WAAS, Is there such a thing in OZ?

NO

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As you say it is a pointless feature here in Oz as it is not available in this part of the world. The accuracy since selective availability was turned off is more than enough for every day ground or marine navigation - WAAS was introduced in the US to provide navigation accuracy for aircraft conducting GPS precision approaches - again something that we do not have here. Non-precision approaches (NPA) were developed in Oz instead, and for general use here it is assumed by the minor gods that run aviation safety to be adequately safe - though I wonder if the families of the victims in the Lockhart River crash would think so...

From memory there also have been trials done with ground based stations to augment the accuracy of GPS receivers for precision approaches - and with amazing results - precisions somewhere in the region of centimeters rather than meters.

Interesting subject this - I have used GPS units for NPAs - they are complex approaches when compared to using the older generations of nav gear - they require enhanced concentration and a very very thorough and intuitive knowledge of the equipment used and of the approach.

viz

No and Yes.

The best accuracy you can get from a standard portable or vehicle GPS is about 15m.

When I worked for AMSA I helped with the rollout of the differential GPS system around oz. Differential is basically waas done differently. It is pretty much seamless up the eastern seaboard, the cape, weipa and then around the major shipping ports of the West and South.
It is free and available to anyone who wishes to purchase a differential receiver. Not much good in the Simpson, but excellent if you fish the eastern seaboard as I do. These days the fix won't be amazingly better than raw GPS due to SA being switched off, but it is and will increasingly be more reliable than the satellites.

WAAS should be turned off/disabled in Oz.
apparently it is possible to get some signals, but they are not from or for Oz, and could/will cause confusion.

For those of you who fish Morton Bay there is a DGPS unit on Bribie Island at Woorim.

However the unit to use with the Lowrance Globalmap3000 I had was $1200 if you could buy one here.
I got one from Ebay for $200 and it did make a difference and was accurate to the length of my pontoon at home. (8M)

GrahamH - the AMSA one for Brissy is down the back of the Telstra facility at Ningi. It broadcasts up to around Hervey Bay or thereabouts, when the one at Gladstone (Benaraby) starts to become stronger. Don't know who would own the one at woorim?

Thank you all for your information

Greatly appreciated

I have a feeling it may be similar to the radio beacon triangulation that occurred in the US prior to the removal of position deviation so people didn't put missiles through windows etc. [TIC]

Cheers

As has been stated, we do not have WAAS in Australia. However, Australia has committed to providing the aviation industry with approaches with vertical guidance (APV) using GNSS (eg GPS) by 2016. There are essentially two types of APV using satellites. The first, on which work has already started, is called Baro-VNAV which realistically is only going to be available to newish high value aircraft, and is of no interest to this discussion. The other system is called SBAS, and is of great interest to those who operate in regional areas with aircraft unlikely to ever have Baro-VNAV certification. WAAS is the US SBAS system. There are others, including a Japanese system which has a footprint which covers Australia. The question of whether or not to set up an SBAS system for Australia is currently under consideration, and will probably go ahead, but with all the work to be done, don't expect to see it for a number of years yet.

Cheers for that Terry.

It will be interesting to see if the system you discuss will be aligned with WAAS or compatible to WAAS fitted devices to improve navigation in this country especially regional areas and marine applications.

So purchasing a WAAS based device is a pointless exercise now in Australia. Some companies have cheaper devices without the WAAS in their range.