GPS in China

External Since: Nov 13, 2003 Posts: 67

"cb" wrote in message

> You are obviously talking about the US GPS system. The Russians actually
> have their own GPS satellites and here in Silicon Valley you can actually
> buy handheld GPS units that have a switch to either use the US GPS
> satellites or the Russian. At one point in time, the US system was
limiting
> the accurary of the system for security reasons while the Russians had no
> such restrictions and so some people preferred the Russian system. I'm not
> sure if this disparity still exists.

The Soviet/Russian system is called "GLONASS"; it did have
its own "selective availability" degradation for a while, but I
believe both systems have moved past that now. The chief
differences that I have been able to uncover with a little research
was that GLONASS tended to be a bit more available in high
latitudes (above 50 deg. N), but currently isn't quite up to the
accuracy of GPS. Also, there was at least a time when the
Russian government was looking for some help with the funding
to keep the whole system running; it's not cheap to maintain, and
of course they're a bit strapped for cash these days.

Bob M.

External Since: Jul 02, 2003 Posts: 5

Correct, and GLONASS stands for GLObal NAvigation Satellite System. A quick
GOOGLE search yields a lot of interesting information including GPS vs
GLONASS comparisons.

"Bob Myers" wrote in message

>

  > > You are obviously talking about the US GPS system. The Russians actually
  > > have their own GPS satellites and here in Silicon Valley you can
actually
  > > buy handheld GPS units that have a switch to either use the US GPS
  > > satellites or the Russian. At one point in time, the US system was
> limiting
  > > the accurary of the system for security reasons while the Russians had
no
  > > such restrictions and so some people preferred the Russian system. I'm
not
  > > sure if this disparity still exists.
>
>
> The Soviet/Russian system is called "GLONASS"; it did have
> its own "selective availability" degradation for a while, but I
> believe both systems have moved past that now. The chief
> differences that I have been able to uncover with a little research
> was that GLONASS tended to be a bit more available in high
> latitudes (above 50 deg. N), but currently isn't quite up to the
> accuracy of GPS. Also, there was at least a time when the
> Russian government was looking for some help with the funding
> to keep the whole system running; it's not cheap to maintain, and
> of course they're a bit strapped for cash these days.
>
> Bob M.
>
>