GPS is fragile.
The fix is already in the air.
Azimuth is a decentralized network of passive receivers that turns existing cell tower, TV, and FM broadcasts into a GPS resilience and positioning layer. Verify. Augment. Replace.
The Problem
The world runs on a signal weaker than Wi-Fi — by a factor of 20 billion
GPS underpins air traffic control, financial timestamps, power grids, autonomous vehicles, and the daily lives of billions. The signal arriving at your phone is 10⁻¹⁶ watts. A $30 jammer kills it across a city block. Spoofing diverts aircraft across hundreds of kilometers. Indoors, it doesn't work at all.
$1B
Estimated daily cost of a US GPS outage (NIST, 2019)
$30
Cost of a jammer that denies GPS across a city block
0%
GPS signal available indoors, underground, or in urban canyons
Why Not Build New Transmitters?
Because regulations and physics won't let you
The obvious alternative — decentralized ground-based transmitters at low frequency — fails on three fronts: regulatory incompatibility across jurisdictions, catastrophic antenna inefficiency at permitted sizes, and positioning precision three orders of magnitude worse than GPS.
Factor
LF Transmitter DePIN
Azimuth (SoOP)
License needed?
Varies by country
Never — receive-only
Works in US + EU?
No — EU bans radiating
Yes — all jurisdictions
Antenna efficiency
~0.1%
>90%
Useful bandwidth
10 kHz
10–400 MHz
Position accuracy
~300 m – 3 km
10–100 m, improving
Nodes for US coverage
4–8 million
~10,000
Key Insight
The signals you need for positioning are already everywhere — cell towers, TV stations, and FM transmitters blanket the world at power levels 60–100 dB stronger than GPS. The missing piece isn't the signal. It's the network of receivers.
How Azimuth Works
Listen. Measure. Position.
Azimuth nodes passively receive timing data from broadcasts already in the air. Multiple signal types are fused for accuracy and coverage no single source can match.
Listen
Your SDR node passively receives LTE, 5G, digital TV, and FM broadcasts — all carrying precise timing information.
Measure
The daemon extracts timestamps via TDOA algorithms and builds a radio fingerprint of your location's signal environment.
Earn
Observations flow to the network. Better coverage, more signals, and higher uptime earn more rewards through Proof of Observation.
4
Signal classes: LTE/5G, DTV, FM, LEO satellites
0 W
Transmitted power — purely passive, zero interference
∞
Jurisdictions where receive-only is legal (all of them)
Node Tiers
Start free. Scale from there.
Four hardware tiers let you enter at any level — starting at zero cost. Every tier earns; higher tiers produce higher-quality data and earn proportionally more.
Free
Tier 0 — Mobile
Android Observer App
Turn your existing Android phone into an Azimuth node at zero cost. Collects cell tower survey data, GNSS measurements, and WiFi signals. Download the APK.
~$30
Tier 1 — BYOD
Coming SoonRTL-SDR V4 Dongle
Plug into any PC. Install the daemon. Start earning. Covers 500 kHz to 1.7 GHz — enough for LTE, FM, and DTV signals. NTP timing.
~$150–250
Tier 2 — Dedicated
Coming SoonGPS-Disciplined Standalone
Purpose-built unit with nanosecond-class timing, outdoor antenna, and 24/7 unattended operation. Higher data quality, higher rewards.
~$400–600
Tier 3 — Array
FutureMulti-Channel Coherent SDR
5-element antenna array with TDOA + Angle-of-Arrival capability. Interferometric direction-finding. Premium tier rewards.
Token Economy
Earn by observing. Spend by querying.
The Azimuth token connects node operators who generate data with applications that consume it. Proof of Observation rewards useful work — real radio measurements that make the network more accurate.
Earn
Node operators earn tokens for verified signal observations. Rewards scale with coverage value, signal diversity, timing quality, and uptime.
Spend
Apps query the network for positioning fixes, radio environment maps, GNSS integrity monitoring, and historical signal data.
Integrity monitoring — Submit a GPS position alongside radio observations and receive a real-time spoofing/jamming verdict with an independent fallback position. The network's highest-value near-term service.
Nodes in underserved areas earn more — your value to the network is defined by where you are, not just what hardware you run. Unlike storage or bandwidth DePINs, positioning nodes are geographically irreplaceable.
Reward Mechanics
Rewards are calculated per observation using multiplicative factors that balance geographic expansion, data quality, and fair distribution.
Base Points
Each tier earns fixed base points per observation:
T0
1
T1
3
T2
8
T3
15
Hex Freshness
First to observe a new H3 hex? Earn up to 3× base. Saturated hexes drop to 0.1×. The network rewards explorers, not followers.
Saturation Decay
Network-wide per-tier logarithmic decay: as more nodes of the same tier come online, each node's share decreases via 1/(1+k·ln N). Higher tiers decay more slowly, rewarding hardware investment.
Density Cap
Per-hex, same-tier limit: rewards scale as 1/√N within each hex. Hard cap at 10 same-tier nodes per hex — beyond that, additional nodes earn zero. Growth goes outward, not inward.
Collision & RTK
30-minute latecomer suppression prevents reward sniping. Nodes with RTK GNSS (centimeter-level self-positioning) earn a 1.5× bonus on all observations.
The signals are already there.
Azimuth listens.
Start with the free Android app — or add an SDR dongle when Tier 1 launches.