GPS Interference Testing

[Eric Bick (ZN7)]

Everyone out west seen this NOTAM re GPS interference testing. Covers most of the western US - NoCal and SoCal soaring sites, OR, Nephi, Parowan, other - and continues throughout June on selected dates.
https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2016/Jun/CHLK_16-08_GPS_Flight_Advisory.pdf

[Ron Gleason]

On Tuesday, 7 June 2016 08:13:20 UTC-6, Eric Bick (ZN7) wrote:
> Everyone out west seen this NOTAM re GPS interference testing. Covers most of the western US - NoCal and SoCal soaring sites, OR, Nephi, Parowan, other - and continues throughout June on selected dates.
> https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2016/Jun/CHLK_16-08_GPS_Flight_Advisory.pdf

These activities have been cancelled. The NOTAMS will be removed shortly. As one of the organizers for the Nephi event I have been communicating with folks from the Utah Test Range about any GPS jamming activities and they told me this morning about the cancellations

[Craig Funston]

On Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 10:38:57 AM UTC-7, Ron Gleason wrote:
> On Tuesday, 7 June 2016 08:13:20 UTC-6, Eric Bick (ZN7) wrote:
> > Everyone out west seen this NOTAM re GPS interference testing. Covers most of the western US - NoCal and SoCal soaring sites, OR, Nephi, Parowan, other - and continues throughout June on selected dates.
> > https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2016/Jun/CHLK_16-08_GPS_Flight_Advisory.pdf
>
> These activities have been cancelled. The NOTAMS will be removed shortly.. As one of the organizers for the Nephi event I have been communicating with folks from the Utah Test Range about any GPS jamming activities and they told me this morning about the cancellations

Thanks for the update Ron

[David Kinsell[_2_]]

On Tue, 07 Jun 2016 10:38:55 -0700, Ron Gleason wrote:

> On Tuesday, 7 June 2016 08:13:20 UTC-6, Eric Bick (ZN7) wrote:
>> Everyone out west seen this NOTAM re GPS interference testing. Covers
>> most of the western US - NoCal and SoCal soaring sites, OR, Nephi,
>> Parowan, other - and continues throughout June on selected dates.
>> https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2016/Jun/
CHLK_16-08_GPS_Flight_Advisory.pdf
>
> These activities have been cancelled. The NOTAMS will be removed
> shortly. As one of the organizers for the Nephi event I have been
> communicating with folks from the Utah Test Range about any GPS jamming
> activities and they told me this morning about the cancellations

The notams are still up as of this morning. Sure would be nice if they
took them down.

https://pilotweb.nas.faa.gov/PilotWeb/noticesAction.do?
queryType=ALLGPS&formatType=DOMESTIC

[David Kinsell[_2_]]

On Wed, 08 Jun 2016 11:40:40 +0000, David Kinsell wrote:

> On Tue, 07 Jun 2016 10:38:55 -0700, Ron Gleason wrote:
>
>> On Tuesday, 7 June 2016 08:13:20 UTC-6, Eric Bick (ZN7) wrote:
>>> Everyone out west seen this NOTAM re GPS interference testing. Covers
>>> most of the western US - NoCal and SoCal soaring sites, OR, Nephi,
>>> Parowan, other - and continues throughout June on selected dates.
>>> https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2016/Jun/
> CHLK_16-08_GPS_Flight_Advisory.pdf
>>
>> These activities have been cancelled. The NOTAMS will be removed
>> shortly. As one of the organizers for the Nephi event I have been
>> communicating with folks from the Utah Test Range about any GPS jamming
>> activities and they told me this morning about the cancellations
>
> The notams are still up as of this morning. Sure would be nice if they
> took them down.
>
> https://pilotweb.nas.faa.gov/PilotWeb/noticesAction.do?
> queryType=ALLGPS&formatType=DOMESTIC

Here's an easier url to deal with: http://tinyurl.com/prds7nr

[6X]

Duration appears to have been reduced. Last instance now 6/11.

[Dan Marotta]

I flew my Stemme from Minden to Moriarty yesterday (after a week of
soaring!) and had GPS coverage for the entire trip. Guess I got lucky...


