GPS Satellites not working

[Davey-T]

The European Galileo GPS satellite system seems to have stopped working.

Anyone know if this is used by telescope systems as my Meade couldn't get a fix yesterday.

Dave

[michael8554]

As I understand it, Galileo supplements the US, Russian, and Chinese GPS systems, so you should still get fixes. 

(I don't think this has anything to do with the April GPS Rollover problem, where you got fixes but the year was wrong) 

Michael 

[symmetal]

Only GPS receivers with hardware chipsets designed to receive Galileo can use it.  Most phones and some recent GPS receivers can receive Galileo alongside GPS (US) and GLONASS (Russia).

The receiver in your Meade Dave is very unlikely to be Galileo compatible.   Even for new ones I don't know whether Meade would bother implementing re-designed receivers unless the supply of old receiver chipsets dries up, as they would say the accuracy using just GPS is fine for what it's used for. 

Alan 

[Stu]

Seems the whole network is down, but I suspect it's unlikely that your Meade relies on it. Must use the US GPS as its primary source surely?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-48985399

[david_taurus83]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

Seems the whole network is down, but I suspect it's unlikely that your Meade relies on it. Must use the US GPS as its primary source surely?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-48985399

Yep, still down.

[Davey-T]

Worked OK last night so don't know what the cause was the night before, it didn't have any problems with the recent date bug thingy so haven't applied any fixes.

Do I recall that the actual unit has a button battery in it ?

Dave

[michael8554]

There is a button battery on the back of the mount control panel that helps retain some of the GPS ephemeris. 

But if you're back to getting quick fixes I wouldn't worry. 

Michael