eye-in-the-sky bug
Sarah Hall
Millions of sailors, hikers and light aircraft pilots have been warned to prepare for a computer glitch which could see their navigation equipment collapse at midnight this Saturday.
The problem could mean equipment using the global positioning satellite system (GPS) will fail to pick up signals and give false directions.
There are an estimated 40-million GPS devices in use worldwide in cars, sailing boats and light aircraft.
Authorities in the United States, where the system was developed for military use, have been sufficiently concerned by the bug to issue warnings to pilots, sailors, hikers and climbers over the past decade.
But, although information has been posted on the websites of three makers of GPS equipment – Trimble Navigation, Garmin, and Magellan – there are fears that mountaineers and amateur sailors may be unaware of the warnings.
“Without wishing to be scaremongering, there will be a fair number of people who don’t have access to these warnings and will be using these small, hand-held devices presuming they will work,” said Paul Manson, European marketing manager of Trimble Navigation.
“We don’t know how many will be affected but in the United Kingdom it’s probably tens of thousands.”
The problem has arisen because the 25- billion system, which involves radio signals from 24 satellites being transmitted to a receiver, keeps track of time by counting the number of weeks since its launch on January 6 1980 up to a maximum of 1 024 weeks.
The cut-off point is midnight on Saturday, when week 1 023 ends and the counter rolls over to zero, presenting a problem for any user whose receiving equipment has not been programmed to cope with the change.
The US Department of Transportation has warned that problems may include receivers not working, because they cannot locate the satellite, taking more time to do so, or displaying inaccurate positions, times or dates.
It is not known how many models will be affected. The Royal Institute of Navigation insists only devices built before 1993 will succumb but manufacturers disagree.
“It’s not true that only devices built before 1993 will be affected,” said Manson.
“We’ve seen equipment by other manufacturers built in 1996 which hasn’t been upgraded to cope with this.”