On 6/7/2016 8:13 AM, Eric Bick (ZN7) wrote:
> Everyone out west seen this NOTAM re GPS interference testing. Covers most of the western US - NoCal and SoCal soaring sites, OR, Nephi, Parowan, other - and continues throughout June on selected dates.
> https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2016/Jun/CHLK_16-08_GPS_Flight_Advisory.pdf

--
Dan, 5J

[David Kinsell[_2_]]

On Wed, 08 Jun 2016 06:21:51 -0700, 6X wrote:

> Duration appears to have been reduced. Last instance now 6/11.

Now showing activity through the 12th. If this stuff really has been
canceled, somebody forgot to tell the notam writers.

[David Kinsell[_2_]]

You should be loading up on lotto tickets, Dan.

Interestingly, I had a decent flight yesterday, everything seemed to be
working fine. Up until just before the landing pattern, when GPS
altitude indication started flipping between correct altitude, and 0.

It was just a couple minutes around 23:19 zulu, 5:19 pm local. IGC file
uploaded to OLC, no problem, you can pull it from region 9 US. Got the
two green dots from OLC, plane didn't start doing Dutch rolls or
anything, but it does seem strange that my trusty 302 would choose June 9
to start acting up. Viewing the file on SeeYou shows what I was seeing
in the cockpit.

Down low in Colorado, wouldn't have thought the canceled China Lake
testing (whose notams never seem to go away) could be involved here, but
who knows?

-Dave




On Wed, 08 Jun 2016 20:06:23 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

> I flew my Stemme from Minden to Moriarty yesterday (after a week of
> soaring!) and had GPS coverage for the entire trip. Guess I got
> lucky...
>
>
> On 6/7/2016 8:13 AM, Eric Bick (ZN7) wrote:
>> Everyone out west seen this NOTAM re GPS interference testing. Covers
>> most of the western US - NoCal and SoCal soaring sites, OR, Nephi,
>> Parowan, other - and continues throughout June on selected dates.
>> https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2016/Jun/
CHLK_16-08_GPS_Flight_Advisory.pdf

[Dan Marotta]

Hi Dave,

Were you within 300 nm of Alamogordo? I haven't checked the notams, but
you could have gotten zinged by some of the continuous testing which
seems to go on there. BTW, do you know where the jamming is coming
from? If it's from orbit, being low in CO wouldn't matter too much, but
I suspect it's from ground based emitters.


On 6/10/2016 8:39 AM, David Kinsell wrote:
> You should be loading up on lotto tickets, Dan.
>
> Interestingly, I had a decent flight yesterday, everything seemed to be
> working fine. Up until just before the landing pattern, when GPS
> altitude indication started flipping between correct altitude, and 0.
>
> It was just a couple minutes around 23:19 zulu, 5:19 pm local. IGC file
> uploaded to OLC, no problem, you can pull it from region 9 US. Got the
> two green dots from OLC, plane didn't start doing Dutch rolls or
> anything, but it does seem strange that my trusty 302 would choose June 9
> to start acting up. Viewing the file on SeeYou shows what I was seeing
> in the cockpit.
>
> Down low in Colorado, wouldn't have thought the canceled China Lake
> testing (whose notams never seem to go away) could be involved here, but
> who knows?
>
> -Dave
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, 08 Jun 2016 20:06:23 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:
>
>> I flew my Stemme from Minden to Moriarty yesterday (after a week of
>> soaring!) and had GPS coverage for the entire trip. Guess I got
>> lucky...
>>
>>
>> On 6/7/2016 8:13 AM, Eric Bick (ZN7) wrote:
>>> Everyone out west seen this NOTAM re GPS interference testing. Covers
>>> most of the western US - NoCal and SoCal soaring sites, OR, Nephi,
>>> Parowan, other - and continues throughout June on selected dates.
>>> https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2016/Jun/
> CHLK_16-08_GPS_Flight_Advisory.pdf
>

--
Dan, 5J

[JS]

On Friday, June 10, 2016 at 8:23:46 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
> I suspect it's from ground based emitters.

