Little Earthquakes

So this is more pertaining to Texas, but it’s something that I find both fascinating and problematic, so I feel it’s not a bad idea to address it more generally. A couple of days ago, I learned that Fort Hood (I’m aware of the naming controversy and am going with the current official name) is for the month of February going to be running a series of late night jamming tests on the GPS system extending up to 600 miles away. The interference will only affect certain frequencies, But the radius means that it will effect Houston, Dallas, and Amarillo, covering most of Oklahoma and Louisiana, about half of Arkansas, and down into Mexico south of Brownsville. The first thing this reveals to me is that I am actually woefully ignorant of how the GPS system actually works aside from the most basic explanations (receiving signals from multiple satellites and then triangulating position based on the readings). The second thing is a question: how will this affect us as cachers? While I doubt that there are many who traffic exclusively in late night caching, having done a fair bit myself, I still feel a certain amount of concern. Why are they doing it? I don’t really know for sure, but I’ve heard that the Army wants to test some responses to possible innovations made by both sides in the War in Ukraine. A significant portion of combat there is being done with drones, so being able to interfere with aerial guidance systems makes sense. But why is the testing extending so far? Perhaps it’s related to drone ranges, but running tests that have the FAA issuing warnings to pilots is a big thing. I’m not finding any information about similar tests in other places, but I’m also not doing serious research about it either (at least not yet, that is). I’m also wondering how much phone based caching will be affected. Once again not an expert on GPS, but I understand that phones often emulate GPS function by triangulating from cell towers instead of satellites. Will they be less affected than devoted GPS units? Do consumer GPS units even use the bands that will be jammed?

There are a lot of underlying assumptions that underpin our lives in general and our hobby in particular. I could go into material concerns such as our warm homes and the food that ensures we remain fed; or perhaps say something about our jobs, and relationships, and social niceties; but all that is beyond our scope. For geocaching, there is no more fundamental thing than using GPS to get to ground zero. I suppose a map and a compass can be good enough if you can do the math, But I suspect caching would not have been adopted as widely as it has if that was the main solution to that question. But what would we do if GPS was gone? Would we be willing to take to more primitive methods? More importantly, would we be able? There was a time I could do the math, but not at the moment. My advanced navigation skills are hopelessly withered, my intermediate skills probably moribund. I know this is a lot of babbling, but it feels like someone’s about to fiddle with the bedrock upon which we operate. And you know what happens when something shakes the ground beneath us. I, for one, don’t like earthquakes. This is all probably nothing, but keep an eye on Texas and let’s see what happens.