Google Navigator problems with both phone and tablet

[Sharondippity]

Firstly, I was amazed that Google Navigator worked on my Samsung Galaxy tablet that is wifi only, and I was not hooked up to wifi. How cool is that?

But, Google navigator left me lost in southern California when driving to Scottsdale last week. Both my Droid Razr Maxx and my tablet ceased working while I was very lost and needed directions.

My Maxx didn't even notifiy me that it had lost its navigation connection. I noticed it had not updated my location in 15 minutes of driving 80 mph.

Is there another navigating system that is more reliable or do they all use the same satellites?

 

[NightAngel79]

Did you still have a data connection on the Maxx?? I have never had a problem with just the gps sat getting/keeping a fix on me, BUT lose that data connection and you are scr*wed as google keeps all their maps online.

The only reason navigation would work without wifi on should have been that 'maps' had a map queued up... go far enough where it needs to update and you will be SOL

(disclaimer: Not 100% sure but i think i am right)

 

[Sharondippity]

Did you still have a data connection on the Maxx?? I have never had a problem with just the gps sat getting/keeping a fix on me, BUT lose that data connection and you are scr*wed as google keeps all their maps online.

The only reason navigation would work without wifi on should have been that 'maps' had a map queued up... go far enough where it needs to update and you will be SOL

(disclaimer: Not 100% sure but i think i am right)

My tablet was giving me step by step directions, without wifi. It was using pure GPS at that point. It may have downloaded the map previously when I had wifi, but it worked without it after I got on the road.

I had a data connection on the phone, but my location was not being updated by GPS at one point.

 

[NightAngel79]

My tablet was giving me step by step directions, without wifi. It was using pure GPS at that point. It may have downloaded the map previously when I had wifi, but it worked without it after I got on the road.

I had a data connection on the phone, but my location was not being updated by GPS at one point.

Yea, maps won't work without data (unfortunately) so it must have queued the map up previously.

As with the phone, that is really odd.... was it overcast/cloudy or anything?

 

[Sharondippity]

No but I was in the Mohave desert for a while.

 

[NightAngel79]

still, you would think gps sat's dont suffer from 'coverage outages'... seems like that would kind of defeat the purpose... I wanna use gps when i'm off the beaten path.. as it were....

 

[sgosnell]

Navigator downloads and caches maps and routes, so you only need wifi for getting the route initially. As to why you lost GPS coverage, that's hard to say. All the navigation apps use the same satellites, maintained by the US Air Force. The Russians have a similar system known a Glonass. There may have been interference or jamming going on, since the government does some testing of all sorts of things in the deserts out there. The GPS signals are very weak, and thus the receivers have to be very sensitive, and it's possible to jam the signals using powerful terrestrial transmitters over a fairly large area. Also, the satellites are not in geostationary orbit, but in polar orbits, and thus they constantly move, and are always going out of view, with new ones coming into view. Theoretically, there should always be enough satellites in view anywhere to maintain a position fix, but it's possible that you just lost view of enough satellites for awhile. It takes 3 satellites for a horizontal fix, and 4 for a 3d fix. Probably, the best explanation for your events is that 'stuff happens'.