Poor gps signal?

[miles from the sea]

I was sailing out from the Orwell this week using the Navionics app and noticed that the gps was frequently dropping out sometimes for a few minutes. I thought this was a fault with my new ipad but found it was happening on my iphone also. Strangely the signal was not always dropping from both devices at the same time suggesting they had locked onto different satellites. Typically the loss of gps would coincide with weed sending the echo sounder bonkers which was not great when short tacking up a river. The safe trx app worked fine on Tuesday but seemed only record the start and finish on Wednesday and Thursday which is concerning. It may have just been due to the atmospheric conditions but has anyone else experienced these problems. I would suggest checking the robustness of your gps system before getting into a position of really needing it.

 

[Refueler]

The difference between the two .. iPad and iPhone ... could be down to the iPhone using AGPS (augmented) .. and iPad not ?

When you consider how low powered the GPS Sat signals are - its always surprising we don't have more 'drop out' than we do.

 

[Sandy]

I find a sextant, compass and chart work every time.

Why everybody panics not knowing where they are within 0.000001 of a nautical mile is beyond me

 

[miles from the sea]

I’m an east coast sailor and gps allows me to tack up a narrow river or over sandbanks with a degree of confidence and saves sitting on the putty for 12 hours. Otherwise very happy using old school nav

 

[DanTribe]

I understand that there has been a lot of sunspot activity recently. Could this have had an effect?

 

[miles from the sea]

I certainly feel it is an atmospheric issue and sunspots are known to disrupt electromagnetic comms so that’s a good call.

 

[GHA]

Had that happen once in a blue moon (or large position jumps) with an Android tablet. Never with cheap GPS dongle into a raspberry pi. Opencpn stays on constantly with data logged so any weird stuff gets seen.

 

[dansaskip]

I’m an east coast sailor and gps allows me to tack up a narrow river or over sandbanks with a degree of confidence

I tack up and down the Orwell and other E coast rivers and use the buoys - find that works well. Can't be bothered with using an app or chart plotter for that and allows me to concentrate on the sailing and other boat traffic without the distractions of peering at a screen.

 

[shanemax]

Russian subermarine directly under your boat hiding in the noise from your wake and using GPS counter measures .

 

[miles from the sea]

I tack up and down the Orwell and other E coast rivers and use the buoys - find that works well. Can't be bothered with using an app or chart plotter for that and allows me to concentrate on the sailing and other boat traffic without the distractions of peering at a screen.

We all have our own way of doing things.I do primarily use my eyes and the depth gauge when close to the bank but a functioning gps helps particularly when the depth gauge is jumping about because of the weed which seems particularly bad this spring. Unfortunately most rivers are not so well buoyed as the Orwell.