How many satellites can you see?
During our engineering project Wade and I noted that our GPS receiver was capable of tracking up to 12 satellites simultaneously, as compared to some GPS receivers which could track up to 20. In most of our field tests the best we achieved was about half a dozen (at the time read from my Magellan 315 - not directly from the receiver). Well on top of Cradle Mountain (~1550m AMSL) I was consistently receiving data from 9 different satellites - not bad! Possibly we could do a little better on a mountain range closer to the equator.
posted by Robert Ross @ 9:25 PM
2 Comments:
Wait a sec... there's 24 satellites (roughly) in the constellation... you reckon you'll get LOS to 20 of those from any particular point on the Earth?
At the moment ( Jan 2007) it is about 29
satellites. There are receivers that will track 20 satellites (eg here).
My theory is that to avoid downtime new satellites are launched before the old ones are decommissioned - leading to a greater net number of satellites. Once again possibly closer to the equator (than Tasmania - which is closer to the pole) one could pick up more of those satellites - but I wouldn't imagine 20 - Possibly this is was to future proof the product in case heaps of extra satellites were added?
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