A hand held device, perhaps the size of an Icom A22?
Cheeky *******s.
Jim

[David Kinsell[_2_]]

No, was north of Denver which is farther away from Alamagordo.

Current GPS domestic notams should be visible here:

http://tinyurl.com/prds7nr

They list two sets of coordinates, neither of which match the China Lake
coordinates which were listed in the original advisory note (which is
still on the web, btw). So maybe the original China Lake testing has
been canceled, replaced by similar testing in other locations?

All the information I've seen indicates a ground-based emitter, with an
upside-down wedding cake area of interference.

Maybe the old 302 is starting to kick the bucket, seems like an unusual
failure mode though.

-Dave





On Fri, 10 Jun 2016 09:23:40 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

> Hi Dave,
>
> Were you within 300 nm of Alamogordo? I haven't checked the notams, but
> you could have gotten zinged by some of the continuous testing which
> seems to go on there. BTW, do you know where the jamming is coming
> from? If it's from orbit, being low in CO wouldn't matter too much, but
> I suspect it's from ground based emitters.
>
>
> On 6/10/2016 8:39 AM, David Kinsell wrote:
>> You should be loading up on lotto tickets, Dan.
>>
>> Interestingly, I had a decent flight yesterday, everything seemed to be
>> working fine. Up until just before the landing pattern, when GPS
>> altitude indication started flipping between correct altitude, and 0.
>>
>> It was just a couple minutes around 23:19 zulu, 5:19 pm local. IGC
>> file uploaded to OLC, no problem, you can pull it from region 9 US.
>> Got the two green dots from OLC, plane didn't start doing Dutch rolls
>> or anything, but it does seem strange that my trusty 302 would choose
>> June 9 to start acting up. Viewing the file on SeeYou shows what I was
>> seeing in the cockpit.
>>
>> Down low in Colorado, wouldn't have thought the canceled China Lake
>> testing (whose notams never seem to go away) could be involved here,
>> but who knows?
>>
>> -Dave
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 08 Jun 2016 20:06:23 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:
>>
>>> I flew my Stemme from Minden to Moriarty yesterday (after a week of
>>> soaring!) and had GPS coverage for the entire trip. Guess I got
>>> lucky...
>>>
>>>
>>> On 6/7/2016 8:13 AM, Eric Bick (ZN7) wrote:
>>>> Everyone out west seen this NOTAM re GPS interference testing. Covers
>>>> most of the western US - NoCal and SoCal soaring sites, OR, Nephi,
>>>> Parowan, other - and continues throughout June on selected dates.
>>>> https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2016/Jun/
>> CHLK_16-08_GPS_Flight_Advisory.pdf
>>

[Jonathan St. Cloud]

Wild hypothetical, what if GPS gaming is going on durning a contest and some or all contestants lose part of the logging of points on course? Years ago I was denied a Diamond distance/goal because of about four minutes where the Cambridge logger didn't log. I returned and flew that segment of the flight but was still denied. It was obvious that I could not have landed and taken off again.

Also, does the GPS jamming affect 406 ELT's? What about planes on IFR plans solely using GPS for navigation?

[Darryl Ramm]

On Friday, June 10, 2016 at 10:01:15 AM UTC-7, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
> Wild hypothetical, what if GPS gaming is going on durning a contest and some or all contestants lose part of the logging of points on course? Years ago I was denied a Diamond distance/goal because of about four minutes where the Cambridge logger didn't log. I returned and flew that segment of the flight but was still denied. It was obvious that I could not have landed and taken off again.
>
> Also, does the GPS jamming affect 406 ELT's? What about planes on IFR plans solely using GPS for navigation?

406MHz ELTs with GPS... sure possibly. But all 406MHz ELTs are also capable of SARSAT/COSPAS doppler location and have 121.5 MHz homing beacon. Practical impacts on air navigation are a much higher level concern.

