[OSM-talk] Strange location reading

[Warin]

On 28-Sep-16 04:44 PM, Oleksiy Muzalyev wrote:
> On 27.09.16 21:51, John Eldredge wrote:
>> This past weekend, I made a long road trip. At one point, while in a 
>> highway rest stop, I checked Google Maps to see how far I had come. 
>> To my surprise, it showed me at a different rest stop, about 200 
>> miles from my actual location. I suspect that my phone couldn't get a 
>> good GPS reading, and was relying on the WiFi ID from the rest area 
>> office. The other rest area was probably using the same SSID.
>>
>> I didn't think to launch OSMand for comparison, but I suspect it 
>> would have given me the same bogus results, as the choice of whether 
>> to use WiFi, cell tower, GPS, or a combination, to determine your 
>> location is set in the system settings, not inside the mapping 
>> applications.
>>
> GPS signal is not influenced by clouds, rain, and snow. The GPS signal 
> frequency of about 1575mhz was chosen expressly because it is a 
> "window" in the weather as far as signal propagation is concerned [1]. 
> However a coating of water, snow, or ice on a smartphone or on a car 
> may block GPS signal. A coating of water, even a fairly thin one is 
> NOT the same as raindrops.
>
>
> So if one is outside and a device is dry, the GPS reading should be 
> correct no matter what is the actual weather. Otherwise it makes sense 
> to restart the device, or change it if an incorrect GPS location 
> reading persists.

John .. could you have the GPS function on the phone turned off? I 
usually have mine turned off to save battery power .. for use as a 
phone. There is a GPS Status app that I use to check various sensors .. 
including what the GPS is doing, suggest you use it .. that is an 
android app ... apple should have something similar.

Oleksiy .. GPS locations do get confused by multi path reflections, 
these usually occur in built up areas. And the GPS signal will be 
'influenced' by clouds, rain, the ionosphere .. just not very much, very 
seldom would a user notice any degradation from these sources.