GALILEO/ EGNOS how do i know if im receiving their signal

what_car

hi folks how do i know if im receiving signals from the EGNOS/galileo european satellite gps satellites?

what are their ID's?

cheers

Alun

On Garmin GPS's they're numbered 33 upwards, although as far as I can see, WAAS/EGNOS must be disabled on nuvi's as I've never seen anything in that range on the satellite display, only on my handheld etrex 's.

In any case, it's of limited use in a car GPS since at these latitudes the satellites are fairly low on the horizon (they're geostationary as opposed to the GPS satellites that are in low earth orbits) and are easily obstructed by buildings or other obstructions. Also, minor inaccuracies are masked by the 'lock to road' feature of most car GPS units.

coylemj

Agree with Alun in that the auto models lock on the road so even if the satellites are sugggesting that you're in the ditch, the unit will keep you on the road so the additional accuracy provided by WAAS isn't needed in an auto unit.

Galileo is a future project, an EU version of the US GPS system, EGNOS is the EU Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) to improve the accuracy of the existing GPS signals but they're really only of use to aircraft who need extra vertical accuracy for landing. The SBAS system in the US is called WAAS but the term WAAS is used on GPS receivers to refer to SBAS anywhere in the world.

On some Nuvis you can switch WAAS on and off, there's no option on my 250 so I don't even know if I'm using it or not but like Alun I can see the satellites on my eTrex, the current satellites used by EGNOS are 33 (AOR-E) and 37 (Artemis).

Alun

On my nuvi 760 I can press and hold down (for more than 5 secs or so) the little "signal strength" icon in the top left corner of the screen and it'll display a GPS satellite screen with signal strength bars and such. The numbers along the bottom of the signal strength bars are the satellite numbers, so if you see 33 or 37 then it's an EGNOS satellite.