[David Kinsell[_2_]]

On Fri, 10 Jun 2016 10:01:13 -0700, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:

> Wild hypothetical, what if GPS gaming is going on durning a contest and
> some or all contestants lose part of the logging of points on course?
> Years ago I was denied a Diamond distance/goal because of about four
> minutes where the Cambridge logger didn't log. I returned and flew that
> segment of the flight but was still denied. It was obvious that I could
> not have landed and taken off again.
>
> Also, does the GPS jamming affect 406 ELT's? What about planes on IFR
> plans solely using GPS for navigation?

You know that Embraer jet they keep mentioning in the notams? Apparently
a real problem:

http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Notice/GENOT_7110_711_EMB-300.pdf

Who would have thought loss of GPS would cause flight control problems?
Losing points in some glider competition is way down on the list when it
comes to things to worry about. How about when the whole air traffic
control system becomes reliant on ADS-B and GPS gets jammed, either by
the military or maybe even some bad guys?

[[email protected]]

The DOD has been doing this for awhile now. I flew through central Nevada near Wilson Creek a few weeks ago and it shut both of my GPS units down. We were on an IFR flight plan in touch with ATC and you wouldn't believe the ruckus it was creating. There were quite a few very concerned pilots. We just asked for vectors and got it, no big deal. Eventually we left the zone and our gps started working again. My first thought was that there was something wrong with the plane.

Personally, I think the DOD is listening in on ATC frequencies and we are part of the experiment to determine the range of some new kind of jamming device.

[David Kinsell[_2_]]

I was N of Denver CO, which has had notams listing two centers of
activity. One appears to be Area 51, the other one Yuma Proving Grounds.

Those are so far S I can't believe they were involved, I was just a
couple thousand feet AGL when the issue popped up. But I'll be a whole
lot closer to '51 next week.

-Dave



On Fri, 10 Jun 2016 09:23:40 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

> Hi Dave,
>
> Were you within 300 nm of Alamogordo? I haven't checked the notams, but
> you could have gotten zinged by some of the continuous testing which
> seems to go on there. BTW, do you know where the jamming is coming
> from? If it's from orbit, being low in CO wouldn't matter too much, but
> I suspect it's from ground based emitters.
>
>
> On 6/10/2016 8:39 AM, David Kinsell wrote:
>> You should be loading up on lotto tickets, Dan.
>>
>> Interestingly, I had a decent flight yesterday, everything seemed to be
>> working fine. Up until just before the landing pattern, when GPS
>> altitude indication started flipping between correct altitude, and 0.
>>
>> It was just a couple minutes around 23:19 zulu, 5:19 pm local. IGC
>> file uploaded to OLC, no problem, you can pull it from region 9 US.
>> Got the two green dots from OLC, plane didn't start doing Dutch rolls
>> or anything, but it does seem strange that my trusty 302 would choose
>> June 9 to start acting up. Viewing the file on SeeYou shows what I was
>> seeing in the cockpit.
>>
>> Down low in Colorado, wouldn't have thought the canceled China Lake
>> testing (whose notams never seem to go away) could be involved here,
>> but who knows?
>>
>> -Dave
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 08 Jun 2016 20:06:23 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:
>>
>>> I flew my Stemme from Minden to Moriarty yesterday (after a week of
>>> soaring!) and had GPS coverage for the entire trip. Guess I got
>>> lucky...
>>>
>>>
>>> On 6/7/2016 8:13 AM, Eric Bick (ZN7) wrote:
>>>> Everyone out west seen this NOTAM re GPS interference testing. Covers
>>>> most of the western US - NoCal and SoCal soaring sites, OR, Nephi,
>>>> Parowan, other - and continues throughout June on selected dates.
>>>> https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2016/Jun/
>> CHLK_16-08_GPS_Flight_Advisory.pdf
>>

[[email protected]]

My son is an engineer and is involved in contract work with ratheon out at the nellis test site. He tells me a bunch of the testing is involving ground based station deliberately jamming gps sigs to provide training for fighter aircraft in dealing with airborne gps interference.
As many of you engineer types might know, the gps system utilizes the 1.5ghz band. This high of freq provides for a very narrow bandwidth thus it propogates very well with very low power. However, due to the narrow bandwidth it is very easy to jam the signal.

