One of the hotter topics in the construction industry these days is GPS/GNSS. If any of you attend the World of Concrete exhibition in Las Vegas, you’ll see many examples of how GNSS is being implemented in construction environments. The exhibition is expected to attract more than 1,700 exhibitors and 90,000 attendees this month. I’m sorry I’ll miss it this year, but if you do attend, you’ll find the usual GNSS (and related) suspects exhibiting: Topcon, various Trimble divisions, Leica, Sokkia, Seco Mfg, CST/Berger, Berntsen, etc.

On the GPS front, I’m going to paraphrase, plagiarize, and otherwise copy from my fellow newsletter editor Don Jewell, who writes the Military & Government PNT newsletter. He spent decades on the inside looking out (think Lt. Col. Jewell) and offers interesting perspectives.

ION GNSS 2007 Report I hope some of you had a chance to read my ION GNSS conference blog, as well as those of my fellow editors who attended the conference. I think Editor-in-Chief Alan Cameron´s brainstorm about this was very good, and I expect we will repeat next year. If you missed it, you can still view it on the GPS World Web site. It´s worth a few minutes of reading to get the flavor of what the hot issues were.

I, along with John Flick, co-authored a fairly in-depth piece on GNSS in the April 2006 issue of Geospatial Solutions. The basics of that article are still applicable, but here´s an update on GNSS events that have transpired since then ? with a bit of speculation and guesstimation thrown in.

I thought this would be a timely subject, since I´m heading off for two days of CGSIC/NAVCEN presentations before the ION GNSS 2007 conference starts on September 25. I´ll also be staying for the conference, and reporting back to you on what I hear there.

The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) is Europe´s version of the U.S. Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) with essentially the same mission. It offers GPS users in Europe more accurate and reliably GPS positioning. Like WAAS, EGNOS focuses on improving the integrity and accuracy of autonomous GPS positioning primarily by modeling refraction caused by the ionosphere. Also, EGNOS was designed to be compatible with WAAS so your WAAS-enabled receiver will work with EGNOS just fine.

It´s been about a year since I´ve touched on WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) with any depth, and a lot of things are happening on that front so I´d thought I&acite;d give an update. Also, look for a column on EGNOS (Europe´s version of WAAS) in the next month or two.

Whether you live in London, Lagos, Lisbon, or Los Angeles, when you are looking to buy a survey instrument, most likely you have a preferred instrument distributor in mind. Maybe it´s the local Topcon dealer. Perhaps your Leica dealer has served you well. Or you might prefer the Trimble dealer in your area. All of the manufacturers have distributors signed up around the world. Some operate on a regional basis, serving several countries, while others serve one specific country. I raise this point because of recent, significant changes in the U.S. distribution of survey instruments.