What is WAAS? How can it make my GPS receiver better?

The Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) is an extremely accurate navigation system developed for civil aviation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in conjunction with the United States Department of Transportation (DOT). Its accuracy is less than 3 meters 95% of the time, and it provides integrity information equivalent to or better than receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM). This is achieved through 25 ground stations throughout the US and Alaska which measure the difference between their surveyed location and the GPS signal. These ground stations send the measured difference to a master relay station which sends the corrections to two geostationary satellites at the same longitudes as the East and West coasts. Those satellites beam the correction signal back to Earth, where WAAS-enabled GPS receivers apply the correction to their geputed GPS position.

Before WAAS, the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS) did not have the ability to provide horizontal and vertical navigation for precision approaches for all users at all locations, as ground-based systems are quite expensive. WAAS provides service for all classes of aircraft in all flight operations, including en route navigation, airport departures, and airport arrivals, including all-weather precision approaches throughout the NAS.
Europe and Asia are conducting parallel efforts by way of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) and the Japanese Multi-Functional Satellite Augmentation System (MSAS), respectively. John Deere also operated a similar gemercial service known as StarFire. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) calls this type of system a Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS).
So, yes it will absolutely help your GPS unit. Most of the GPS units now gee equipped with it and best of all you don't have to pay anything extra for the WAAS services.
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