GPS World, March 2016

OUT IN FRONT WWW GPSWORLD COM EDITORIAL Editor in Chief Group Publisher Alan Cameron editor@ gpsworld com 541 984 5312 Managing Editor Tracy Cozzens tcozzens@ northcoastmedia net 541 255 3334 Senior Digital Editor Joelle Harms jharms@ northcoastmedia net 216 706 3780 Digital Editor Allison Barwacz abarwacz@ northcoastmedia net 216 706 3796 Art Director Charles Park EDITORIAL PRODUCITON OFFICES 1360 East 9th St Suite 1070 Cleveland OH 44114 USA 847 763 4942 Fax 847 763 9694 www gpsworld com gpsworld@ gpsworld com CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Innovation Richard Langley lang@ unb ca Defense PNT Don Jewell djewell@ gpsworld com European GNSS Tim Reynolds treynolds@ gpsworld com Professional OEM Tony Murfin Geospatial Eric Gakstatter egakstatter@ gpsworld com GeoIntelligence Art Kalinski akalinski@ gpsworld com Survey Tim Burch and Dave Zilkoski Wireless LBS Insider Kevin Dennehy kdennehy@ gpsworld com MANUSCRIPTS GPS World welcomes unsolicited articles but cannot be held responsible for their 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incurred by readers in reliance on such content Published monthly Janice Partyka jpartyka@ gpsworld com BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNT MANAGER Michelle Mitchell mmitchell@ northcoastmedia net 216 363 7922 DIGITAL OPERATIONS MANAGER Bethany Chambers bchambers@ northcoastmedia net 216 706 3771 WEB DEVELOPER Jesse Malcmacher jmalcmacher@ northcoastmedia net 216 363 7925 MARKETING MANAGER Scott Gebler sgebler@ northcoastmedia net 216 363 7932 PUBLISHING SERVICES Manager Production Services Chris Anderson canderson@ northcoastmedia net 216 978 5341 Senior Audience Development Manager Antoinette Sanchez Perkins asanchez perkins@ northcoastmedia net 216 706 3750 Reprints Permissions Brett Petillo bpetillo@ wrightsmedia com 877 652 5295 Circulation Subscriber Services gpsworld@ halldata com USA 847 763 4942 NORTH COAST MEDIA LLC President CEO Kevin Stoltman kstoltman@ northcoastmedia net 216 706 3740 Vice President of Finance Operations Steve Galperin sgalperin@ northcoastmedia net 216 706 3705 Editorial Directors Marisa Palmieri mpalmieri@ northcoastmedia net 216 706 3764 Marty Whitford mwhitford@ northcoastmedia net 216 706 3766 VP Graphic Design Production Pete Seltzer pseltzer@ northcoastmedia net 216 706 3737 World Dodges GPS Bullet BY Alan Cameron EDITOR IN CHIEF AND GROUP PUBLISHER I t happened in the blink of an eye Less than a blink Far less actually Slightly more than one one thousandth of an eyeblink 13 microseconds In that time your eyelashes traverse10 micrometers on their journey toward your lower lid Yet it was long enough to throw computers and communications systems around the world out of whack generate thousands of alarms and pull engineers from their beds at 2 a m A single occurrence might have accomplished all that but it kept happening with great regularity Thus the alarms the out of whackness the sleep deprivation At least it did not generate massive stock market sell offs blow holes in national security or shut down Facebook Instagram and Snapchat For that we may be thankful But it might have See the Missing Microseconds news story on page 12 Companies and their timeservers around the world were hit by up to 12 hours of system warnings after 15 GPS satellites broadcast the wrong time according to Chronos a UK based time monitoring firm Telecommunications companies global financial networks electrical power grids and many other sectors of critical infrastructure rely on the highly precise time measurements supplied by GPS to control data flow through their networks Billions make that trillions or even more are riding on it A week after the eyeblinks Chronos released a white paper describing the fallout for its clients timing equipment users in more than 50 countries One company was not disturbed by the problems because it was testing an alternative timing service provided by enhanced Loran eLoran signals Unfortunately for them and for the rest of us eLoran has a very uncertain future In fact that company was lucky to have an eLoran signal at all on Jan 26 because it was supposed to have been turned off on Dec 31 Somebody must have forgotten to tell the Anthorn antenna operators to go home France Norway and the United Kingdom had been keeping eLoran alive but officially abandoned the effort at the end of 2015 reportedly because of lack of leadership from the United States The U S government decommissioned its Loran stations a few years ago going so far as to blow some of them up perhaps to prevent them from falling into the hands of subversives Despite a recent reinvigorated interest in enhanced Loran technology it may be too little too late In 2007 an Independent Assessment Team unanimously recommended that the U S government complete the eLoran upgrade and commit to eLoran as the national backup to GPS for 20 years The Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security tried to bury the report for two years while proceeding to pull Lorans plug The current renewed interest and the Wildwood experiment are worthy but can they prevail over blind reliance on a single string of vulnerable technology Years later 215 million million times the length of Januarys GPS timing error critical infrastructure is still at risk Surely thats opportunity enough to blink once or twice scratch ones head and wonder Could there be a better way If so why arent we taking it 6 GPS WORLD WWW GPSWORLD COM MARCH 2016