I suppose I should have expected it. Look what I've just read on the
NICEIC website:

quote

Face up to new electrical safety law or face fines

Homeowners warned to SWITCH ON to new building regulations

The NICEIC is urging homeowners who plan to tackle home improvement
projects to be aware of tough new changes to building regulations, which
if not complied with, could land you with a massive £5,000 fine and a
property you can't sell.

The new building regulation Part P, effective since 1st January 2005,
requires most electrical work in the home to be carried out by a
government-approved electrician, such as one registered with the NICEIC.
Its aim is to stop the rising number of deaths from faulty electrics,
much of which is undertaken by over ambitious DIY enthusiasts and cowboy
electricians.

Under the new law, homeowners are still able to replace accessories such
as light switches and sockets to an existing circuit, although there are
exceptions for locations such as kitchens and bathrooms. An electrician
registered under a government-approved scheme must undertake all other
work. The alternative, for DIY'ers, is to notify a local building
control body before starting any work and pay the appropriate fee for an
inspection and a certificate after work is completed.

"This law will make homes safer and is long overdue", says Jim Speirs
director general of electrical safety body, the NICEIC. "Homeowners will
now be protected from dangerous electrics as a competent electrician
will provide them with a certificate once they've completed the work. If
you don't get a certificate or do the work yourself without getting it
checked, you will not only be sitting on a potential electrical time
bomb, but committing a criminal offence too. Your local authority can
order the removal or correction of any work and fine you up to £5,000."

Failure to comply could also make it difficult to sell your house in the
future. The NICEIC advises that electrical installation certificates are
likely to be included in the government's proposed home sellers' packs.
These are designed to offer prospective buyers reassurance and peace of
mind about the safety of homes being offered for sale. Amazingly,
electricians have never been regulated despite faulty electrics causing
an average of 12,500 house fires, 750 serious injuries and 10 deaths
each year.

The NICEIC welcomes the government's decision to finally clamp down on
the cowboys who cause these deaths and is advising homeowners to make
sure they only employ government-approved electricians

/quote

No need to restart the arguments, we can all Google. I just needed to
pass this on having had one of those "grrr..." moments.

Hwyl!

M.

--
Martin Angove: http://www.tridwr.demon.co.uk/
Two free issues: http://www.livtech.co.uk/ Living With Technology
.... The Eternal Triangle is usually right tangled.

On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 20:09:48 +0100, Martin Angove
babbled like a waterfall and said:

No need to restart the arguments, we can all Google. I just needed to
pass this on having had one of those "grrr..." moments.

Hwyl!

M.

They can still get stuffed!

Ok, I was going to leave it at that, not mentioning other "news
releases" on the same or similar subject... until I noticed the
following:

http://www.niceic.org.uk/partp/newsitemjan052.html

(the one I quoted)

Says:

Amazingly, electricians have never been regulated despite faulty
electrics causing an average of 12,500 house fires, 750 serious injuries
and 10 deaths each year.

But

http://www.niceic.org.uk/press/prnov044.html

says:

Amazingly, electricians have never been regulated despite faulty
electrics causing an average of 19 deaths and 2,000 injuries every year.

And

http://www.niceic.org.uk/press/prdec043.html

says:

Amazingly, electricians have never been regulated despite faulty
electrics causing an average of 2336 house fires, 750 serious injuries
and 10 deaths each year.

and

http://www.niceic.org.uk/press/prsept0704.html

says:

Despite the fact that faulty electrics result in 19 deaths and over
2,000 non-fatal electric shock accidents each year,

and

http://www.niceic.org.uk/press/prdec03.html

says:

According to Government statistics, fixed electrical installations in
homes in England and Wales cause around 5 fatalities and over 500
non-fatal injuries every year. And 12,500 fires in homes across the
country are reported as having an electrical source of ignition causing
about 25 deaths and 590 nonfatal injuries each year.

and

http://www.niceic.org.uk/consumers/moving.html

says:

According to Government figures, around 10% of domestic fires are
electrical, and of these, a third are directly due to old or bad wiring.
This equates to over 2,000 electric shock accidents and 9,300 electrical
fires in homes every year.

and I'm sure if I looked further I'd see more. So what is it then?

5, 10, 19 or 30 deaths a year?

