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Military GPS receivers operate on two carrier frequencies, only one of which is used by most civilian models. (And it's the shared military/civilian frequency which is adjacent to the spectrum in question.)

Using two frequencies makes the military receivers more robust, and also lets them do some clever ionospheric distortion cancellation that you can't do with one channel. (Basically they get the benefits of WAAS without actually needing to receive the WAAS signal.)

That said, neither the FAA or the military are going to tolerate any significant degradation of GPS, domestically or otherwise.




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