Solar storm headed for Earth may disrupt GPS and power grids

Darren

A large coronal mass ejection (CME) is headed for Earth and has the potential to disrupt power grids, communication networks including GPS and flights.

Travelling at 4 million miles per hour, the charged particles are expected to start hitting Earth late this morning. Solar flares can trip electrical power grids and disrupt satellites including GPS as well as other radio communication systems including cell phone networks.

This latest activity increases the chance that Aurora (Northern Lights) may be visible in parts of the UK.

This event is expected to last until Friday and, with the sun entering its the active stage of its 11-year cycle, more flares are likely.

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Darren Griffin

spook51 · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 9:58 am Post subject:

Oh dear, oh dear.... this is guaranteed to bring the keyboard warriors out in force, "I paid good money for my TomTom/Garmin/Navigon and it's gone berserk/completely dead/ told me to drive over a cliff/through a wall/into a river. It's a load of ****, I demand a refund...!"

Of course there's always a remote change that it might behave completely normally but let's not let that get in the way of an entertaining solar flare forum frenzy. Pity it's not April 1st, think what fun could be had suggesting remedies - tin foil hat anyone?

pdfbt40 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 23, 2008 Posts: 56

Or as the the same Met Office spokesman said :

"But he added that the phenomenon was likely to go unnoticed by most."

theripper · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 3:12 pm Post subject:

Could this be the reason why my TT took nearly 15 minutes to get a signal this morning even though it was in exactly the same position as it was when I turned it off last night? Smile

Guivre46 · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 3:30 pm Post subject:

No, I expect you had nylon underwear on today, and cotton ones yesterday?
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Mike R [aka Wyvern46]
Go 530T - unsupported
Go550 Live [not renewed]
Kia In-dash Tomtom

pdfbt40 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 23, 2008 Posts: 56

... and as reported on BBC.....This is the largest ECM for 5 years !!

That in itself is strange as that should have been a low in the activity cycle. Or maybe its that the 11 year cycle has to be averaged over a couple of centuries.

Who sells nylon underwear ?

Martin

Guivre46 · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 4:54 pm Post subject:

5,260,000 results on google. Not all suitable for a family forum.

Try These

I know very Off Topic

_________________
Mike R [aka Wyvern46]
Go 530T - unsupported
Go550 Live [not renewed]
Kia In-dash Tomtom

JG · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 16, 2004 Posts: 19

M8TJT · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 8:28 pm Post subject:

JG · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 16, 2004 Posts: 19

- off topic - but my post count is up to 2 now. I haven't "changed" my username, but possibly posted as JohnRG or something like that. Then I had a computer crash and hadnt logged in for a while and forgot my details - to cut a long story short, I used this ID long ago when I wanted to refer to something and found had written this one down so logged in today.

You were all were very helpful back then, and things are still the same, I'll investigate the nylons, Ha Ha Ha

nwinton · Lifetime Member Joined: May 30, 2008 Posts: 2

No signal for me last night.
Zumo 550 in Camden asked all the questions...
Was I inside?
Was the date 8th March?
Was I hundreds of miles away from my last location?
etc
Drove home 40 minutes and still couldn't get a lock.
I hadn't put 2 and 2 together until I read the post this morning...
Lucky I knew my way and just used the Zumo to listen to tunes on the bike ride home ;-)

matthewj · Frequent Visitor Joined: Apr 03, 2006 Posts: 751

I was driving from 10am through 1am on Thursday. Tootling along the motorway, my TomTom lost signal and went all grey. Checked the time, 11:55. Oooh I thought, I wonder if GPS did get hit? No tunnel, bridge or anything to have caused it. Still out after 30 secs, so I went to the GPS info page, and all ten (approx) of the satellites were under the line in signal strength. about a minute later I got lock again and it carried on.

Perhaps I was suffering from one of those blocking transmitters, but it seems the world is still working. Phew.

Quinny1 · Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2012 10:35 pm Post subject:

It certainly has caused some interesting things to happen on ham radio frequencies.

Bands (Frequencies.) open to places at times of the day when they are normally closed, especially in the Northern hemisphere. And next week according to the solar forecast that we use predicting something similar, although not as strong.

JG · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 16, 2004 Posts: 19

Friday and yesterday - Saturday - my Tom Tom is back to working just fine.

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