Normal or WASS/EGNOS

[+mpilchfamily]

Yesterday i received my new Garmin Dakota 10. So i've been playing around with the settings and under system settings i have the options for Normal, WASS/EGNOS, and Demo Mode. Obviously Demo Mode turns the GPSr off. But what is the difference between Normal and WASS/EGNOS? Which one will give me better accuracy? Will one mode suck up more battery power then the other?

[+dfx]

Enabling WAAS/EGNOS will give you better accuracy. Disabling it will simply keep it from receiving correction data. It has no impact on battery usage.

[+ecanderson]

Yesterday i received my new Garmin Dakota 10. So i've been playing around with the settings and under system settings i have the options for Normal, WASS/EGNOS, and Demo Mode. Obviously Demo Mode turns the GPSr off. But what is the difference between Normal and WASS/EGNOS? Which one will give me better accuracy? Will one mode suck up more battery power then the other?

If you are somewhere that gives you a decent look at the satellites, enabling WAAS/EGNOS will give you slightly better accuracy. That's why those birds are up there.

 

Battery power has been demonstrated as no different in either enabled/disabled modes. The two things that will decrease your battery life to a significant degree are backlight brightness and leaving your unit on a "live" (compass or map) screen where the information must be updated frequently. If you set the time-out for your backlight to something fairly short and keep the brightness down to whatever is usable for the current conditions, and keep your unit on a menu page when you're not actively heading toward a target, you'll get substantially more hours out of a charged set.

[+mpilchfamily]

Thanks allot guys! Exactly what i needed to know.

[+eusty]

Although it won't have so much of an effect in cities.

 

The satellites for the space part of WAAS(US) and EGNOS(Europe) are low in the sky so you need a clear view

 

It's all here

[+fizzymagic]

Although it won't have so much of an effect in cities.

 

The satellites for the space part of WAAS(US) and EGNOS(Europe) are low in the sky so you need a clear view

 

It's all here

 

That's simply not true. First, the satellites are not that low. Second, WAAS does not require a continuous view of the satellites, so it actually works reasonably well in urban settings as long as you can see the satellites most of the time.

 

In order for a city to significantly degrade WAAS reception, it has to have a lot of tall bulidings.

[+eusty]

I was just quoting the gist of http://www.kowoma.de/en/gps/waas_egnos.htm

 

There is one major disadvantage of the correction systems that are based on geostationary satellites. For a GPS near ground and in central Europe or northern america , all geostationary satellites are located in the south and quite low over the horizon. For example, if you are located in munich , AOR-E is about 35° above the horizon, IOR on at 16°. This easily leads to blocking of the signals by buildings or trees. In forested or hilly areas, WAAS or EGNOS probably will never work perfectly. This disadvantage results in the system being developed for aviation where it does not matter if the satellites are a little low over the horizon.

[+ecanderson]

I was just quoting the gist of http://www.kowoma.de.../waas_egnos.htm

 

There is one major disadvantage of the correction systems that are based on geostationary satellites. For a GPS near ground and in central Europe or northern america , all geostationary satellites are located in the south and quite low over the horizon. For example, if you are located in munich , AOR-E is about 35° above the horizon, IOR on at 16°. This easily leads to blocking of the signals by buildings or trees. In forested or hilly areas, WAAS or EGNOS probably will never work perfectly. This disadvantage results in the system being developed for aviation where it does not matter if the satellites are a little low over the horizon.

Northern European sites are at a greater disadvantage. The OP is just a skosh north of what I'd call a Mid-Atlantic state in the U.S. Nowhere near the horizon issues.

 

What I think a lot of folks forget is that it's habitable a lot further north in Europe:lol: While I think of myself at a mid-latitude in the U.S. here in Colorado at around 40 degrees, we're on a parallel with cities like Madrid and areas of southern Italy. Munich is already up at 48 degrees, more on a line with the Canadian border, give or take a degree. Anyway, the OP isn't in Munich, and should have no trouble getting a WAAS signal most of the time. And as was pointed out earlier, the "D" remains on those bars even after you've lost WAAS briefly because the correction data doesn't change that quickly.