Raymarine E125 Track "Jumping" Around the World

[StarryHorizons]

I have a Raymarine E125 plotter that was installed on our boat new during her commissioning after a factory launch in October of 2014. On three separate occasions, our track has "jumped" and added thousands of miles to our current track and thus our overall mileage.

Two of these occasions were on the previous software version, but the most recent one happened last week. We were anchored in Carriacou, Grenada (plotter off overnight) and woke up, turned on the plotter to move anchorages and discovered that the boat had somehow travelled to Singapore overnight. I don't remember any big black holes so I'm hoping there is another explanation.

The plotter has otherwise been great, but I'd really like to get this issue fixed as it's getting quite difficult to keep track of exactly how many miles we've sailed.

Thanks for your help!

David

[monte]

Ugh, that's a pity. We have the same plotter and it's been fine. Our last plotter E120W had the same issue and after discussing the problem with Raymarine they agreed there was a bug in the software that caused tracks to clock up miles at anchor, they had no intention of fixing it and I should buy a newer plotter (the plotter was new but they were talking about the next plotter to be released)
The Raymarine technical forum is quite good but don't be surprised if you end up with the same result.

[jstevens]

I have no experience with the current Raymarine MFDs, but that's never stopped me from offering advice.

This does sound like a software bug in e125. I assume this is an instantaneous error, that is, your ship's position changes for a single GPS instant and then the correct position reports resume. The only reason you are aware of the probem is because you have tracks turned on and you see a long track from your position to the error location and back again. I've had a similar problem with my system with much older technology (C120, SeaTalk, NMEA183).

The only thing I can offer is, if you use an external GPS, to check all of your cable connections. You might put some RF protection on the power cables for both the MFD and the GPS (if external). Since this happened overnight, it is unlikely that any onboard electronics caused the problem, unless possibly if you leave an AIS Class B transceiver active. Have you checked with other boats in your area to see if they've experienced a similar problem?

Other than those thoughts, I'd take the problem to Raymarine. Even if the problem cannot be fixed they may be able to provide a way to filter the GPS messages to eliminate position reports that are out of bounds.

FWIW, I never fixed my problem as it doesn't affect navigation underway. I do use the tracks generated by OpenCPN to capture and publish records of my passages on my website, and those anomalies did cause me problems. I wrote a small program to allow me to clean up the GPX track files, which was a lot easier than fixing the problem.

Good luck,

John

[nigel1]

Out of interest, what software version are you using, think the latest offered by Raymarine is v15.
If you have an old version, might be worth updating the software.

If you are using an external GPS, have you tried the built in GPS on the unit, and see if the same problem occurs. I have found that the internal GPS seems to work well inside the boat and the GPS satellite monitor shows good signal strength when the internal receiver is used.

I have an e125 as well, and have not seen this problem (with external GPS). I don't use the track function too often, but I'd think that a position jump to that extent would show on the distance made good log.

[elk]

I had an older Raymarine C80 that used to jump track. I cleaned the connection to the Flux Gate Compass and all was well.

Ed
S/v Emily

[StarryHorizons]

I appreciate the replies everyone. The Raymarine Technical Forums are suggesting that I try an external antenna, but I would think that if my GPS signal was weak, I'd experience problems while underway as well. Fortunately, that hasn't happened.

I'm using the most recent update of Lightwave (v15), but I've noticed even that has been a bit buggy, so bugs in the software somewhere wouldn't be all that surprising.

Since there have been a couple "clean the connections" suggestions, I suppose I'll add that to the list, but can't say I'm all that excited about digging through the boat to find everything!

Thanks again for all the help/suggestions. It's much appreciated.

David

[Steven UK]

I have a Garmin on my bike that will do it very occasionally so this problem is not limited to software, manufacturer or vehicle type. It logs distance traveled and I see it on the laptop otherwise I would never know about it. Good luck with the solution.

[tanglewood]

I had something very similar happen to me with a non-raymarine set of equipment. The issue was that the GPS was losing fix, reporting some random location, then coming back. There was lots of screwed up stuff going on on my N2K bus at the time, and I frankly don't remember what the fix was for this particular problem.

[David B]

Originally Posted by StarryHorizons

I have a Raymarine E125 plotter that was installed on our boat new during her commissioning after a factory launch in October of 2014. On three separate occasions, our track has "jumped" and added thousands of miles to our current track and thus our overall mileage.

Thanks for your help!

David

We have an E90W. We lost position in 2013 off the coast of North Africa for some 10 or 15 minutes, then appeared in the middle of the Sahara, then in Italy, and finally, back where we should have been (just as we were approaching our destination thankfully, as the entrance was a bit tricky).

The next day I checked our GPS antenna by covering it with a stainless steel saucepan. It had no effect on our position, and checking satellites, we were still seeing a good 8 or 9 of them. I double checked the set-up to ensure we were not using the internal GPS receiver, and it was confirmed not. Covered the other GPS antenna, just to be sure, and still not change.

From this I took it that it takes a lot to lose sight of the satellites. Also of note, we have never had the problem since. I therefore can only put it down to some severe interference at the time.

Don't know if that helps or not, but there you have it from us.