By DariaBlackwell - 17 Sep 2013
I had read warnings about possible GPS malfunction in 2013 due to solar flares and malfunctioning satellites. In Scotland this year, we experienced anomalies twice, both times the gps dropping out and failing to acquire then "zig-zag stitching" a track together which we definitely did not sail. Back in Ireland, as we were anchoring a similar thing happened.
Last week, coming out of Clew Bay, the differential was off and the GPS kept going on and off until it failed altogether. The chartplotter was on but there was no track, heading or speed. While Alex tried to jiggle wiring thinking it had just disconnected, then gave up and went to turn on the backup GPS, it suddenly went live with differential. We checked and noticed that 4 satellites were out of commission but we had acquired five.
Then I saw an article in the economist about gps interference.
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I thought I 'd post our photos of the anomalies here and see if anyone else has experienced anything similar.
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