2336, 9300 or 12500 house fires?

750, 1090 or 2000 injuries?

Or is it just that these people make the figures up on the spot to try
to prove a point?

Hwyl!

M.


--
Martin Angove: http://www.tridwr.demon.co.uk/
Two free issues: http://www.livtech.co.uk/ Living With Technology
.... After we pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is NOT our friend!

EricP wrote:

They can still get stuffed!

That's a lot more politely expressed than the deeply encrypted (can you
say ROT-13?) .sig on every posting from one of the two 'moderators' at
the highly-trafficked forum of this month's Winner Of Friends and
Influencer Of People. Hope that's the positioning he's after for his
company...

Hi Martin

5, 10, 19 or 30 deaths a year?

2336, 9300 or 12500 house fires?

750, 1090 or 2000 injuries?

Or to put it another way;
Up to 0.00005% of the UK population die each year
Up to 0.063% of UK housing stock catches fire
Up to 0.0034% of the UK population are injured.

No wonder we need legislation - its a national scandal.

Dave

On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 22:50:26 GMT, David Lang wrote:

5, 10, 19 or 30 deaths a year?

No wonder we need legislation - its a national scandal.

Yet we still allow people to be in control of a tonne or more of metal
doing many tens of miles per hour. Several thousand people are killed
on the roads each year (think about it 3650 is 10 a *day*...) and
several tens of thousands suffer serious injury.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

"David Lang" wrote in message
o.uk...
Hi Martin

5, 10, 19 or 30 deaths a year?

2336, 9300 or 12500 house fires?

750, 1090 or 2000 injuries?

Or to put it another way;
Up to 0.00005% of the UK population die each year
Up to 0.063% of UK housing stock catches fire
Up to 0.0034% of the UK population are injured.

No wonder we need legislation - its a national scandal.

Dave


How many people die of MRSA every year? If it's more than 10 ( or 19 )
then I suggest they spend the money on cleaners, and do something
useful and popular for a change. Fat chance....

Andy.

andrewpreece wrote:

How many people die of MRSA every year? If it's more than 10 ( or 19 )

5000 on secondary infections acquired in hospital (of which MRSA is one
of the more common). That is the government figure however, so any guess
as to what the real one is.



--
Cheers,

John.

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Martin Angove wrote:

The NICEIC is urging homeowners who plan to tackle home improvement
projects to be aware of tough new changes to building regulations, which
if not complied with, could land you with a massive £5,000 fine and a
property you can't sell.

I shall wait with interest to see if there are any documented cases of that
actually happening. I suspect I'm in for a long wait ?

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply

In article ,
Martin Angove wrote:
If you don't get a certificate or do the work yourself without getting
it checked, you will not only be sitting on a potential electrical time
bomb, but committing a criminal offence too.

So they provide a say 10 year warranty on their member's work?

--
*Even a blind pig stumbles across an acorn now and again *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Wed, 08 Jun 2005 00:36:30 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

Yet we still allow people to be in control of a tonne or more of metal
doing many tens of miles per hour.

Not for much longer -- I hope we've all written to our MPs in protest at
the idea of satellite tracking all cars in the UK.

Then think of the added "convenience", when they have to be tied into
our compulsory ID cards.

Andy Dingley wrote:

Not for much longer -- I hope we've all written to our MPs in protest at
the idea of satellite tracking all cars in the UK.

Then think of the added "convenience", when they have to be tied into
our compulsory ID cards.

And all those speeding tickets they could automatically generate...

--
Cheers,

John.

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| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

In message ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

In article ,
Martin Angove wrote:
If you don't get a certificate or do the work yourself without getting
it checked, you will not only be sitting on a potential electrical time
bomb, but committing a criminal offence too.

So they provide a say 10 year warranty on their member's work?

The legal requirement is 2 years.

And you can't buy insurance for that as yet, not even from the NICEIC.

Hwyl!

M.

--
Martin Angove: http://www.tridwr.demon.co.uk/
Two free issues: http://www.livtech.co.uk/ Living With Technology
.... CtrlAltDel to read the next message

On Wed, 08 Jun 2005 11:25:26 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

And all those speeding tickets they could automatically generate...

Why stop at speeding ? Parking too.

