As part of my job, I’ve been looking at the GPS and Galileo debate – but more of that in a later post. What I want to raise here is one aspect of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) that I wasn’t aware of. Whilst the use of GNSS for positioning and navigational applications is obvious, less well known is its use as a timing reference in for example national power grids and telecommunications systems. Now many of you may be familiar with this, but for me it is a critical issue often overlooked in any consideration of the impact of loss of GNSS – possibly the only remaining defensible argument for continuing with Galileo.

This use of GNSS is discussed in the VOLPE report – the only detailed research I could find into the vulnerability of GPS.

To explain the blog title. This is reference to a story that was recently related to me – though probably an urban myth. Apparently the “culprit” for the US Eastern Seaboard blackout in 2003 was a trucker. He was having assignations with a lady and wanted to jam the GPS signals to his spy-in-the-cab. He purchased the jammer, turned it on, drove past a local national grid sub-station, affected the power phasing and set off a chain reaction – the rest is history.

It does seem fairly easy to jam GPS though, see here.