Reply With Quotehow old is the 76?
I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this problem. I have a Garmin GPS 76 handheld GPS that I use in the boat for some basic navigation to my favourite fishing spots. The last two mornings I was on the water at 4:30am and the GPS could not acquire the satellites. Both days it took up to an hour to find the satellites. The GPS has a clear view of the sky. Later testing during the day the GPS found the satellites almost immediately. Prior to the last two days the GPS had no problems in acquiring the satellites any time of the day. Any one got any ideas?
Cheers,
BillB
how old is the 76?
Strangely enough yesterday (Sat 5/2/17) my old navman gps did not find a gps fix until about lunch time, i was furious as this is the one with all my marks in.
The back up GPS on board is a near new (but much small screen) garmin and it found fix straight away, however it too was struggling most of the morning with the screen taking time to update, which is really unusual for this machine and is normally lighting fast.
This was very frustrating.
I'm glad to hear it wasn't just me having this problem.
Donald must of been moving the satellites to get a fix on a certain US judge........
I had a similar problem that was driving me spare, away in a remote area, until i discovered it was related to my UHF radio. And before anyone starts going on about relying on UHF in a boat, this area has a relay station , and everyone uses it. Two GPS's, one with external aerial, one without. One without was battling to get a fix at all, one with ext. was getting erratic fixes. Turning radio off fixed problem. Moving radio unit as far from the GPS's as possible improved matters slightly. Only real fix is to turn radio off. On return, marine tech told me it is a common problem. You weren't carrying a handheld UHF in your boat by any chance?
My handheld garmin 62s occasionally needs to be plugged into the computer and have then software updated via the garmin website, it is much quicker after doing this. Also, low batteries can also cause it to be slow.
Not specifically sure of the model in question but previous model garmin hand helds have run a capacitive power storage system for the memory back up for the satellite almanac data to allow for battery changes. If the time frame between uses exceeds the systems storage capacity and the batteries were flat or the components are starting to get tired and have a reduced capacity it could be losing the almanac data and going through a cold start.
Scottar may have the answer. I use rechargable batteries in the GPS and I recharge them after every use so the unit would have been without batteries for a few hours each night. That coupled with the fact that the unit is getting on in years could mean that it is having to download the almaniac again when I first switch it on after a battery recharge. I will do some more testing. Thanks everyone for their suggestions.
Cheers,
BillB
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