Article about GPS disruption.

GPS Article

I'd mark that as "pending"; the topic has been discussed on several geeksites in the past couple of weeks.

LightSquared's position is that the interference is due to lack of selectivity on the GPS receivers, then it states that the tests were conducted at higher power than the proposed network. Preliminary consensus is that LightSquared's dog don't hunt.

As technology moves forward this type of problem is going to be more common. Because the government has a never ending desire for more of other peoples' money, they will find ways to get it. They "sell" frequencies ( or bandwidth) to companies for private use. This raises money for selling something they don't actually own. Ham radio operators have been fighting this battle for decades. The government has taken away bands and sold them for commercial use. Just another reason to love Washington DC.

The aviation guys are all cranked about this! The GPS is now the primary navigation system. The LS guys want to be licensed for satellite use on these freqs and intend to not just receive the sat info but be able to TRANSMIT on these bands from numerous land based locations. The power of these signals would essentially jam the weaker satellite signals and disrupt GPS receivers in the area.

LS says it's not their fault... the GPS units are at fault. Yet no known technology can "fix" the receivers.

several points:

LS will make money from this.
The gov will make money from this.
The amazing tax supported GPS system will be hobbled.
cell phones use GPS too.
The FCC (gov) is supposed to regulate the use of all bands for common good...

The AOPA and several other pilot groups are asking
the FAA for a ban on the use of LightSquared.

Recent tests have shown that it can disrupt the GPS systems on aircraft.

Since all of the nations commercial airlines fly by GPS navigation system connected to the flight computer and auto pilot, the results would be disastrous to allow such interference.

Capt Jim

Do not want to steal the thread, but Doug are you a ham? My dad is AF4CW and visiting us. Or anyone else interested in antenna builing and ham radios?

Marvin & Doris, I have been a Ham Radio Operator for 35 years. I don't get on as much as I used to, but I will be putting a rig in the Airstream. Right now that is somewhat low on the priority list though.