Time To First Fix. The amount of time it takes a GPS receiver to compute its position from a warm start (current almanac, known position, approximate time).

How close your GPS position is to the actual location on the Earth with respect to a particular datum.

The time it takes for a GPS receiver, upon power-up, to acquire enough satellites for the GPS receiver to compute a position.

A “bus schedule” of the satellite orbits so the receiver knows roughly when/where a particular satellite will be in its orbit at a given time. It’s broadcasted by each satellite for all satellites and also includes information about the healthiness or unhealthiness of each satellite.

A GPS patch or helical antenna tuned to the GPS frequency (typically L1 – 1,575Mhz).

A short-range (typically 10 meters or less) wireless communications technology that is low power, low cost, robust and moderately secure. It allows for a wide variety of devices to communicate with each other.

A direction expressed with respect to true or magnetic north.

The technique of making maps and charts. GPS is used to help create maps, and also commonly used to navigate using digital background maps.

With respect to GPS, one channel is allocated to track one satellite. Thus, a typical 12-channel GPS receiver is capable of tracking up to 12 GPS satellites.

A GPS receiver powering on without a current almanac is a cold start. A GPS receiver powering on with a current almanac is a warm start.