Solar flare may disrupt GPS

[k4kyv]

On Thursday, the sun unleashed a massive solar flare...

In 2006, research from Cornell University proved that solar flares can cause GPS devices to lose signal. This can cause these devices to temporarily misrepresent your location or otherwise malfunction.

A small error in this article is typical of how the non-technical media nearly always screw up when reporting on something involving science or engineering:

(CNN) -- We're the peak of the 11-year solar cycle, so double-check your GPS, and watch where you're going.

We are not at the peak of the new solar cycle. In fact, we're just barely into it, and so far it has been sputtering and gasping for life much like our alleged economic "recovery".

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/08/05/solar.flare.gps/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29

[AJ1G]

Yesterday's flare apperaed to completely take out 40M around 8:30 EDT last night, about 10 minutes later, some very fluttery signals started building up in signal strength.  Some remained very fluttery even when at S9 levels as the recovery progressed.  spaceweather.com reported the Kp was up as high as 8.  Must have been good auroral scatter on VHF.

[W1AEX]

Thanks for the link to the article Don. Your comments regarding factual errors brought a smile to my face. It's always fun to read "technical" articles written by so-called "technical savvy" reporters or writers who portray themselves as experts. They often fall all over themselves with tech-speak and nonsense that reveals that they might know a few buzz words but they have no clue what they're talking about. Kinda like the amazing explanation of how the internet works by the late Senator Ted Stevens (The internet is a series of tubes...)

Imagine all the unknowing who still believe everything they see on the news and read on the internet...

:O)

Rob W1AEX

[W2VW]

tubes...)

Imagine all the unknowing who still believe everything they see on the news and read on the internet...

:O)

Rob W1AEX

Thanks Bob,

You have just crushed what little is left of my youth.

[W7TFO]

If the solar flares don't screw up the GPS net, the junk from Lightsquared will.

Right on that broadband bandwagon ride into radio Hell.

HF AM  HF AM  HF AM.

73DG

[flintstone mop]

OK that would explain 40M very weird sounding FRIDAY night around 7PM.

[kb3ouk]

the reporters and writers probably don't care if they got their facts rights, since about less than one percent of the population is really going to know or care about what they are talking about. more than half the people who did take the time to read the article pobably have no idea what a solar flare is or could figure out why and how it would cause a GPS not to work, or let alone know what exactly the solar cycle is. especially any younger people, the only things they want to worry about in schools anymore is teaching the kids just enough information to get them to pass the tests at the end of the year so that the school can get more money from the state. the only things that got drilled into my head in school were math and reading, anything else might as well be nonexistant.

[Tom WA3KLR]

Perhaps the GPS system will place Washington D.C. in Liberty Corner, New Jersey, or vice-versa.

[k4kyv]

Perhaps the GPS system will place Washington D.C. in Liberty Corner, New Jersey, or vice-versa.

You mean Liberty Or?   

[K9PNP]

Don:  You referenced CNN.  Nuff said on reliability.

[ve6pg]

   BUNK..


   ..sk..

[k4kyv]

Don:  You referenced CNN.  Nuff said on reliability.

FOX, CNN, MSNBC, PRAVDA, take your pick: somebody's "agenda", propaganda blended in between endless blocs of stupid commercials, waste of time.

About every time a newspaper has reported an event with which I happened to be familiar, I have been amazed at how badly they screwed up the details.  Example: an article on radio communications I saw several years ago, where they referred to SSB as "single-sidebar". 

[WU2D]

So who makes a SKED at 9PM Friday night? - Your's Truly GEEEZ. I tried to work my buddy in Atlanta on 40M who complained that he yelled for 15 minutes into dead ether. Of course I picked Saturday morning to test my new Mobile antenna on the AM Military Net on 3885. Again It was a bust with NCS W3PWW Ted, talking to himself when I could hear him at all. Finally last night, the band started to sound more normal and I worked several stations coming home in the mobile.

Mike WU2D

[WD8BIL]

It's always fun to read "technical" articles written by so-called "technical savvy" reporters or writers who portray themselves as experts.

"Hi. I'm not a radio expert but I have played one on TV." 

[k4kyv]

About every time a newspaper has reported an event with which I happened to be familiar, I have been amazed at how badly they screwed up the details.  Example: an article on radio communications I saw several years ago, where they referred to SSB as "single-sidebar".  

Here's another good one I remember from back in the mid-70s during the CB boom. Jack Anderson (SK) a popular investigative journalist of that era, ran one of his weekly columns, titled "Hams Rule the Airwaves".

The gist of his article was that a couple hundred thousand hams enjoyed exclusive use of a wide range of radio frequencies throughout the HF spectrum, while millions of poor old CBers    were  limited to a small sliver of spectrum in the vicinity of 27 mc/s. This "unfair" and outrageous allocation of radio spectrum was allowed to continue, as a result of lobbying to the FCC and members of congress by a powerful amateur radio organisation known as the ARRL!