[[email protected]]

These notams have been coming out for years, but maybe the testing is finally starting to affect aircraft at a great distance from the source.

Here's an interesting article about GPS testing: https://fas.org/spp/military/program/nav/gpsjam.pdf

I also recall seeing a thread about truck drivers using GPS jammers to thwart being tracked ant these could affect aircraft nearby.

5Z

[David Kinsell[_2_]]

On Fri, 10 Jun 2016 20:27:51 -0700, tom wrote:

> These notams have been coming out for years, but maybe the testing is
> finally starting to affect aircraft at a great distance from the source.
>
> Here's an interesting article about GPS testing:
> https://fas.org/spp/military/program/nav/gpsjam.pdf
>
> I also recall seeing a thread about truck drivers using GPS jammers to
> thwart being tracked ant these could affect aircraft nearby.
>
> 5Z

Right, GPS jamming has been going on for years, but it seems to be
getting worse. Yuma Proving Grounds is an Army facility, China Lake is
Navy, Area 51 I suppose is mainly Air Force.

On top of that, the notams are whacky, still showing one for Denver from
the Yuma facility, max radius is listed as 219 nm and yet they're about
700 sm apart. Badly need graphical representations of these things.

-Dave

[[email protected]]

I received one a couple of weeks ago from aopa that had a graphical map and altitudes indicated that effects well up past Prescott wher I fly mostly.

[danlj]

It must be more than a decade ago than I flew a triangle in western Wisconsin that entered the MOA SE of Eau Claire. The flight log had big drop-outs in the MOA. (This was before OLC.)

[Ramy[_2_]]

Another GPS Interference testing is coming up next week through the end of the month and covers pretty much the whole Great Basin if I interpreted correctly.
I know there have been multiple reports of GPS drops during those testing, but I would like to know if anyone experienced a prolong loss of GPS signal during these testing. I am not overly concerned about the flight log but loss of navigation and some of the flight computer functionality especially when flying long cross country in the Great Basin. Please no comments about using sectional instead. That's my backup plan but I am not in particular fond of it, the same as I am not fond of using pay phones anymore.

Ramy

[[email protected]]

Hey Ramy, several of us lost gps signal while flying out of Moriarty last week several days in a row when we got high 12 k and, south of Moriarty about 40 miles. It seemed to only effect the older gps units. Mine was a Garmin 196 and others were Cambridge 20 and a puck. My PowerFlarm as well as others were not affected. The outages 2, lasted about 25 minutes or alittle longer one of them seemed to come back as I went north and got lower, the other came back while still high and going east perpendicular to Alamogordo where the testing was aledgedly taking place.

[Ramy[_2_]]

Thanks Cliff. So sounds like it is more of an intermittent issue than a complete black out.

Ramy

[JS]

On Sunday, July 10, 2016 at 8:45:02 AM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
> Thanks Cliff. So sounds like it is more of an intermittent issue than a complete black out.
>
> Ramy

They usually jam for short periods, perhaps 10 minutes. You might not even notice.
Once saw that WinPilot had a huge wind arrow, indicating something like 140 Knots. Turned out that there was jamming that day and it's how WP reacted to not having info for a while.
Jim

[Ron Gleason]

On Sunday, 10 July 2016 09:45:02 UTC-6, Ramy wrote:
> Thanks Cliff. So sounds like it is more of an intermittent issue than a complete black out.
>
> Ramy

The NOTAM covers many hours of the day but they will let potentially affected areas know fifteen minutes in advance. For the Great Basin area you can contact Clover Center, the folks that over see the Sevier and Gandy MOA's and Restricted areas with the Utah Test Range on 134.1 to see if they have received any notices or if you are experiencing an outage you can contact them for duration.

The maps and affected areas published are very broad and are more CYA than accurate. During the Nationals at Nephi this year the folks from Clover were able to ensure us that the Great Basin was not likely to be affected from the testing from White Sands and China Lake. The testing done north of Las Vegas and the Utah Test Range are the ones most likely to cover the Great Basin area.

Ron Gleason