On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 20:37:57 +0100, Martin Angove wrote:

http://www.niceic.org.uk/consumers/moving.html

says:

According to Government figures, around 10% of domestic fires are
electrical, and of these, a third are directly due to old or bad wiring.
This equates to over 2,000 electric shock accidents and 9,300 electrical
fires in homes every year.

So if a third of 10% of house fires is 9,300, that would mean 279,000 house
fires in total each year.
According to
http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/groups/odpm_fire/documents/downloadable/odpm_fire_028259.pdf
in 2002 there were 65,000 dwelling fires overall. 2,773 caused by
electrical distribution. So the 1/3 of 10% is in the right ballpark, but
not the numbers.

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.com...
On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 22:50:26 GMT, David Lang wrote:

5, 10, 19 or 30 deaths a year?

No wonder we need legislation - its a national scandal.

Yet we still allow people to be in control of a tonne or more of metal
doing many tens of miles per hour.

But apparently only if you're over 24 if that judge gets his way.

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 22:50:26 GMT, David Lang wrote:


5, 10, 19 or 30 deaths a year?

No wonder we need legislation - its a national scandal.


Yet we still allow people to be in control of a tonne or more of metal
doing many tens of miles per hour. Several thousand people are killed
on the roads each year (think about it 3650 is 10 a *day*...) and
several tens of thousands suffer serious injury.

Probably "electricians" in their white vans are the main culprits.
Oh, I forgot, they are mainly sat outside elec wholesalers drinking
tea/smoking when they've "gone to get parts".

In article ,
Martin Angove writes:
In message ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

In article ,
Martin Angove wrote:
If you don't get a certificate or do the work yourself without getting
it checked, you will not only be sitting on a potential electrical time
bomb, but committing a criminal offence too.

So they provide a say 10 year warranty on their member's work?

The legal requirement is 2 years.

There's no legal requirement at all.

And you can't buy insurance for that as yet, not even from the NICEIC.

--
Andrew Gabriel

Andy Dingley wrote:
On Wed, 08 Jun 2005 00:36:30 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:


Yet we still allow people to be in control of a tonne or more of metal
doing many tens of miles per hour.


Not for much longer -- I hope we've all written to our MPs in protest at
the idea of satellite tracking all cars in the UK.

Then think of the added "convenience", when they have to be tied into
our compulsory ID cards.


But don't both ideas contravene our human rights of privacy?

Dave

In message ,
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

In article ,
Martin Angove writes:
In message ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

In article ,
Martin Angove wrote:
If you don't get a certificate or do the work yourself without getting
it checked, you will not only be sitting on a potential electrical time
bomb, but committing a criminal offence too.

So they provide a say 10 year warranty on their member's work?

The legal requirement is 2 years.

There's no legal requirement at all.

And you can't buy insurance for that as yet, not even from the NICEIC.


Fair enough, but to be registered for the purposes of Part P with any of
NICEIC, ECA, ELECSA, whatever, whatever, they *all* require the
applicant to have a minimum of £2M public liability insurance, and
insurance in place to be able to offer an (optional) 2-year warranty on
all work undertaken. This insurance isn't easy to find for the slole
trader, and although NICEIC say they are "working on it" even they don't
yet have a scheme in place apparently.

Hwyl!

M.

--
Martin Angove: http://www.tridwr.demon.co.uk/
Two free issues: http://www.livtech.co.uk/ Living With Technology
.... If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 21:33:39 +0000 (UTC), Dave
wrote:

But don't both ideas contravene our human rights of privacy?

You some kind of Terrorist ?

In article , Andy Dingley
wrote:
On Wed, 08 Jun 2005 11:25:26 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

And all those speeding tickets they could automatically generate...

Why stop at speeding ? Parking too.

That isn't the major concern for me. Bear in mind that in true socialist
fashion, your movements will be tracked and recorded at all times. Now you
see the true reasoning behind the crackpot idea.

--
AJL Electronics (G6FGO) Ltd : Satellite and TV aerial systems
http://www.classicmicrocars.co.uk : http://www.ajlelectronics.co.uk

In article , Andy Dingley
wrote:

But don't both ideas contravene our human rights of privacy?

You some kind of Terrorist ?

I think that many may become so if A Darling gets his way.

