Anyones GPS play up last night?

[Funchy]

Have you tried shortening the anchor rope?


........ Sorry....... Couldn't help it

[the gecko]

Weather conditions and receiver mounting position should have no effect- if the unit cant find 2 out of the 7 satellites it gives you a 'no gps' warning.

Setting to 'heads up' or 'North' should also have no effect. The unit says I am in a certain position based on its calcualtions from triangulating, and it is just plain wrong. After 3-4 mins travel, it should have acquired all available satelites and corrected itself, but it doesnt. A reset fixes it, so it cant be a headsup Vs north issue.

My Humminbird is a Matrix 27 and I updated the software a few years ago.

The unit simply calculates an incorrect position, but only after Ive been at anchor for some time, and only once in a blue moon. This is not a regular occurence, but since it happens so rarely, you tend to trust the unit in the dark. Im usually navigating from red to green markers and not all of them are lit.

I think its a software fault.

[the gecko]

OK so I did a bit of googling;

The sideimaging forums in the US are saying that there are gps software errors that Humminbird are not ackowledging publicly.

Other forums are saying that they sent absolute proof to the maker in the form of data checksum comparisons, and proved that the unit was calculating the wrong position. The senders got invited to update thier software, which fixed the problem.

To update your gps head unit, you will need a special cable to hook it into a pc via usb, and it also hooks up to a 9v battery to power the head unit. The cable is available from Humminbird for about $26 but some who complain have got a free cable.

check your software version here;
http://humminbird.com.au/support/legacy-software/

The lesson here is dont rely on the software that came with the unit. Updates come out about twice a year.

cheers
Andrew