CF GM-270 problems

br · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 3

I've just updated the GPS for my nav system from a Garmin GPS12XL to a new GM-270 and am having some problems.

My PDA (Jornada 560 w/Tomtom2) connects to it fine but it doesn't seem able to pick up many satellites, taking anything between a few mins for a hot start thruogh to many many mins for a fix. And even this is only if I use the external antenna. Without the antenna it hasn't made a fix yet.

The Garmin worked fine but looked scrappy - same car, same pda, same position. I even tried the external antenna on the Garmin and it locked in on a fix in a minute or so, so the antenna seems ok. Garmin picked up 7 satellites within a minute or so where the Holux could only see 2-4 and even then not locking onto them properly (ie the bar stayed gray, rather than red when it gets a fix).

I've tried playing with Winfast Navigator to initiate a factory reset and then left it on overnight to pick up a new almanac etc.

Its not the backup battery losing the almanac as it takes a while to re-acquire even if I'm only swapping between applications on the PDA (eg TomTom to Navigator).

Any ideas? Is the GPS unit itself dead (or at least wounded!)? Help!

lbendlin · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 2:04 pm Post subject:

Your 560 is not a new machine any more. It is well possible that the radio circuit catches some interference from , let's say, the backlight circuit. You mentioned that it's slightly better with an external antenna.

Any chance to try with a serial receiver?
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Lutz

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br · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 3

Thanks for the quick reply - yes, I've been using the Garmin GPS12xl as a serial receiver for ages and it works just fine and dandy. The external antenna on the Holux is still very poor compared to the same antenna on the Garmin or just using the Garmin on its own as a serial receiver with no external antenna.

Will try later without the backlight in case that is it....

lbendlin · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 2:24 pm Post subject:

The backlight was just a guess (I know it radiates). If you search the forum for Navman sleeves you will find some weird soluitons where folks have dramatically improved performance by putting an antistatic bag between the iPAQ and the sleeve...
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Lutz

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br · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 3

Stranger and stranger.....

Slipping some bits of antistatic bag between the CF card and the pds body seems to help a bit but its still not great. Think I might just go back to the Garmin receiver connected by serial as at least I know it works. Looks like its wasted money on the CF card then....

Thanks for the help anyway.

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