--
AJL Electronics (G6FGO) Ltd : Satellite and TV aerial systems
http://www.classicmicrocars.co.uk : http://www.ajlelectronics.co.uk

Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics) wrote:

That isn't the major concern for me. Bear in mind that in true socialist
fashion, your movements will be tracked and recorded at all times. Now you
see the true reasoning behind the crackpot idea.

The only saving grace is that they will expect high tech IT solutions to
do all the work for them ;-)


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
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| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

In article , John Rumm
wrote:

The only saving grace is that they will expect high tech IT solutions to
do all the work for them ;-)

Can anyone say "NHS"? John can. :-)

--
AJL Electronics (G6FGO) Ltd : Satellite and TV aerial systems
http://www.classicmicrocars.co.uk : http://www.ajlelectronics.co.uk

On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 21:33:39 +0000 (UTC), Dave
wrote:

Andy Dingley wrote:
On Wed, 08 Jun 2005 00:36:30 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:


Yet we still allow people to be in control of a tonne or more of metal
doing many tens of miles per hour.


Not for much longer -- I hope we've all written to our MPs in protest at
the idea of satellite tracking all cars in the UK.

Then think of the added "convenience", when they have to be tied into
our compulsory ID cards.


But don't both ideas contravene our human rights of privacy?

Our current government cares little for human rights. Look at the the
so called "anti-terrorism" laws, ASBOs etc. ID Cards and sattelite
tracking of motor vehicles is the next step towards a Police State.

Rich.

Andy Dingley wrote:

Not for much longer -- I hope we've all written to our MPs in protest at
the idea of satellite tracking all cars in the UK.

Silver foil on the antennae/reciever.
Won't be difficult to lose a GPS signal, or swamp the tiddlywatt signal
with a few watts of spurious emissions on the right frequency.

Can't see what all the paranoia is about, it will never take off or be
policeable, and evasive techniques will be so simple.


--
http://gymratz.co.uk - Best Gym Equipment & Bodybuilding Supplements UK.
http://trade-price-supplements.co.uk - TRADE PRICED SUPPLEMENTS for ALL!
http://fitness-equipment-uk.com - UK's No.1 Fitness Equipment Suppliers.
http://gymratz.co.uk/hot-seat.htm - Live web-cam! (sometimes)

"Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk" wrote:

Andy Dingley wrote:

Not for much longer -- I hope we've all written to our MPs in protest at
the idea of satellite tracking all cars in the UK.

Silver foil on the antennae/reciever.
Won't be difficult to lose a GPS signal, or swamp the tiddlywatt signal
with a few watts of spurious emissions on the right frequency.

Can't see what all the paranoia is about, it will never take off or be
policeable, and evasive techniques will be so simple.

I doubt they will but we might get lucky and Crapita will do the
"implementation"

:-)

Unless you only keep to back roads in the middle of nowhere, when you
loose the GPS signal and pass a big brother monitoring point your
vehicle will be identified either by the number plates or by something
like RFID. Maybe you will be able to pass one or two monitoring
points with the GPS out of service and get away with it but do it
regularly you have got to expect a visit from Mr Big to probe your
black box.

GPS signals are also by design remarkably immune to "a few watts of
spurious emissions on the right frequency"


--

"Martin Evans" wrote in message
...

Unless you only keep to back roads in the middle of nowhere, when you
loose the GPS signal and pass a big brother monitoring point your
vehicle will be identified either by the number plates or by something
like RFID. Maybe you will be able to pass one or two monitoring
points with the GPS out of service and get away with it but do it
regularly you have got to expect a visit from Mr Big to probe your
black box.

Even without a GPS signal the car will still record how many miles you've
done so they'll just charge you at peak rate.

I would also expect petrol pumps will have to be modified to interogate your
box as well and only serve petrol if it's working properly.


GPS signals are also by design remarkably immune to "a few watts of
spurious emissions on the right frequency"

Yeah - takes a nuclear warhead to block them properly ;-)
But there's a far better use for that ............

"Mike" wrote in message
...

"Martin Evans" wrote in message
...

Unless you only keep to back roads in the middle of nowhere, when you
loose the GPS signal and pass a big brother monitoring point your
vehicle will be identified either by the number plates or by something
like RFID. Maybe you will be able to pass one or two monitoring
points with the GPS out of service and get away with it but do it
regularly you have got to expect a visit from Mr Big to probe your
black box.

