When the President Comes to Town

[TomD]

It used to be a big exciting deal when a President came to your town. Lots of flag waiving, parades, and patriotism.

With today's security problems its no longer fun. Now your city is DISABLED when the President comes to town. Freeways and streets are closed (woe be to you if you are on a freeway when it gets closed, you are seriously stuck until the Secret Service says its OK). I was not surprised at that.

One thing that DID surprise me was GPS gets jammed while he is in town. With the ease of GPS guided weapons, its not surprising. But it sure is a pain in the ass when your trying to get somewhere with your shinny new E4GT Telenav system. I kept messing with it while I was driving. Good thing I didn't have a wreck.

I could not understand why I could not get GPS to lock. After confirming my suspicions, now I know not to depend on GPS when a president is around.

The challenges of modern living!

 

[Stearmandriver]

I don't think it's possible to disable gps for just one area... If the satellites are turned of, they're off for everyone.

Jamming? Maybe but that would affect everyone, military and commercial civilian users too... Everyone from trucking companies to aviation relies on this stuff now... Including the secret service.

Where did you hear this? I'm an airline pilot and I've never seen a notam stating gps/rnav procedures would be unavailable due to a president's visit?

 

[dragonol2]

Disabling or jamming GPS for the greater good? (or a POTUS visit???)

Where's my tin foil hat when I need it?!?!?!

 

[thesmj]

I've been stuck on the freeway when the president was visiting my home town. It was only closed for 15-20 minutes and while it was still an annoyance, it was an interesting excuse to be late for work that day.