Autohelm ST50 dGPS / Navcenter 300

[SNCorcoran]

Recently launched by boat and disapointed to find that my navigational equipment was not functioning! As a background, my system has worked perfectly well for some 12 years and is all that i really need for what i am currently doing. However my boat was on hardstanding for some 20mths and on powering up the system my Navcenter 300 is not giving me a position. Out came the manuals and although the SeaTalk display reads "Visible" 8, "Sats" 0 after a time the display just sends out a message saying No GPS.

Everthing else is being read over SeaTalk and i even went to the length of proving connections and power supply at the GPS Head (Very Akward!) which were all ok!

All in all i can't help thinking that because my boat wasn't used last year the system has just shut down but surely not? Any pointers would be appreciated

Thanks

 

[philip_stevens]

How long did you leave the GPS on and searching for satellites? When the system has been off for a long time, it can sometimes take an hour or more for the GPS to acquire a new almanac from the satellites.

We have an old AP-Philips Mk8 GPS in the cockpit, and on first power-up of the season, it can take a long time to give a position.

Switch your GPS on, and leave it over the course of a day, and see if it can acquire a new almanac of satellites.

 

[SNCorcoran]

Thanks for the reply!

Initially the unit was on for around 2Hrs whilst i was attempting to do a "cold start" boot, entering a known position (My Mooring) and just generally willing the unit to work.

I guess that with it being off for such a long time then perhaps i would be better off just leaving it in cold start mode and let it do its thing overnight? That said when the unit was installed from new it only seemed to take 5-10min to get an accurate position.

Maybe a combination of time and back-up battery failure of dGPS & Plotter, but I'll try your suggestion and keep my fingers crossed

Thanks

Steve