Hi Antonio:

That's an interesting question.

It turns out that one of the key military applications of GPS, in addition to position and time, is to find North to high accuracy. This is needed to be known to better that one grad (1/6400 of a circle). In that past it was done using a theodolite integrated with a gyroscope (AG8 (Kern DKM1) North Finding System). This system was heavy, cost the government about $250k and was very easy to break.
http://www.prc68.com/I/Alidade.shtml#AG8

I think starting with the PLGR96 and now the DAGR there are two or more methods of accurately finding North.
http://www.prc68.com/I/PLGR.shtml
http://www.prc68.com/I/DAGR.shtml#GLS
http://www.prc68.com/I/DAGR.shtml#AzD

In one method you place the receiver on stake #1, go to stake #2 (while not obstructing the antenna to allow carrier phase tracking sats) then at stake #2 press enter and the GPS gives you the bearing and distance between the stakes.

In another method two GPS receivers are used. One at stake #1 and the other first is synchronized to the one at stake #1 then moved to stake #2, press enter, and go back to stake #1 and reconnect the two units. Again you get bearing and distance between the stakes based on carrier phase processing inside the GPS unit.

Have Fun,

Brooke Clarke
http://www.prc68.com

iov...@inwind.it wrote:
Does a stationary (not in motion) GPS receiver know where the North is?

As far
as I can understand, it doesn't, isn't it?

Antonio I8IOV

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