On November 3, GPS Rollover Could Affect Older Phones and GPS Device Accuracy

[Tipi Walter]

As long as my 2005 Nokia Tracfone keeps working I'm good to go---

It calls and texts---anything more and you're just playing with yourself.
Trip 192 (82)-XL.jpg

[jefals]

my Samsung Galaxy s5, google maps worked fine yesterday. it's now 12:25 AM on the 4th. brought up Guthook pct and hit the gps icon. it's jumping around a lot. it's got me jumping in different parts of my house, to next door, on the left, next door on the right, across the street, a little bit up the street.....
Definitely not good!

[jefals]

on 2nd thought, maybe I had it zoomed in to close. I gotta test it some more.

[psyculman]

Would this affect a Garmin ETrex, 7 yrs old? Which of course Garmin doesn't have anything to do with now. It has been really strange, tracking bread crums on the screen are zig-zaging wildly. Never had that problem before, even under heavy wet leaf, and "canyon" conditions. I do not use it on a regular basis, so am not sure when this started happening.

[jefals]

sounds kinda similar to what mine's doing. More noticeable the more I zoom in. I don't know, tho, that I've ever paid this close attention to it -- but I don't think it's ever done this before.
I record my training hikes, so I'll be able to give it a good test in the next couple of days...

[ldsailor]

Would this affect a Garmin ETrex, 7 yrs old? Which of course Garmin doesn't have anything to do with now. It has been really strange, tracking bread crums on the screen are zig-zaging wildly. Never had that problem before, even under heavy wet leaf, and "canyon" conditions. I do not use it on a regular basis, so am not sure when this started happening.

It could. Maybe Garmin can tell you even if they no longer support it. The documentation on the rollover indicated that not only phones will be affected but also older dedicated GPS devices if the firmware was not updatable.

[Night Train]

This thread received way more traffic than expected.

[jefals]

This thread received way more traffic than expected.

Funny. Since right now is when the effects of this rollover are supposed to happen, I would have expected to see more traffic here, as folks are testing and reporting how their phones /tracking devices are working.
Probly just not that many of us left with the older phones, tho, I reckon...

[Crossup]

You are not going to see more effects. I presume because it had a number of web links my earlier post got deleted. In that post I explained the way GPS processes the various components of the GPS signal and how UTC time data is involved.
Long story short the way GPS works, the only effect you could see from the rollover is errors in the GPS UTC time data- which is separate from the info processed for position. So only things that access the UTC time via GPS could be affected. But even that is robust enough it would take some monumentally stupid programming to not have any mechanism to cope with rollover.

My Samsung S4 still works fine using Guthooks with the last software update in 2016.
My 10 year old Garmin works fine.
Those above saying the GPS is jumping around are apparently not aware GPS is only accurate to about 30', when you get a more stable or accurate fix its more happenstance than capability and on phones the accuracy can be augmented by cell data is you are connected.

Just more hype and yet another opportunity for Verizon et al to scare up more sales. Y2K all over again, some people never learn.

[jefals]

You are not going to see more effects. I presume because it had a number of web links my earlier post got deleted. In that post I explained the way GPS processes the various components of the GPS signal and how UTC time data is involved.
Long story short the way GPS works, the only effect you could see from the rollover is errors in the GPS UTC time data- which is separate from the info processed for position. So only things that access the UTC time via GPS could be affected. But even that is robust enough it would take some monumentally stupid programming to not have any mechanism to cope with rollover.

My Samsung S4 still works fine using Guthooks with the last software update in 2016.
My 10 year old Garmin works fine.
Those above saying the GPS is jumping around are apparently not aware GPS is only accurate to about 30', when you get a more stable or accurate fix its more happenstance than capability and on phones the accuracy can be augmented by cell data is you are connected.

Just more hype and yet another opportunity for Verizon et al to scare up more sales. Y2K all over again, some people never learn.

So, why is it my galaxy s5 and my friend's apple 6. Sitting next to each other, we bring up google maps and hit the gps button. My map is circling around the blue dot, hers is rock steady.
~~~
btw, y2k was not just hype. Companies, governments, other organizations spent about 100 billion , starting around 1995, to insure that when 2000 rolled around, they'd be good to go. That's the reason massive problems didn't materialize