On Wed, 21 Jul 1999, Mike DeMetz wrote:

>  You might check other surplus sites (Alltronics, All Electronics,
> Gateway Electronics) as they often get the same stuff. Apparently
> these are being dumped because they are not completly rollover
> compliant


hmm.  Some GPS devices have a Y2K-like bug that affects them after August
21st of this year!  Its a week-1024 rollover problem.

If you find a good deal on a GPS, *find the manufacturer*, then hit their
website for GPSEOW (aka WNRO) compliance, often listed on the same page
Y2K info.


a little more info:

"Forget Year2000 for a while. Are you ready for 21 August 1999 ? On this
date, at 23:59:47 UTC, certain navigation equipment using GPS (Navstar
Global Positioning System) technology will fail or operate slower than
normal. It is also possible that some computer systems may be affected,
since GPS receivers are sometimes used to provide an accurate time signal
for distributed networks.

"It is unlikely that the position reported by GPS receivers will be
significantly in error. However, units may lose lock or take more time to
acquire satellites, and not give a fix for ten minutes or longer. It is
therefore not a good time to connect the autopilot to the GPS and go below
to cook dinner (you are, of course, obliged to keep a proper watch in any
case..)"

(from http://vancouver-webpages.com/sailBC/GPS-WNRO.html )


- j