Ever wonder why your RTK sometimes takes two minutes to go from float to fixed rather than five seconds? To address the fact that sometimes GNSS doesn’t work on one or more bands, and to provide a tool that explains why, JAVAD GNSS announced its latest (patent pending) enhancement for the Triumph VS at Intergeo in Germany in October. The company has incorporated a spectrum analyzer into the VS that does more than what a $30,000 lab instrument does to show GNSS interferences: it identifies the existing conditions in which the user is working. Javad, who has a knack for explaining complex subjects in simple terms, explained it thusly: "Would a pilot take off without knowing the weather conditions?" he asked. "The answer is no, so why should a surveyor go to a jobsite, set up, then wonder what is wrong if the unit does not function as expected?"

All higher-end GNSS receivers analyze the signals, and some identify interference and attempt to mitigate it at some level. Javad feels that the VS mitigation methods are heartier than the standard signal-analysis-filtering-mitigation, but this is the first time this information has been made available to the user. Best suited for fixed harmonic interference, for example from radio, television stations and from mobile sources such as a trucker jammer, the capability will be useful for those who suspect interference (perhaps the same folks who suspect everything when they cannot connect because they can’t accept that cell phones do not work everywhere, that they cannot work under canopy, etc.).

Environment Analysis has two screens: one that shows numerical interference values, and another that shows the shape and exact frequencies of the interference, just as one would see on a laboratory oscilloscope. The former will be more useful to the average user. So before the user stops to scratch his head and wonder what is wrong if a unit appears to not be working, or before he calls the vendor to complain, this simple yet highly technical behind-the-scenes tool will tell not only why it may not be working, but will also pinpoint the GNSS signal that is being affected. See the JAVAD GNSS wingfold ad in The American Surveyor for a more technical explanation of how Environment Analysis works and also a powerful fix for interference as an option on the VS—Inband Interference Rejection.