Awe At Aldermaston

[+Mr'D]

This morning I was passing the AWE at Aldermaston, heading west towards a cache the other side of Brimpton Common.

 

I was navigating using Tomtom, which had for the whole morning behaved very well, as is usual.

 

However, for maybe 1/2 mile around the AWE, Tomtom struggled to capture a signal and the map was spinning, showing a route off road and behaving very erratically, although the signal reception was good, 6-7 sats (or 4/5 bars on TT.)

 

I cannot see how there could be a direct connection to the AWE, but has anyone else noticed this phenonema when in the area I wonder?

[+Moote]

Just a thought here; because of the work which is carried out there, maybe there is a localised jamming signal to help prevent GPSr guided missiles hitting somewhere more dangerous than say a housing estate.

[SlytherinAlex]

I cannot see how there could be a direct connection to the AWE, but has anyone else noticed this phenonema when in the area I wonder?

I was here once and saw sats go from 6 strong one down to zero.

 

Could be something to do with the military base a mile to the north east.

 

Alex.

[+kewfriend]

Strangely came across exactly the same phenomenon at Blagnac airport in Toulouse where Airbus is made - but this time it was the car's SATNAV that went haywire. A short stretch of perimeter road takens one past a large non-descript building. No idea what it's punching out but for 100 metres either side with all the sky above one - no signal. Which led me to think, the easiest way to track secret locations is to discover where one's GPS goes haywire.

[+Paul G0TLG]

There could be a simple answer to the Dewdrops' observation - TomTom behaves exactly as they describe if you're on a new road that the TomTom map doesn't know about. It happened to me a couple of weeks ago near Aldershot, and that was definitely because I was on new road.

[+Moote]

There could be a simple answer to the Dewdrops' observation - TomTom behaves exactly as they describe if you're on a new road that the TomTom map doesn't know about. It happened to me a couple of weeks ago near Aldershot, and that was definitely because I was on new road.

Strange you should say this though because I have witnessed similar around Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire as has another cacher, Not TomTom but GPS bottoms out. There was no reason other than I was close to A US/UK joint military listening base. I am very aware that GPSr jamming does happen around certain key locations, can't disclose why I'm aware but prepared to say it does happen in the UK

[+Mr'D]

TomTom behaves exactly as they describe if you're on a new road that the TomTom map doesn't know about

I agree, but the road I was on is long standing.

 

(Funnily enough, I went to Heathrow in the week and the new roads around T5 were on the map and had no problem?)

 

The resulting phenonema is similar to when travelling under tunnels (M25/Blackwall) - however, the difference is that I had a very good signal?

[+Learned Gerbil]

See the strange symptoms I logged at GC842B on 13 February 2004. Gave up with the GPS (the cache was unlikely to be at 12000 feet! Or moving that fast!) so simply plotted using the OS map on my Palm.

[+The Cache Hoppers]

Dewdrops:

I cannot see how there could be a direct connection to the AWE, but has anyone else noticed this phenonema when in the area I wonder?

 

Heading that way tomorrow - will see if we get the same thing with the new satnav

[+Cryptik Souls Crew]

I was navigating using Tomtom, which had for the whole morning behaved very well, as is usual.

 

However, for maybe 1/2 mile around the AWE, Tomtom struggled to capture a signal and the map was spinning, showing a route off road and behaving very erratically, although the signal reception was good, 6-7 sats (or 4/5 bars on TT.)

 

I cannot see how there could be a direct connection to the AWE, but has anyone else noticed this phenonema when in the area I wonder?

I get this every now and again with tomtom on my iPAQ and tomtom mobile on my phone, the whole spinning map/jumping location thing. Its a tomtom glitch from what I can make out, because if you look at the raw data coming from the bluetooth gps the co-ordinates are not erratic. It seems to happen to me at random points, not always in the same places.

 

Don't know if this affects the Go units or not.

[barryhunter]

There was a post on here about the military trialing GPS jamming, maybe the 'technology' did move out of the trailing stage :-(

[+Malpas Wanderer]

I worked at AWE until two years ago and certainly at that time TomTom worked ok.

 

The work of AWE however is very diverse and constantly changing.

 

Since the restriction has been lifted on the Ordnance Survey Mapping of the site and that the site is visible via Google Earth I would doubt that GPS signals are being intentionally blocked.

 

Might be worth correlating problems to see if it's only at certain times of day when specific operations may be in progress on the site.

[+Mr'D]

I will probably be passing again tomorrow so will try and note if I get the same phenonema.

 

Jon

[+Moote]

Passed a few secure type installations whilst doing the Counties challenge, now the track log on the GPS has got some strange anomalies, one really odd one is passing Bristol airport where it altered course by about 500m. But I have also noticed others and I am looking into this

[+Malpas Wanderer]

It was nowhere near AWE Aldermaston but I encountered a similar effect today.

 

I was actually near to "skew bridge" on the A329 at Pangbourne.

 

The result was that the signal was totally disapearing i.e. "greyed out" then briefly returning. On the occasions a position was shown I was either on the railway line or mid river!.

The problem had not cleared after 2 or more miles and I had to remove the power from the GPSr to recover.

 

There is a "Mobile Telephone" or similar transmitter near this bridge so unsure if this was the cause. The return journey of the same route caused no such problem.

 

We all love our gadgets but how many of them conflict?

 

Regards

 

Colin

[+The Mars Bars]

It happened to me a couple of weeks ago near Aldershot, and that was definitely because I was on new road.

Is Aldershot not an Army town?

 

I love conspiracy theories!

[+Madyokel]

Just a followup on Slytherin's post. I have had my GPS operative well within the site mentioned... mind you they could blanket block as and when they wanted I suppose.. I wanted to place a 5/5 micro but did not think my "guards" would let me

By the way S can I help to reopen a certain cache... I don't mind being the maintainance man