GPS won't see satellites

[gordmac]

Boat back afloat recently, she has an old Garmin 152 GPS which was working when she went ashore but now won't see any satellites. Took the connector apart, quite corroded so I cut the wire and made a new connection but that hasn't helped. Any idea what to try next? Any way of checking the antenna?

 

[Nick T]

Had a similar problem this year & it turned out to be the Antenna which had 'died' over the winter - don't know why but it happened. All I can suggest is to try a different Ae.
Good luck

 

[Trundlebug]

I had the same problem with my old Garmin GPS.
It started taking ages to locate the satellites, then eventually couldn't find them at all.

I ended up buying a new GPS chartplotter. I figured the old GPS had about had it & wasn't worth repairing.
The new chartplotter (Garmin 451) seems to find where it is effortlessly and quickly, and that's with an internal receiver inside a wheelhouse. It seems the receiver sensitivity has come on a long way in the intervening years.

 

[gordmac]

Thanks for the replies. Is there any way of testing the parts other than swapping for ones that are known to work?

 

[Trundlebug]

None that I know of, although I don't profess to be an expert.

I remember phoning the Garmin helpdesk and they suggested a hard reboot, but I think that wiped all the previous waypoints and routes etc. It didn't really make any difference. When I phoned them again I seem to remember they said that there wasn't really a cure other than replacement. Clearly that's what you might expect them to say, but given that the old 152 is probably from the 1990s? I figured it wasn't unreasonable to think I'd had my money's worth and tech advances over the last 20+ years were such that it would be a far better prospect to replace it and get all the benefits of the latest kit.

You could always phone them directly yourself and get it from the horse's mouth