Different Systems
 

One of these days there will be Sat Nav receivers that can switch between systems:

GPS / Glonass / Galileo

Russia completes deployment of navigation satellites

are there gps units made by the ruskies? to go with their new glasnoss?

for several years now in Russia you have been able to buy dual system sat navs, that can receive the US GPS signals as well as the Russki Glonass ones. The problem with Glonass until now is that it hasnt been fully global. For a long time it just covered the Eurasian land mass.

You can get chipsets like this (below) to do both systems. You can see in the "performance" section it is slightly more accurate using glonass than using GPS, but when it uses both sets of satellites, the accuracy goes up markedly.

GPS & GLONASS Dual System Receiver

And I caught this earlier in the year ... glonass phones in Russia now:
World's first GLONASS-enabled smartphone ships in Russia, GPS ponders a recalculation -- Engadget

Galileo is supposed to be considerably more accurate than GPS and Glonass (it should be as its much newer) but for memory its not due to be finished before 2018

I am looking for a new GPS hand held unit for hill walking/wilderness walking. I see that the Garmin eTrex is able to read both Glonass and GPS signals. Speeds up location fixing, if using both systems. Galileo is starting to launch, 2 sats I think, but guess it will be some time off before even some of it's satellites are operational. It would be nice if Garmin could build in Galileo via a Firm Ware flash upgrade.

My existing old Garmin Hand held is a Garmin III+ but that is very old, has only 1.44MB memory, B&W screen, serial interface/no USB, and internal Li Ion battery is probably shot/difficult to source a replacement, so maybe look at an eTrex 30 or Garmin GPS62S (must have an SD slot).

Also have a Zumo 660 for the bike, plus the smart phone at a push.

Grey Beard

Yes I dont know if firmware is the fix to allow a sat nav receiver to also read glonass, or if there is actually physically different chipsets required within the sat nav.

Dont worry about Galileo, latest I heard was its not going to be operational until 2020. I would expect you will have updated your receiver long before then anyway :)

I asked Garmin and they more or less said a Firmware Upgrade would not add Glonass functionality to a Map 62st for example.

My problem is that I want Glonass functionality (to reduce obsolecence) plus standard US GPS, so that would suggest an eTrex 20 or 30. However, I think it is not possible to get the eTrex with the worldwide 1:100,000 topo map preloaded, or even to buy. Only the 1:25,000 topo maps, which cost circa UKP100 and don't cover very much area.

The Map 62st would be the answer, but it has no Glonass functionality. So I am wondering when the successor to the Map62st with Glonass will be released.

How good is the coverage with the free wiki OpenStreetMap in say northern Norway, Northern Russia and Iceland away from centres of population?

Grey Beard