[aprssig] Anyone in Las Vegas - LightSquared Test To Begin Monday

[Mike Miller]

You got to love it! What happens to the enhanced 911 system that 
was forced on us that allows the dispatcher to pinpoint the 911 
callers location from the cellphone GPS? Something like 30% of 
the population doesn't have landline phones anymore! What 
happens to all the offenders released with GPS trackers? It is 
more than a few hams with APRS that will be inconvenienced.

<http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/may/14/testing-new-wireless-network-could-cause-gps-outag/>

"GPS is really nice, but we´ve got a backup," said Las Vegas 
Fire & Rescue spokesman Tim Szymanski. "We might be a little bit 
inconvenienced, but we´re not going to lose anything on the 
call."

Fire trucks and police cars are hooked with GPS units to help 
officers respond to distress calls, but it´s really just an 
added level of insurance that´s mostly for convenience, 
officials said.

"All of our officers know how to read a map," said Metro Police 
spokesman Bill Cassell. "They know how to look up an address, 
find that address on a map, and then drive to it ... and we even 
still know how to triangulate off of mountaintops and give 
aircraft cardinal bearings to help land search-and-rescue 
mission flights."

Mike kc9doa

On 15 May 2011 at 13:12, aprssig at k7ftp.net wrote:

> If anyone on the list is in Las Vegas/Boulder City, might want
> to go out
> between 23:00 and 05:00 and see what it does.
> 
> http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/may/14/testing-new-wireles
> s-network-cou
> ld-cause-gps-outag/
> 
> "A warning for night drivers: If your GPS navigator gives out
> on you this
> week, don't despair. What you're experiencing is only a test of
> the emerging
> broadband system.
> 
> Starting Monday, broadband developr LightSquared will start
> testing its
> planned 4G speed wireless network in the Las Vegas area. The
> test will run
> after midnight for several hours for 10 days, and if it works,
> Las Vegas
> could become one of the first U.S. cities to get on a
> super-high speed
> Internet grid that's independent of any particular service
> provider.
> 
> But if it fails, government agencies warn that it could
> compromise or even
> black out the GPS systems in the area, rendering temporarily
> useless
> everything from your car's navigator to the systems that allow
> airplanes to
> come in for a safe landing."
> 
> "Late last week, the Federal Aviation Administration alerted
> pilots that
> "the GPS signal may be unreliable or unavailable" within a
> nearly 300-mile
> radius of Boulder City, where the test transmitter will be
> located, from 11
> p.m. to 5 a.m. local time daily from Monday to May 27."
> 
> 
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