FYI (This was the last announcement I received)
Dear ESTB/EGNOS User, please note the following ESTB News:
ESA announces the continuation of ESTB service provision
Since 2001, the European Space Agency has developed and operated the EGNOS Test Bed (ESTB) as an early prototype for the EGNOS system. EGNOS will provide a geostationary overlay service over Europe for the navigation signals provided by the American Global Positioning System, called GPS.
The operation of the ESTB over the past years provided, with a remarkable level of availability, EGNOS like signals that supported European industry and service providers in their early development of GNSS-based technologies and applications – not least in their preparation for the advent of Galileo. It appeared that a wide range of users in a variety of transport domains progressively became used to the availability of this ESTB service, and already incorporated it in their applications. In particular some farming applications already integrated these EGNOS like signals and data in their everyday activities. This is very encouraging and confirms the promising GNSS market potential.
As per initial plans, the ESTB services were discontinued on 27th May 2005, when the geostationary Inmarsat III satellite (IOR-E, PRN131), used for the ESTB transmissions, was switched off by Inmarsat. The EGNOS system currently starting its initial operations, most ESTB users could now rely on the EGNOS signal transmission on Artemis, PRN 124 (Inmarsat IOR-W, PRN 126 remained used for EGNOS tests purposes and may have signal interruptions). However it appeared that the discontinuation of the ESTB signals triggered concerns from some specific users: Indeed the ESTB is providing a specific message type (MT0/2) that is used by some specific receivers, and this specific message type will be provided by the EGNOS System only in early 2006. To ensure this specific user community with a smooth transition to equivalent EGNOS service, ESA and European Commission therefore decided to resume ESTB transmissions as soon as possible by sharing the GEO resources between ESTB and EGNOS systems over the coming months.
The users equipped with receivers needing MT0/2 will therefore be provided with continued ESTB transmission via Inmarsat-3 AOR-E satellite with PRN 120 from today. The EGNOS Initial Operations will use ESA Satellite Artemis on PRN 124, but without MT 0/2 until early 2006. Should a resource conflict be faced, ESTB users must however be warned that the EGNOS Initial Operations with take precedence and may result in discontinuation of the ESTB transmissions at short notice.
Funnily enough my GPS seems to be working rather well with the EGNOS signals although it takes sometime to download the catalogue initially it only does this once and just takes updates after the initial download. Most EGNOS/WAAS GPS's show the connection as a "D" on their satellite page as well as big wording saying "Using WAAS".
I'd imagine even you could find it Jonathan......if you managed to dislodge your head for a minute or two!?
