GPS Week Number Rollover (aka the new millennium bug)

[Pheasant Surprise]

Hopefully when this event occurs on 6 / 7 April, it will make no news, headlines or indeed any disruption...

But I’m just putting it out there, just in case...we have another repeat of the EGNOS satellite change fiasco with certain older receivers.

https://www.gpsworld.com/gps-directorate-to-test-legacy-receivers-in-february

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Getting emails like this coming through from the manufacturers now.

It’s also been in the press this week, as the rollover date gets closer.

It will probably be totally fine, but it’s a good idea to be on the latest / up to date firmware on yer gear....

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

As we’re now a week past the GPS Week Rollover Date and some folks are seeing issues on their screens and receivers - and may do for some months yet, thought I’d ping this up again.

So what is it all about? Well to copy/paraphrase the Topcon website...

The GPS satellites send a 10-digit binary communication message toward Earth with a “week number” counted from 0000 to 1023. Once the maximum coded week of 1024 is reached (which takes 19.7 years), the week number value resets to 0000.

The GPS Week Rollover event will occur on April 6, 2019, at 23:59:42 UTC.**

This will be the second global event of its kind and will affect all users of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology regardless of brand. The last GPS Rollover Week event was in 1999. The next will occur in another 19.7 years.

What Impact is expected?
With the wide variety of GPS technology applications in use today, the impact to users will vary depending on the use case, e.g., surveying with a base and rover receiver, machine control, OEM placement, or precision agriculture. Impacts such as slower initialization time and incorrect date records can be expected for some receiver and software combinations if the firmware and software are not updated to the latest available versions. In most cases, an update to the latest receiver firmware and latest versions of software are recommended.

What should I do?
Update your firmware and controller software to minimize the impact of GPS rollover.

**Note: some manufacturer implementations interpret the Week Number parameter relative to a date other than January 5, 1980. These devices should not be affected by the GPS Week Number rollover on April 6, 2019 but may experience a similar rollover event at a future date.

 

[Oscar]

Had trouble with a Agleader Integra screen last Sunday, no full signal ( yellow rather than green),no speed readout and On Trac 3 oviously would not work.
Turned off On Trac and went to manual guidance and was able to carry on as then had green signal and speed output for monitor to work.
Bateman came Wed and put an upgrade on and now working 100 %.

 

[Matt77]

I probably already know the answer but is it possible to update a case afs pro 700 screen without using the dealer?

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Fallout from GPS rollover includes NOAA, Samsung, NYC, Boeing

The GPS Week Number Rollover, which took place April 6, has caused several automated NOAA stations to go offline.

Some of the outages could last until November.


Photo: NOAA

According to the EOS website, 19 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) coastal and marine automated stations were not updated to mitigate the issue, and those stations are out of commission until workers can service them on location.

In Alaska, five of the stations in and around Cook Inlet are down.

The New York Times is reporting that at 7:59 p.m. EDT on Saturday, the New York City Wireless Network went dark, interrupting functions such as the collection and transmission of information from some Police Department license plate readers, Department of Transportation traffic-light programming, and communications at remote work sites for the sanitation and parks departments.

The city is now working overtime to bring affected systems back online, reports StateScoop.

Some users of Samsung smartphones and tablets are also reporting issues.

Previously, GPS World reported on rollover issue for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s (BOM) weather balloons, as well as Boeing aircraft. Read more about the Boeing issue here.

 

[Brisel]

Anyone getting troubles with John Deere Greenstar position drift? I'm just about to look up the date on the screens to check. Starfire 3 was very inaccurate last weekend. It's usually very accurate.

 

[Matt77]

Would this affect Tom Toms, chap that works here said his isn’t working now and it worked just before our sprayer screen went down? His wife has plugged it in to laptop to update but still no success

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Would this affect Tom Toms, chap that works here said his isn’t working now and it worked just before our sprayer screen went down? His wife has plugged it in to laptop to update but still no success

Yes, potentially. TomTom like a lot of manufacturers have setup a support portal, where your mate could check the status of his unit:

https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/updates/

 

[Matt77]

Yes, potentially. TomTom like a lot of manufacturers have setup a support portal, where your mate could check the status of his unit:

https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/updates/

Thanks, I’ve passed on the info.