OK, so tell me how, with devices other than Apple, I can access these other location systems to a point where I can navigate with them.

[Simi 60]

Any shitty non apple laptop, I have a cq41 Compaq single core dinosaur plugged into a big monitor.
Open cpn, cm93, kap files
$12 USB puck
Navigate the world

[StuM]

Originally Posted by CassidyNZ

OK, so tell me how, with devices other than Apple, I can access these other location systems to a point where I can navigate with them.

This is one app on my cheapo Android phone which also has Navionics on it. Can do the same with a tablet.

[requiem]

iPhone 8 and above should support Galileo; I'd need to check on the other types of iDevices as well. IIRC there was some silliness about them self-disabling within the US, but outside US waters you should be good. Again, something to check.

As to GPS, a proper GPS compass should be quite accurate, but that's quite different (i.e. using multiple GPR receivers) from what your basic chartplotter will do. As others mentioned, having a course vector displayed is a very effective way of seeing what the currents are doing.

[requiem]

Originally Posted by CassidyNZ

Anyone who seriously believes that GPS can suddenly disappear should consider what would happen to other systems using it. Like airliners and commercial shipping.

You may recall the recent case where it went away in the Black Sea? Commercial shipping carried on just fine because ECDIS systems aren't tied at the hip to GPS (and some had paper charts). This also is an argument for ensuring your plotting tools can be used effectively in dead reckoning mode.

Yes, it's a critical system that could result in a great many problems, but that's why there are fallback options. Another example is truckers buying GPS jammers to fudge their tracking; it's apparently caused a few issues near airports.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by CassidyNZ

.....
Anyone who seriously believes that GPS can suddenly disappear should consider what would happen to other systems using it. Like airliners and commercial shipping. If it is switched off, a lot of people are going to die. Any GPS logs onto up to 12 satellites at any time. If six of them failed simultaneously you would still get a fix 10 times as accurate as with sight reduction. At the very worst, the owners of the constellation (US DoD) may re-introduce selective availability, especially in areas adjacent to war zones. So then your position could be off by 50 metres. But disappear? No chance.
.....

If GPS goes Kaput, I won’t worry about the airliners unless I or my immediate family are one, I’ll have enough of my own problems to worry about.

Believing that there is no chance that GPS will go down in you lifetime is incorrect, there is a very small chance of it happening. Ignoring that small possibility is not unreasonable but expecting all others to do so is.

[barnakiel]

Android devices started supporting glonass ages ago, I think at least for 10 years now. All the Android phones and tablets we have onboard do. Beidou support came about 5 years ago, I think. Our Samsung phones do (old phones, maybe 2010 or like that)).



Only very recent (2018+) models of Android devices support Galileo though. Still, great many already do. All new smarthones do, fewer tablets. EU agency has a website where you can check out if your device is galileo able.


NOTE: The hardware being able NOT = the software being able. If you play with any app, you will quickly find few use glonass or beidou and I am yet to find any marine app that uses Galileo!!!


Surprisingly, all new EU cars do! And not just navigation but also the SAR function of Galileo!!!


So much for "new marine APP" threads. ;-(



Cheers,
b.

[CassidyNZ]

Originally Posted by StuM

This is one app on my cheapo Android phone which also has Navionics on it. Can do the same with a tablet.

So it doesn’t run under Navionics? What is your app called? And which of the alternate positioning systems are you using with it?

@ Simi60: I surely don’t want to step back to a laptop in the cockpit and a plotter down below is really stepping back.

[requiem]

Originally Posted by CassidyNZ

OK, so tell me how, with devices other than Apple, I can access these other location systems to a point where I can navigate with them.

Devices that support Galileo should make use of it when outside the US. You can find out which devices support it here: https://www.usegalileo.eu/EN/inner.html#data=smartphone

Within the US, your device may or may not use it. This is because it wasn't until last November that the FCC issued a waiver allowing its use within the US. However, until the manufacturer provides an update to enable it, it may not work.

For Android devices you can find an app that will tell you which satellites are contributing to your location data: https://www.gsa.europa.eu/newsroom/n...on-performance

[CassidyNZ]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Believing that there is no chance that GPS will go down in you lifetime is incorrect, there is a very small chance of it happening.

How small (say as a %) and by whose estimate? You’re talking about 20 or more satellites going feral simultaneously. Really?

Is it fair to say that there is a better chance of Donald Trump pushing the nuke button than GPS going belly-up?

Whatever the case, it’s really not something sailors should spend time worrying about. I know I don’t.

[Jim Cate]

Well, there is the small chance of a solar flare of sufficient intensity to wipe out ALL the satellites from ALL the systems. Not impossible, but I seldom wake up worrying about it... and I wouldn't be paralyzed if it did (at least navigationally).

Jim

[CassidyNZ]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

NOTE: The hardware being able NOT = the software being able. If you play with any app, you will quickly find few use glonass or beidou and I am yet to find any marine app that uses Galileo

That’s exactly what I thought. It’s one thing to get another location system working on a device, it’s another thing entirely getting that location system to talk to any navigation system used by sailors. What works for taxis roaming around Moscow or hikers tramping through the backwaters in China does not necessarily work for sailors at sea. And the failure of the system is way more dire for us.

StuM appears to suggest that there is a navigation tool on his Android device but as yet it remains unidentified. See, I am unable to verify any other system that even comes into the same universe as Navionics running under GPS on a tablet. The to-ing and fro-ing of anecdotal suggestions that we have choices appears to have little substance and frankly, has become a little boring.