Can a GPS Antennae fail?

[Shrew]

I've had my Raymarine GPS antennae (mushroom style, I think it's called a Raystar, though I don't recall the model) since 2009. Last summer it started behaving similarly to what is described above.


Radar works fine, Display works fine, GPS Antennae could not locate a satellite. Both times it finally kicked in after 15+ minutes. In one occasion, there was heavy fog right outside the breakwalls of the inlet to Montauk, NY. I as able to sit it out until the GPS was able to get a fix, however there was some pucker factor due to lack of confidence in whether it would maintain a fix on a satellite.

[nigel1]

Does sound like the battery has gone.

See here for a fix
GPS: Tips on Replacing memory battery in Raymarine Raystar 120 — Noonsite

[hellosailor]

"GPS Antennae could not locate a satellite. Both times it finally kicked in after 15+ minutes. "
The sign of a dead memory battery. A GPS on "cold start" needs some almanac or ephemeris data in order to decide what satellites to look for, and that is stored in memory. Move a thousand miles while the GPS is off, and it will be equally confused because the data is no longer meaningful, it is based on "Here we were, so we must still be there."
Easy enough to check, take the top off and look for a battery often soldered or strapped onto the board.
In newer GPSes flash EEPROM could be used instead. That costs more, and has a limited life as well, so it is an alternative but not always a better solution.


If the old GPS does not have WAAS augmentation enabled and you sail off the US coasts, it could be worth upgrading just for that feature. Newer units (3rd or 4th generation) will also have way better sensitivity and reduced startup times.

[txh2oskier]

My GPS receiver is a Raystar 120 with the battery spot welded in. Trying to pry it out myself has damaged it to the point I'm looking for a new one. The Raystar 130 seems to be the current model and I have found some that have a retro pack for ST1 - STng. I think this is what I need. Has anyone gone this route and can report success?

Thanks.
Brian

[hellosailor]

A slow day at a tv repair shop (if you can find one) will get you someone to cut the traces off that battery and solder in a new one for $20.

Airfare to India or China where people still know what "fix it" means, not included.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by nigel1

Does sound like the battery has gone.

See here for a fix
GPS: Tips on Replacing memory battery in Raymarine Raystar 120 — Noonsite

Spot on, here is a picture of mine which I have had to replace twice now so I carry a spare battery just in case. Batteries last about 5 years each time and the time to acquire a signal slowly gets longer so you have plenty of notice.

[Tx J]

Originally Posted by rwidman

Thinking about my antenna problem (a Garmin GPS 17), I can't find any information on the web about an internal memory battery. Does anyone know if there is a battery in the GPS17?

As I mentioned, I have a spare but if there's an internal battery, the battery in the spare would likely be at the end of it's life as well.

The replacement, a GPS 19 is close to $200 so I would rather replace a battery if that's the problem.

I'll go to the boat and investigate as soon as I can but if anyone knows, I would appreciate the information.

rw,
Your Garmin GPS17 does not have a battery, it has "internal FLASH program and non-volatile memory", which retains almanac and ephemeris data. This is a huge improvement over the #$%$##@$% Raymarine/theon Raystar GPS's (whose welded-in battery is a major PITA).
(there are two variants: 17N (orig), 17HVS (last version), N has 5 loose wires, HVS has 8 wires on RJ45 conn, unless cut off).

The Garmin website, Support area, should have a pdf copy of the GPS16/17 series manual. If not, PM me, I can email a copy (I got one of these long ago and stored the pdf Garmin manual in my 'library').
I tried to C&P the pertinent text here, but the pdf manual is 'protected' six ways from Sunday (no copying text from it w/o a password).

The GPS17 is a very featured unit (WAAS/DGPS/etc). Yours is probably still OK, might be a connector problem. Or has it been unused for 6 months or so? The manual had something about that, however, a worse-case cold start should take no more than 5 minutes, IIRC.

The Garmin website has some software to update it (FLASH), and an app to interface your PC (or whatever) to it (a simple 3wire serial (DB-9) RS-232 conn, shown in manual).
With the interface app you can configure and examine the GPS' internal state/condition, which includes various failure flags. All documented in the manual.
A Garmin chartplotter might also allow access to the 'internals' too.

[Tx J]

Regarding those GPS's that have an internal (button/watch type) battery. The Raytheon/marine ones (and others) have a 'spot welded-in' battery, a most unsatisfactory design %&&%$$&.
What I have done, instead of just soldering in a new battery, a difficult operation (that will only go dead in 'x' years), is to wire/solder in a small plastic watch battery holder (forgot where I got them, but ebay/etc will have them).
This makes the inevitable subsequent battery changing a snap.

[Ziggy]

Even a simple passive gps antenna can fail. Mine did last summer, after more than 10 years of service. I suspect water intrusion as the likely cause. The gps receiver works fine with a replacement antenna.

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

A slow day at a tv repair shop (if you can find one) will get you someone to cut the traces off that battery and solder in a new one for $20.

Airfare to India or China where people still know what "fix it" means, not included.

Or a normal day at Batteries Plus or Battery Warehouse. They make battery packs for many things, rechargeable electric shavers being one. They have the batteries, equipment and skills.

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by Tx J

rw,
Your Garmin GPS17 does not have a battery, it has "internal FLASH program and non-volatile memory", which retains almanac and ephemeris data. This is a huge improvement over the #$%$##@$% Raymarine/theon Raystar GPS's (whose welded-in battery is a major PITA).
(there are two variants: 17N (orig), 17HVS (last version), N has 5 loose wires, HVS has 8 wires on RJ45 conn, unless cut off).