Even without a GPS signal the car will still record how many miles you've
done so they'll just charge you at peak rate.

I would also expect petrol pumps will have to be modified to interogate
your
box as well and only serve petrol if it's working properly.


GPS signals are also by design remarkably immune to "a few watts of
spurious emissions on the right frequency"

Yeah - takes a nuclear warhead to block them properly ;-)
But there's a far better use for that ............



Oi! I would be within the firestorm radius of one over East Hull

Mike wrote:

I would also expect petrol pumps will have to be modified to interogate your
box as well and only serve petrol if it's working properly.

Which its "after market" software will confirm quite happily ;-)

(even if it only ever records 15 miles a week of motoring)



--
Cheers,

John.

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\================================================= ================/

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 02:34:45 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

I would also expect petrol pumps will have to be modified to
interogate your box as well and only serve petrol if it's working
properly.

Which its "after market" software will confirm quite happily ;-)

(even if it only ever records 15 miles a week of motoring)

And 0.5mpg... Which raises the other "problem" with road pricing,
there is little incentive to go for a more economic vehicle (as in
mpg) if a majority of the driving you do is on "cheap" roads. A
"cheap" road would be one less than about 8p/mile which is roughly the
current duty element of fuel costs.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

Dave Liquorice wrote:

And 0.5mpg... Which raises the other "problem" with road pricing,
there is little incentive to go for a more economic vehicle (as in
mpg) if a majority of the driving you do is on "cheap" roads. A
"cheap" road would be one less than about 8p/mile which is roughly the
current duty element of fuel costs.

Watching a report on "This Week" last night, it seems they are already
shifting the goalposts a bit. They were then talking about charging per
mile where the price paid per mile for the same stretch of road would
vary depending on your type of vehicle as well as they time of day and
type of road.

--
Cheers,

John.

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Martin Evans wrote:
snip
GPS signals are also by design remarkably immune to "a few watts of
spurious emissions on the right frequency"

Oh, no they aren't.
I've designed (though not actually got around to building) a GPS reciever.
Some actual numbers.
Each satellite broadcasts some 50W of signal.
The coding makes this effectively some 1MW (taking the highest end of possible
interpretations.)
But.
This has to cover an entire hemisphere.
Call a hemisphere 6*(6*10^6 ^2)m = 2*10^13m^2.
So, this is 2*10^7m^2 per watt.
Or some 4Km.

So, a 1W noise signal will completely blank out about a 2Km radius.
However, I estimated that it would cost about a tenner extra to make
a meaconer, that broadcast fake GPS signals, to increase the jamming area
for 1W by the 20000 'gain factor' that's gotten by the GPS coding, or
about a range of 100Km.
And that's only a watt.
A balloon and a 5-10W transmitter can nuke GPS over several hundred Km.

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.com...
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 02:34:45 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

I would also expect petrol pumps will have to be modified to
interogate your box as well and only serve petrol if it's working
properly.

Which its "after market" software will confirm quite happily ;-)

(even if it only ever records 15 miles a week of motoring)

And 0.5mpg... Which raises the other "problem" with road pricing,
there is little incentive to go for a more economic vehicle (as in
mpg) if a majority of the driving you do is on "cheap" roads.

Agreed. Wife gets a discount for her small car and saves on petrol as well
whereas with this new scheme I'll possibly be paying less than her as I use
country roads more. I would have thought some 'base rate' with a multiplier
for small cars, medium cars, large cars, vans, 4WDs and HGVs would be
better.

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
Mike wrote:

I would also expect petrol pumps will have to be modified to interogate
your
box as well and only serve petrol if it's working properly.

Which its "after market" software will confirm quite happily ;-)

(even if it only ever records 15 miles a week of motoring)


Not sure how you're going to forceably load this software onto a secure
processor but good luck !!!

Bare in mind if you succeed the whole credit card "chip on card" market goes
down the pan as well :-)

"Ian Stirling" wrote in message
...

A balloon and a 5-10W transmitter can nuke GPS over several hundred Km.

