GPS Issues

[WX7P]

Anyone having trouble with their GPS?

I was driving through eastern Nevada yesterday and my Garmin Nuvi started going whacky. I-80 through Nevada is a straight shot to California, but the GPS kept telling me to turn off bridges and drive to nowhere. Finally, it said "poor satellite reception" and was offline for about 20 miles.

The GPS did the same thing on I-80 after Truckee in California.

My friend N6LDP reported the same problem with his GPS in eastern Alameda County. Larry said something about a predicted GPS outage in 2010 that he read about somewhere. Something to do with with lining up the satellites.

Anyone know anything about this?

[ki4itv]

I-80 through Nevada is a straight shot to California, but the GPS kept telling me to turn off bridges and drive to nowhere.

...first thing I'd do is stop singing in the car. :lol:
No...haven't heard anything. But, I've been wondering if this solar cycle peak (CME's, etc) are going to have any effect on consumer grade GPS type devices?
This will be the first peak after a decade of explosive growth in compact computer appliances designed to fill the minute by minute needs of individuals.

[ad4mg]

...first thing I'd do is stop singing in the car. :lol:
No...haven't heard anything. But, I've been wondering if this solar cycle peak (CME's, etc) are going to have any effect on consumer grade GPS type devices?
This will be the first peak after a decade of explosive growth in compact computer appliances designed to fill the minute by minute needs of individuals.
How about the explosive growth in Winlink? Should be more fun than a barrel of orangutans. :hyper: :-D

[ki4itv]

How about the explosive growth in Winlink? Should be more fun than a barrel of orangutans. :hyper: :-D

I've dubbed this time "The Awakening". Very curious as to how this plays out as the brutal massacre of narrow band modes ensues relentlessly.

There. ...and not one cuss-word. How about that. :lol:

[PA5COR]

It all went down the drain when they abolished CW.:nuts:

See what happens to the GPS satellites....


:lol:

[kf0rt]

Been running the GPS here quite a lot the last few days -- haven't noticed any problems...

[KA5PIU]

Hello.

I have a dual mode GPS/GLONASS unit that has been switching to the Russian side lately.
This has been the first period in time for this.
Just checked, 72 hour period, 6 times it has switched to GLONASS.

[kb2crk]

it is the evil winlink and echolink screwing up the GPS satelites. we need to put all comunications back to CW asap.

[NA4BH]

I have a NUVI that is less than a year old. This is my second and last Garmin. What a piece of SHIT !!!! It takes forever to boot up, it drops the signal often, and will run you through the hood anytime it can. And it freezes up.

[ad4mg]

I have a NUVI that is less than a year old. This is my second and last Garmin. What a piece of SHIT !!!! It takes forever to boot up, it drops the signal often, and will run you through the hood anytime it can. And it freezes up.
But does it speak to you with the voice of a very sultry woman? :-D

[kf0rt]

I have a NUVI that is less than a year old. This is my second and last Garmin. What a piece of SHIT !!!! It takes forever to boot up, it drops the signal often, and will run you through the hood anytime it can. And it freezes up.

I've got one that's 3-4 months old. Bought it because my old Nuvi (3 years old?) died -- touch screen failed and for the price to fix it, I assumed, I could get one with newer features. So far, so good. Boots fast, never seen it drop signal, talks in a sultry Austrailian voice, mever freezes and the directions are fine. (Now I gotta go pound on some wood.) Sure you didn't just get a bad one?

[KA5PIU]

Hello.

I use this really cheap thing I got on DealExtreme for cheap.
It does MP3, it does Bluetooth, it does FM transmitter, and it does GLONASS.
But it does work as a GPS unit well, you simply have to reflash it with a major brand of GPS firmware, something that the manual explains that you must not do the comply with copyright, complete with pictures of what you must not do.

[NA4BH]

Sure you didn't just get a bad one?

I have two of them that are like that.

[NQ6U]

I just use my iPhone.

[N2NH]

Hmmm... if I was a conspiracy theorist, I'd start getting worried about now. Goes back to when Bush said they'd shut down GPS if there were a crisis or war...

But I'm not so there. ;P

[VE7DCW]

How about the explosive growth in Winlink? Should be more fun than a barrel of orangutans. :hyper: :-D

Did Chucky blow up another Pactor modem again?? :lol:

73

[N2CHX]

It's the same thing causing global warming. Time to don your pirate costumes.

[kb2crk]

How about the explosive growth in Winlink? Should be more fun than a barrel of orangutans. :hyper: :-D

MARS loves winlink. they use it as much as possible..

[N2CHX]

http://adn.agi.com/SatelliteOutageCalendar/SOFCalendar.aspx

According to this there were multiple outages on the 27th.