The Garmin website, Support area, should have a pdf copy of the GPS16/17 series manual. If not, PM me, I can email a copy (I got one of these long ago and stored the pdf Garmin manual in my 'library').
I tried to C&P the pertinent text here, but the pdf manual is 'protected' six ways from Sunday (no copying text from it w/o a password).

The GPS17 is a very featured unit (WAAS/DGPS/etc). Yours is probably still OK, might be a connector problem. Or has it been unused for 6 months or so? The manual had something about that, however, a worse-case cold start should take no more than 5 minutes, IIRC.

The Garmin website has some software to update it (FLASH), and an app to interface your PC (or whatever) to it (a simple 3wire serial (DB-9) RS-232 conn, shown in manual).
With the interface app you can configure and examine the GPS' internal state/condition, which includes various failure flags. All documented in the manual.
A Garmin chartplotter might also allow access to the 'internals' too.

Thanks, now that's some information I can use.

I haven't been to the boat (I have been to the hospital though) so I haven't done ant more testing. My first thought is to run the software update again (through the plotter) and of course wait for a longer period to see if it just "forgot" the satellite information because it hasn't been used for months.

The connections should be fine but I'll test them as well. And I did come across the on-line manual.

Mine has the loose wires, not a connector. It dates from 2009 or so.

[hellosailor]

Ron-
Last time I went to a battery store franchise, I needed a couple of 12v AGM batteries. Saw 'em on the shelf for $60+ each.
Fortunately, I was wearing my best tux and was pumped full of meds, on my way to a diplomatic reception, so I enquired of the good shopkeeper:
"Yes, I'd really like two of these, but you're asking $60 each, Home Depot wanted $40 each, and if I don't mind waiting a few days, Amazon will sell them to me for $45 the pair. I know you've got expenses and I'm not asking you to match that, but $120? Against $45? Could you do something about that?"
"No, that's the price." Take it or leave it.

From what I've seen at a couple of those places, they were sold (the franchises) to folks looking for an easy entry high profit turnkey business. Not willing to do anything but follow their script.

So, fwiw, your mileage may vary. I'd go to Radio Shack (well, last week I could have!) and buy the soldering iron myself. Isn't at all as bad as, say, trying to learn orthopedics while you've got a broken leg.(G)

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Ron-
Last time I went to a battery store franchise, I needed a couple of 12v AGM batteries. Saw 'em on the shelf for $60+ each.
Fortunately, I was wearing my best tux and was pumped full of meds, on my way to a diplomatic reception, so I enquired of the good shopkeeper:
"Yes, I'd really like two of these, but you're asking $60 each, Home Depot wanted $40 each, and if I don't mind waiting a few days, Amazon will sell them to me for $45 the pair. I know you've got expenses and I'm not asking you to match that, but $120? Against $45? Could you do something about that?"
"No, that's the price." Take it or leave it.

From what I've seen at a couple of those places, they were sold (the franchises) to folks looking for an easy entry high profit turnkey business. Not willing to do anything but follow their script.

So, fwiw, your mileage may vary. I'd go to Radio Shack (well, last week I could have!) and buy the soldering iron myself. Isn't at all as bad as, say, trying to learn orthopedics while you've got a broken leg.(G)

They are not soldered together, they are welded. And In general, Radio Shack products are pretty low on the quality scale.

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by Tx J

rw,
Your Garmin GPS17 does not have a battery, it has "internal FLASH program and non-volatile memory", which retains almanac and ephemeris data. This is a huge improvement over the #$%$##@$% Raymarine/theon Raystar GPS's (whose welded-in battery is a major PITA).
(there are two variants: 17N (orig), 17HVS (last version), N has 5 loose wires, HVS has 8 wires on RJ45 conn, unless cut off).

The Garmin website, Support area, should have a pdf copy of the GPS16/17 series manual. If not, PM me, I can email a copy (I got one of these long ago and stored the pdf Garmin manual in my 'library').
I tried to C&P the pertinent text here, but the pdf manual is 'protected' six ways from Sunday (no copying text from it w/o a password).

The GPS17 is a very featured unit (WAAS/DGPS/etc). Yours is probably still OK, might be a connector problem. Or has it been unused for 6 months or so? The manual had something about that, however, a worse-case cold start should take no more than 5 minutes, IIRC.

The Garmin website has some software to update it (FLASH), and an app to interface your PC (or whatever) to it (a simple 3wire serial (DB-9) RS-232 conn, shown in manual).
With the interface app you can configure and examine the GPS' internal state/condition, which includes various failure flags. All documented in the manual.
A Garmin chartplotter might also allow access to the 'internals' too.

Update:

I armed myself with the Garmin firmware update on an SD card and headed for the boat. It's the same one I applied several months ago, nothing has changed.

I stepped onto the boat, hit the button on the MFD and it came up with the antenna working fine, no question mark on the boat icon and GPS coordinates displayed as expected.

So, either it had lost the information from disuse and regained it last week while I had it on or there's an intermittent problem somewhere. Now I'll have to test it every time I do to the boat.

[hellosailor]

"They are not soldered together, they are welded. "
Yes, in a perfect weld, although the post from Turkey did say solder, didn't it? Soldering can sometimes do, especially if you get a solder-tabbed battery.

"And In general, Radio Shack products are pretty low on the quality scale. "
Well again, it ain't a moon shot, sometimes the best isn't required.

For the home worker who doesn't want to solder and doesn't want to buy a spot-welding rig (actually, it should be *explosive* welding on a tiny scale, shouldn't it?) one can spot weld those little things by charging up a ginourmous electrolytic cap and discharging it into the tab. Working in a kerosene bath is optional.