[Elecraft] April 6th GPS Reset

[Fred Jensen]

Not to worry Richard.  GPS has two PR codes on different frequencies.  
The "civilian" code repeats every 100 ms. The "military" code repeats 
every 7 days, and the code is sometimes encrypted.  At the end of the 
code, a "week number" is incremented by one and the code repeats.  
Eventually, the 10-bit register holding the week number will overflow 
and reset to zero. That's all that's happening, it happens every 1,024 
weeks, the first was in Aug 1999.

The first time this happened, the much younger Internet was filled with 
admonitions not to fly between a couple of dates in Aug since airplanes 
would fall from the sky.  It also hatched several conspiracy theories 
[of course].  The hubris surrounding GPS Rollover Day had declined some, 
but as usual, some persists.  It does sound like a good marketing ploy 
however ... "Get your new Trimble now before GPS resets and your old one 
quits."  Kind of what Apple and Microsoft do when I think about it.  [:-)

73,
Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County

On 4/3/2019 8:51 AM, Richard Thorpe via Elecraft wrote:
> On April 6th the satellite GPS system is going to be reset, does  anyone out there know how this “reset” will effect the Trimble Thunderbolt that many of us use to “discipline “ the frequency on our K3 and K3S radios? I’m told that older sat programs will not work after the reset. My Trimble unit was old (surplus) when I purchased it on Ebay years ago. Thanks.
>
> R Thorpe
> K6CG  K3,P3, KX3, PX3
>