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GPS and Galileo use the exact same frequencies, but call it different things?

  L1 (1575.42 MHz) and L5  (1176.45 MHz)
  E1 (1575.42 MHz) and E5a (1176.45 MHz)
Is there a difference I'm not aware of?


Another interesting tidbit is apparently Galileo cannot be "seen" in the USA, not because of same frequency but because the FCC forbids its license?

https://galileognss.eu/why-galileo-is-not-seen-in-united-sta...

https://barbeau.medium.com/where-is-the-world-is-galileo-6bb...

At least as of 2019 but maybe has changed as we approach 2023?

Firing up GPStest on various phones to see for myself.


https://www.euspa.europa.eu/newsroom/news/fcc-approves-use-g... is from 2018, before your date of 2019.

But maybe the receivers need updated programming.


literally the next blogpost on that blog is "FCC approves use of Galileo in the US" ;)


I stand corrected but just to add something useful, among my test phones are two made in 2020 or later and neither can see any Galileo sats in GPStest despite android being fully up to date.

So the late to registration/regulation has seriously delayed support, not just legacy support which may never happen.

But I'm far more interested in altitude/MSL accuracy than lat/lon precision. Unfortunately no cheap phone seems to do that yet, none of mine do. Might have to wait for another generation of GPS chips.

Garmin used to support WAAS in their lower end watches but then removed support, that would have been nice to have for very accurate altitude.


I was wondering the same.




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