EGNOS

[Wiggo]

Anyone know when this damned system is likely to go live? They've been promising it all year, and still nowt.

<hr width=100% size=1>Si hoc legere scis, nimium eruditionis habes.

 

[steve28]

im in cornwall and mine has been on for a few months as my raymarine now says it has a SD lock


steve

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[Wiggo]

What Raymarine, Steve? The info I had was that Raymarine would release the key combination for the RL series radar/plotters to enable EGNOS once it was fully available... I've emailed Raymarine and heard nowt back.

<hr width=100% size=1>Si hoc legere scis, nimium eruditionis habes.

 

[steve28]

raynav 300, they told me it was fully enabled when i phoned about a year ago.

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[Robin]

There are EGNOS signals being transmitted but still with gaps in transmission and accuracy questions too I believe whilst the system is on test. Tome is the poster that knows most about this. We have EGNOS on a Navman and can switch it on, last month when I tried it again it was still giving beeps for the occasional warning about lost signals, (enough to irritate so I turned it back to non-EGNOS. We too have a Raymarine EGNOS GPS (Aerial feeding a plotter) that will need new software to switch on the EGNOS when Raymarine decide it is OK to do so.

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>

 

[Wiggo]

yeah, just saw the rather patronising "We'll publish the key push sequence when we decide it's time" message from Raymarine.

<hr width=100% size=1>Si hoc legere scis, nimium eruditionis habes.

 

[hightech]

Egnos is active and live, but is technically not released for general use.

What this basically means is that they are running all kinds of tests and cannot guarantee the data you get out.

Recently it went into a major test phase with lots of deliberately duff data being spewed out. The net result is that if your unit is in an active egnos mode then it can and probably will give bad errors or lock the unit up.

They have no obligation to notify anyone of their testing as the system is not officially active. so either take special care of the fix you get or better still deactivate until it gets fully approved and switched on.

One of the reasons behind why it is taking so long is that the system can be used for height aiding aircraft and until they can prove the data is correct they will not get FAA or CAA approvals (most marine sets can discard the error)

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[BrendanS]

It's hardly active and live (people will read your first line, then skip the rest) . There has been huge slippage from their planned live date to now sometime in 2005, and full functionality in 2006.

Our resident expert is off at the moment, but even he was unable to get any sensible answers from the Egnos team as to current planned availability. Best advice is to turn off Egnos/Wass capability on GPS systems until it is stable, as it could cause problems

<hr width=100% size=1>Me transmitte sursum, caledoni

 

[steve28]

EGNOS will start operations in 2005 for the general public while it is planned to have the signal certified for safety-of-life use in 2006. In the meantime, a test signal, broadcast by two Inmarsat satellites, allows potential users to acquaint themselves with the facility and test its usefulness. Some of the current applications of EGNOS include minimising traffic congestion, maritime navigation and indoor positioning for firefighters.


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[steve28]

It looks as if the EGNOS system is valid to be used for correcting GPS signals, but until April 2004 there is no guarantee as to the availability of these signals.



If the EGNOS data is available then it will refine your positional data and potentially refine your position to within 1 to 2 metres. However, until 2004, you must not rely on EGNOS data being available.


this info was take from the website so take it as you will.

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[bob_tyler]

May I suggest that, as on so many other sites, they have not recently looked at it themselves or bothered to update it.

Possibly for 2004 read 2006?

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[Oldhand]

Look here: http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/egnos/estb/schedule.htm


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[BrendanS]

but nothing new there? 'Q1 2005' 'Estimated' 'planned'

so they've shifted the date several months again, but no actual firm go live dates

<hr width=100% size=1>Me transmitte sursum, caledoni

 

[Nauti Fox]

Why would you want to put Egnog in yer plotter?

<hr width=100% size=1>No dear,the water goes in the other one.

 

[tome]

I've asked for an update from ESA and also via RIN, but am not holding my breath. We have a static antenna here at my office with a surveyed position and did some tests last month. With EGNOS enabled, we were seeing a lot of noise and satellite switching. It was degrading rather than improving the position solution. I'd advise against enabling it until they declare it operational.

At the moment they are in the ESTB (EGNOS system test bed) phase.

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[Oldhand]

I sometimes run a program called VisualGPS when the boat is moored and have also found acuuracy to be considerably improved with EGNOS swithced OFF. It seems they are having problems making it work properly.

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[tome]

I think it's a deliberate part of the testing regime. They have to make it fail-safe for critical applications, which means detecting any error in GPS sats or EGNOS within 6 seconds. I suspect that what we have both observed is part of this integrity verification.

I would certainly recommend that people keep EGNOS disabled for now.

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