GPS reviews, news, tips, tricks and deals
photo by Discovery News
If you live in Alaska, Canada or some of the far northern states of the US, then you may have noticed some spectacular lights in the sky on St. Patrick’s Day and maybe even some yesterday night, depending on where you live. Well, as it turns out the Earth was recently hit with a huge coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun which has resulted in the biggest solar storm in the last 11 years. read more
This week in GPS is a weekly link roundup of (mostly) GPS related odds and ends, from GPS Tracklog and other places around the Web. This week’s featured image is the corrected orbit of the second satellite that was stranded by a malfunction last August. The satellite is now in a better orbit, and recently was found to be fit and functioning properly.
Here are some other things happening this week in the world of GPS: read more
Hiding your first geocache can be a pretty exciting thing, but it isn’t as simple as just stuffing a tupperware container under a log and calling it a day. There are plenty of things you need to consider, and geocaching.com recently released reworked their Hiding a Geocache page with some fantastic information designed to help new geocachers hide caches successfully and responsibly.
Here are some of the main things that you should consider when hiding a geocache: read more
So, apparently someone at GPS City is a little disorganized. I was a little surprised not to get any kind of promotion yesterday, but didn’t really dwell on it. However, when I checked my email this morning, lo and behold! A St. Patrick’s Day sale advertised in an email sent at around 8 p.m. last night. Cutting it a little close there, guys!
Anyway, I thought I’d share the deals with you. They are pretty much all focused on golfing to “get your green on.” The email didn’t list an end date, but the deals are still good as of this morning. Here are some of the savings: read more
If you are one of those people who enjoys a daily run or bike ride, then it can sometimes be easy to get caught in a rut and simply take the same path you always do. After all, it can be hard to find good trails and routes sometimes, and it can be tempting to just stick with what you already know.
Well, the popular fitness tracking company Strava recently introduced a new interactive map that is designed to help you explore new trails and areas and find popular routes you might not otherwise know about. Called the Strava Heatmap, this pretty nifty-looking interactive map uses GPS track data from around 160 million rides and runs to determine the most popular areas.
It looks pretty cool too. read more
In August of last year, two Galileo satellites were launched and due to a malfunction of the rocket, missed the intended orbit by several thousand miles, leaving the two satellites stranded in incorrect elliptical orbits. This mistake caused quite an uproar and all other Galileo launches for 2014 were cancelled.
At the end of November, one of the two satellites executed a series of maneuvers to move to a more circular, usable orbit and was successful. The satellite is now transmitting usable signals, and the European Space Agency (ESA) has been working towards maneuvering the second wayward satellite to a better, more usable orbit since January 15, 2015. read more
Late in January, TomTom announced innovation that would allow it to collect user location data and analyze it in order to provide maps that would be updated for accuracy daily. However, with all of the recent privacy issues around the world, many people have begun to express concern about exactly what TomTom is going to be doing with this sensitive information. read more
We’ve talked some about GPS jamming and the problems that it can cause several times in this blog. While it doesn’t directly effect that kind of things that most of you use GPS for, it is still something to be aware of, as jamming is undoubtedly the biggest threat to the safe use of GPS. And, unfortunately, jamming a GPS signal is not only easy, but can be incredibly destructive and dangerous as more and more systems rely on correct GPS signals and information in order to function. read more
This week in GPS is a weekly link roundup of (mostly) GPS related odds and ends, from GPS Tracklog and other places around the Web. This week’s featured image is in celebration of Pi Day, which is tomorrow! Geocachers can earn two new souvenirs on Saturday by completing two simple tasks. Scroll down for more info and for some other things that happened this week in the world of GPS:
The Indian Space Agency has had some minor setbacks in the deployment of the most recent navigational satellite in the Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) constellation. Originally set to launch on Monday, March 9, the satellite was discovered to have a malfunction on March 4 and the launch had to be delayed. As of the time of writing, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said that it was attempting to determine how to best correct the error “with minimum effort” so that launch could be commenced. read more
