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I haven't been all that worried about the year 2000
problem, but the AOPA <I>Pilot</I> magazine this month (p. 99) describes
the potentials very clearly. They mention that older marine GPS units may
have a problem called end-of-the-week rollover, not actually Y2K, but similiar.
It seems that the counters on the GPS satellites can count only 1,023 weeks
or 19 + years. They then roll over and begin again. Older models may have
a problem and begin searching for satellites as they were 20 years ago
and have trouble synching up. The next rollover takes place August 21,
1999 at 23:59:47 Greenwich. Apparently the receivers will sort this
out after a while - I don't know if minutes or hours - but may become "lost"
for a while next August 21st.
<BR> The GPS manufacturers are working on this and some
have posted information on the web, however Magellan, which my unit is,
has not (www.magellan.com) Others are Garmin www.garmin.com
Northstar www.northstarcmc.com Trimble (which seems
to be going out of the GPS business) www.trimble.com
Bendix/King www.alliedsignal.com II Morrow www.iimorrow.com
<BR> I have not punctuated these to avoid complicating
the addresses.
<BR> Some GPS will be inoperative on February 1, 2000
or read it as January 32, 2000 because of a leap year problem. Seems years
ending in 00 are not leap years, except those divisible by 400, thanks
to the horologists and astronomers who keep the faith of the Gregorian
calendar.
<BR> There is more to this in <I>Pilot</I> than sailors
may want to know. My son, the Navy Commander, is very concerned over many
shipboard systems that used imbedded chips. The good news is that shipboard
<U>nuclear </U>systems pre-date the later stages of the microchip revolution
and are not affected.
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- Gordon White</HTML>