GPS unit acquiring satelites forever

[No Strings]

On NYs day, I was returning to Richmond from Alameda. My handheld 76C was in the cockpit keeping track when I drove into a fogbank. Shortly afterwards the batteries crapped out and the sucker went blank. I installed fresh batteries and tried to re-initialize without success. This went on for about half an hour before I determined that the unit had reverted to the last known location (Lagos, Portugal), and was searching for the GPS constellation in the eastern Atlantic. I don't know if this problem is unique to the 76C or all Garmin units, but if the unit thinks it's in the wrong place, it may NEVER re-initialize until you physically scroll your location from where it last THOUGHT you were, to where you actually are located.

[hellosailor]

That's odd, usually the "last known position" is one that it last received. it sounds like you have an older 76C, and either the internal memory battery is dead, or you waited too long to change the batteries (some have an internal capacitor instead), or your unit was built for the Portuguese market so it can back up with that in mind.

If my old Garmin can't find it's brains, it will pop up and ask about re-acquiring manually or automatically, and I can tell it where to start looking from. Have you checked with Garmin to see if there is a firmware update you can download for it?

[No Strings]

It's less than a year old, purchased from WM in Richmond,CA.

[Songline]

Originally Posted by phorvati

I have a Garmin 120 GPS with external antenna. It has a BNC connector for the antenna. As of few days ago it cannot acquire any sattelite signals. I suspect someting is wrong with the antenna wire or antenna itself. Is there a way to test at the BNC connector if antenna is working?
Petar

Petar, I've had a couple of Garmins that have exhibited the same problem as you describe. Neither time was the problem in the antennae. The first one I sent back to Garmin who fixed it at a set cost. The other one happened to be a 120 like yours. I didn't think it was worth repairing an old 120 and was about to order a new GPS. I took the 120 back off and had a close look with a loupe. There was small piece of wire, probably shielding wire, had fallen onto the input terminal of the BNC to ground. There are all kinds of reasons these things fail.

Peter

[hellosailor]

"less than a year old"
I'd ask Garmin for a warranty repair, and if you need it for sailing, ask them to advance ship or cross ship a replacement to you instead of waiting for them to test it out.