[ NEW POSITIONING SERVICE FROM RACAL OVERCOMES IONOS.. ]

NEW POSITIONING SERVICE FROM RACAL OVERCOMES IONOSPHERIC DISTURBANCE.
Racal Survey has launched SkyFix Premier, a dual frequency precise pos
itioning service that will mitigate the effects of ionospheric disturb
ances on Differential Global Positioning System performance.
Ionospheric disturbances have been brought about by the increasing hig
h sunspot activity as it approaches the peak of a 11-year solar cycle
in the year 2001. With standard DGPS systems, large ionospheric-induce
d errors in excess of 15 metres have been reported from equatorial reg
ions in various locations around the world. These errors are expected
to increase over the next one to two years and remain present for the
next three to four years.
Most DGPS systems use the standard broadcast Klobuchar ionospheric cor
rection model, which fails to sufficiently reflect the true ionospheri
c picture during high solar activity. SkyFix Premier offers advanced r
eal-time modeling by observing the ionospheric corrections at selected
SkyFix reference stations in the affected area, using dual frequency
GPS receivers, and broadcasting these to the user with the standard c
orrection message service.