On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 13:52:03 GMT, "Ted" wrote:


Threat to GPS Fizzled

The Great GPS Scare turned out to be a false alarm.

You don't fly do you? Otherwise you'd have seen large areas where GPS
was deemed unreliable while the tesing was going on in the US.

As far as homing weapons... In your own country? That would go over
really big with the civilians who already aren't happy.




In the run-up to the war, some had expressed concern that Iraqi forces could
employ inexpensive jammers to disrupt the relatively weak signal emitted by
Global Positioning System satellites circling the Earth. Disruption of this
nature would have put a severe kink in USAF's ability to use GPS-guided
weapons and navigate in the desert.

However, the problem proved to be largely unfounded, as coalition forces
used GPS-guided weapons with impunity. DOD data shows that coalition forces
by April 5 had dropped more than 3,000 Joint Direct Attack Munitions, just
one type of GPS-guided weapon.

Early in the conflict, there were reports that Iraq had obtained several GPS
jammers, possibly from a Russian supplier. Maj. Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr.,
Central Command operations director, announced March 25 that coalition
forces had identified six of these jammers and had destroyed all six.

Roger