Nidec

Hy,

I am a newbie on this forum. I hope you guys can help me.
I own an Axim 5 i purchased from Dell together with a TomTom2 navigation pack. Pack contained: Mounting Kit, Wired TomTom Mouse GPS receiver, software. I installed everything and It worked fine for months. But this week I have a problem getting a good fix. It finds four satellites then it looses them again for a few seconds, then it finds them again and so on ...
Is this al due to some atmospheric disturbances ? Could it be that my receiver has become defective? I hope somebody can help me.

Best regards,

Nidec

gizmox5

I really doubt that atmosphere fluctuations are to blame. Is it a CF unit? If so I have spoken with a couple few people that have had faulty units. keep trying for a few days and see if it gets better if not may need to return it.
PS you do have a good charge on the battery right?

Nidec

Thank your for the quick reply. It is not a CF unit, the CF is used by my 128 mb CF card that contains the tomtom Maps. My Axim is installed in my car kit and the GPS receiver is connected to this car kit. It is using the Comm1 port of my axim to communicate with it. What do you mean with good battery right? I have it plugged in into the car cigarette lighter, could this give a fluctuation? I can a see green Light on my Axim and Red dot on my GPS receiver.

gizmox5

No I dont think so
I asked that question to see where you were using it when the fix loss occurs.
there are 12-16 global pos. sats. visable in the sky at any given time unless you are in a real crowded metropolitian area but i think that Belgiun is excluded from that senario.
as far as the green light that is good i havenever used the Tom Tom unit but I would imagine the red light is good.
it may be interference of some kind but the whole reason for havingthat many sats. in thwe sky is for reliability and accuracy so maybe it is something else.
Have you checked for a bad or broken wire from the recieverto PDA?
If the wire is been sharply turned upwards toward the dash or the unit maybe a wire has broken internally at the PDA Side of the plug or anywhere that the cable is pinched for that matter.
the only way to test that is to straighten out the cable and try it whilest moving the cable ever so slightly and watching the signal to see if you are dropping sat connections

ctiger

RE: "good charge on the battery "?
Does the GPS have an internal battery that needs to be charged?

Ct

JakeRich

Most GPS units have a very, very small battery integrated in them to remember the data from the last time they were used for a couple of days so that the next time you use it it has starting information and doesn't have to start cold. In operation it does not have to be charged, it takes power from the external source.

Nidec

Thank you for replying to my question. The GPS receiver mouse is constantly plugged into my car. It has continuous power even when my car is locked. Yesterday evening I noticed the signals are getting stronger. A colleague (radio amateur) told me that europe is covered in verry bad weather to send and receive signals. EUROPEAN WEATHER, BAH !!! He said it would get better this weekend. I will have a look at the signals then and post my results. He is pretty sure it could be some atmospheric fluctuations.

MrKlaatu

It's those darned nanocenobites.............they're starting to ride the GPS Waves.

They'll be hangin' ten on our brain waves next...........then we'll all be wearing these on our next birthday!!!!

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Nidec

Guys,

Thank you for your great help. The weather in belgium is better now and so are my signals 6 to 8 most of the time and i keep the lock most of the time. Like my colleague said, there was a verry bad reception due to atmospheric disturbances. I'm wondering if there is a way to pump up the signal of those GPS mouses.

suemccartin

I think you're reception problem in Belgium floated across the water and attacked me in Florida. I suddenly can't get fixes and software says the signals are really weak and when I do get a fix it's pointing to the wrong location and loses it almost immediately. I hope it clears up within two weeks, I want to use my setup on vacation. I think the real answer is that the terrorists are testing their gps jamming technology just no body will admit it ;-) I had my problem on Friday night somewhat and then Sunday it was completely unusable.

JakeRich

I used my GPS on both Friday night and on Sunday in Virginia, so if there was something interfering with your reception it was local to your area in Florida, not global.

MrKlaatu

.
.
They're getting an influx of chads in preperation for November and there's no place for them to hang yet, so they're just fluttering around causing all kinds of interference!

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suemccartin

I don't know what you have in Belgium that is the equivalent of the FAA in America but you might look to see if anyone is issueing any pilot advisories that GPS signals are not reliable for one reason or another.

I've been having problems In Pinellas County Florida for over a week and I just figured out that there's something going on in Jacksonville and Miami area that effects a few hundred miles radius that is generating a NOTAM advisory about unreliable gps signals.

You can get NOTAM advisories for the FAA at: https://pilotweb.nas.faa.gov/distribution/atcscc.html you need the three letter airport identifier for a local airport (AFAIK this only covers the US but I'm not sure).

In my research about gps interference I read that the EU is planning to put up their own gps satellites and the US is pouting and saying we're going to be putting up a better one.

Sheesh, politics, and there's supposed to be a bunch of political smell about about it because the EU system is going to use some of the same frequencies and some of the techheads are saying the systems might interfere with each other. But on the brighter side, if the US puts up their new state of the art satellites within the next few years they're going to add an extra channel that's going to offer accuracy closer to what the military gets right now that civilians can use.

suemccartin

Quote:

Originally posted by MrKlaatu . . They're getting an influx of chads in preperation for November and there's no place for them to hang yet, so they're just fluttering around causing all kinds of interference!

ROFLMFAO :p