Chart plotter kaput – repair or buy new

[santavey]

"Navman 5600
Unit always used to find satellites within seconds of being switched on. Perhaps a little longer if switched off for some time. Now if switched off for a day it can take 30 minutes or longer to find satellites. Left it running for over a hour once before doing a factory reset.
It still took over 30 mins to find satellites."

I posted the above about 18 months ago and thanks to the advice from formites managed to get it going again using a cheap replacement antenna.

Now it wont even work with the replacement.
Does anyone know the likely costs of repair or should I bite the bullet and simply buy a new one.
My Navman doesn’t support the latest C-Map Max charts and they have features that would be useful.
The front runner if I buy new is the Standard Horizon CP300i. It appears to do all the things I want it to do at a competitive price.
Anyone got anything bad to say about it.

 

[ianat182]

You've probably already got the handbook for the 5600 so may have already checked the General Problems page 63 (2-1).
Could your batteries be a bit down on power too?
Also the date and time setting may be incorrect-(page 63)(2-5)
The antenna is specific to the 5600((Navman1330GPS)and should not be covered from an open sky position.Also (2-7)may be of some significance.
If your failure is fairly recent might the solar storm thing be a possibility too?

No doubt you've already checked these points yourself.



I have all the manuals should you need more info. My GPS is connected to the 7200 VHF.




ianat182

 

[Bosun Higgs]

Had a problem of increasing drop out and poor satellite reception from my Garmin hand held recently. Garmin advised a factory re-boot as a first step and to my surprise this has cured it.

GPS dowload almanacs for the satellites and after a lot of use this clogs up the system with them looking for satellites that arent there. Try a re-boot. Nothing to lose.

Otherwise, junk it. Those sorts of electronics are never worth repairing.

 

[santavey]

Had a problem of increasing drop out and poor satellite reception from my Garmin hand held recently. Garmin advised a factory re-boot as a first step and to my surprise this has cured it.

GPS dowload almanacs for the satellites and after a lot of use this clogs up the system with them looking for satellites that arent there. Try a re-boot. Nothing to lose.

Otherwise, junk it. Those sorts of electronics are never worth repairing.

Your probably right, buy new.
Tried all resets and reboots, checked voltage, moved antenna, still nothing.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Is it possible there's a memory battery in it which has expired, so it's not retaining almanac info? No idea, but I did have that problem once with an old Garmin GPS.

 

[rickym]

The front runner if I buy new is the Standard Horizon CP300i. It appears to do all the things I want it to do at a competitive price.
Anyone got anything bad to say about it.

Bought one last year to replace a Garmin that I couldn't update with new charts. Bootiful!

 

[Seajet]

As well as new kit getting better & cheaper all the time, there's the factor of getting hopefully updated charts; unless a new supply has come along my Navionics Gold charts are £200 a pop, I would have liked a downloadable update facility, at a sensible price !