If this is true, and I don't dispute it may be, why aren't you in business
selling such kit to the military market ? I can suggest sources of private
startup finance it you need it as I don't imagine the DTI will want to :-)

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 09:37:37 +0100, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 02:34:45 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

I would also expect petrol pumps will have to be modified to
interogate your box as well and only serve petrol if it's working
properly.

Which its "after market" software will confirm quite happily ;-)

(even if it only ever records 15 miles a week of motoring)

And 0.5mpg... Which raises the other "problem" with road pricing,
there is little incentive to go for a more economic vehicle (as in
mpg) if a majority of the driving you do is on "cheap" roads. A
"cheap" road would be one less than about 8p/mile which is roughly the
current duty element of fuel costs.

I was trying to do some guesstimations of the p/mile that would have to
prevail to get approx parity.

Take a typical vehicle which does 10k miles per annum.
This will perhaps get through £1500 of fuel most of which is tax.
So say £1500 of tax including the tax disc.

That means the average would be 15p/mile. So the general price would have
to be very much toward the low end of the ranges that were quoted in the
media.

However have really cheap fuel would put us so far out of odds with the
rest of Europe I can't see that happening. So all they could is scrap the
Car's Poll Tax (sorry Vehicle Excise Duty) and perhaps reduce fuel duty a
bit. In which case the roads would almost all have to be under 5p/mile to
get any sort of parity.


--
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The FAQ for uk.diy is at http://www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html

Mike wrote:

"Ian Stirling" wrote in message
...

A balloon and a 5-10W transmitter can nuke GPS over several hundred Km.

If this is true, and I don't dispute it may be, why aren't you in business
selling such kit to the military market ? I can suggest sources of private
startup finance it you need it as I don't imagine the DTI will want to :-)

Because it's generally not interesting to first, or even second line armies.

Firstly, jamming military GPS is a bit harder, as it's spread over a
wider frequency, and the code is secret.

This means you lose about a factor of 1000, or maybe 30 fold distance,
as you can't pretend to be a satellite, you have to just use random noise
to jam.

Second, all the nice toys (GPS guided bombs, cruise missiles, ICBMs,
aircraft, don't rely only on GPS, they have their own internal inertial
positioning systems, that may not be quite as good as GPS, but will generally
not drift far at all in the 30 min or so between entering jamming range, and
bad stuff arriving on target.

(30 min = 1200Km at Mach 2).

GPS is really, really useful where you've got a 12 hour flight out to the
target, before releasing weapons, to remove the accumulated errors and
mean that your inertial platform is calibrated before you get to enemy
territory.

The only real case it would be useful in wars would be few.
Consider that the US military (and allies if they beg hard enough) can
get GPS turned off at source for a given area.

GPS isn't much needed if you know the country, which means that turning
it off is of limited use in civil wars.
Currently the only uses I can think of would be for a 3rd world government
who is having problems with insurgents using commercial GPS to guide
weaponry.

(If iraq had deployed large numbers of commercial GPS jammers before desert
storm 1, it may have slowed things down a bit - but not so much now, as
military recievers are (AIUI) much more available.)

Ian Stirling wrote:

Martin Evans wrote:
snip
GPS signals are also by design remarkably immune to "a few watts of
spurious emissions on the right frequency"

Oh, no they aren't.
I've designed (though not actually got around to building) a GPS reciever.
Some actual numbers.
Each satellite broadcasts some 50W of signal.
The coding makes this effectively some 1MW (taking the highest end of possible
interpretations.)
But.
This has to cover an entire hemisphere.
Call a hemisphere 6*(6*10^6 ^2)m = 2*10^13m^2.
So, this is 2*10^7m^2 per watt.
Or some 4Km.

So, a 1W noise signal will completely blank out about a 2Km radius.
However, I estimated that it would cost about a tenner extra to make
a meaconer, that broadcast fake GPS signals, to increase the jamming area
for 1W by the 20000 'gain factor' that's gotten by the GPS coding, or
about a range of 100Km.
And that's only a watt.
A balloon and a 5-10W transmitter can nuke GPS over several hundred Km.

OK I'll bite. On what frequency do you envisage the broadcast of a
blocking signal would be effective? What are the spectral components
of that signal?

* For the goons who may (make that will) be listening. Please note
that nothing in this post is an indication of an intent or otherwise
to interfere with GPS systems operated by the US DoD


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