[N2CHX]

http://adn.agi.com/SatelliteOutageCalendar/SOFCalendar.aspx

According to this there were multiple outages on the 27th.

'course what do I know... I read the History page and the descriptions and it kept talking about NANU's. Maybe Robin Williams is responsible for the GPS outage?

[kb2crk]

no it was mork from ork dammit

[N2CHX]

no it was mork from ork dammit

Mork... Always causing trouble.

[N7RJD]

no it was mork from ork dammit

That would explain the egg icon zipping across the screen.

[N7RJD]

I have a Nuvi 260w that has shown be momentary lapses when first turned on but quickly recovers.
A few weeks ago when set to guide me to a location from the favorites list it jumped around a bit
changing the arrival time back and forth hours at a time. I know I didn't sit at that red light quite
that long, it just felt like it.

I chalked it up to their way of putting the pressure on to buy the upgraded maps. I figure they want
you to do that every year when the roads don't realign themselves more than every third year and
the unit will probably last two to three years with moderate usage. For what they charges for these
upgrades I'll just wait a year or two and buy a new one. If I have anything important enough I'll take
the laptop and the Earthmate from DeLorme. It has always done a good job and never nagged me to
upgrade my mapping every year at $80 a pop.

The other GPS units I use I would never notice any such problems. One is an old non-mapping eTrex
that is wired to the D700 for APRS and the other is a Duo or some such name antenna/receiver that
is wired to the 996 scanner to change frequency sets without me having to lean down just asking
to kiss bumpers with oncoming traffic.

Yes, I am one that swore I would never own a GPS, go figure.

[KG4CGC]

Mork... Always causing trouble.
I always thought this was a real problem.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c79/bebop5/Gold%20Bug/823e3d1940848a2949d2a8a3fd6e.jpg

[W1GUH]

Anyone having trouble with their GPS?

I was driving through eastern Nevada yesterday and my Garmin Nuvi started going whacky. I-80 through Nevada is a straight shot to California, but the GPS kept telling me to turn off bridges and drive to nowhere. Finally, it said "poor satellite reception" and was offline for about 20 miles.

The GPS did the same thing on I-80 after Truckee in California.

My friend N6LDP reported the same problem with his GPS in eastern Alameda County. Larry said something about a predicted GPS outage in 2010 that he read about somewhere. Something to do with with lining up the satellites.

Anyone know anything about this?

Were you taking care of the sultry woman who tells you where to go? Do you buy her presents? Tell her she's beautiful? :lol:

I used to have GPS on my cell phone, a Samsung Impression (POS). That GPS was the worst!!!!! Took forever to boot -- sometimes didn't boot at all -- and anytime it needed a new map it had to download it, which also took forever.

So glad I found the phone it replaced (a good ol' trusty LASR), and LOST that POS. Best thing I ever lost!!

[W7XF]

It's the same thing causing global warming. Time to don your pirate costumes Foxtrot Uniforms.

Fixed that for you, Kelli! :lol:

[KJ3N]

Anyone having trouble with their GPS?

I was driving through eastern Nevada yesterday and my Garmin Nuvi started going whacky. I-80 through Nevada is a straight shot to California, but the GPS kept telling me to turn off bridges and drive to nowhere. Finally, it said "poor satellite reception" and was offline for about 20 miles.

The GPS did the same thing on I-80 after Truckee in California.

My friend N6LDP reported the same problem with his GPS in eastern Alameda County. Larry said something about a predicted GPS outage in 2010 that he read about somewhere. Something to do with with lining up the satellites.

Anyone know anything about this?

Robin Williams had a similar experience:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoV5hXwiYDw&p=6298062A08EA7481

GPS part is about 3:10 into the clip. NSFW

[kf0rt]

I have two of them that are like that.

Weird. I'd pitch a bitch with Garmin. They just recalled something like 750,000 units for battery problems.

Spent part of the day out today geocaching with two Garmin units. Have a Nuvi 1390 in the car and an old eTrex Legend. We used the car unit to find places off-road, and it was "dead on." It's not too hard to confuse the 1390 on directions, but it corrects on it's own soon enough, and I haven't seen any reliability problems.

Will be doing a lot more of this over the next few days.

[KA5PIU]

Hello.

I was looking at the Garmin units but can not find one that does both Russian and US systems.
The Chinese have a firmware patch that lets some units do WAAS, something I would be very happy with.
So I will use this cheap unit that does GPS/GLONASS until the new, cheap unit hits.
And, the reason that dual mode units are not popular in the US is that they do not meet with FCC approval, or have not been submitted.
Remember that even the crappy unit I have can be loaded with the US military secure GPS codes and function, this is very much a rip from the PLGR.