Raymarine 435 chartplotter woes

[ozzie]

I have a Raymarine 435 chartplotter fitted to my new boat, and whilst it seems to be in good working order it struggles to find a GPS fix, or if it gets a fix it quickly loses it too often to be reliable. I had a marine electronics chap out to look at it, and he thought he had found the problem - a loose central pin on the GPS antenna cable which he re-soldered. I have been down to the boat this weekend expecting it to work- no luck! same problem as before. During the afternoon I tried resetting the GPS, switching on and off, and it wasnt until early evening that it got a fix - great! 20 minutes later gone again and it hasnt got fix since. It is ten years old, and I would like to replace it, but not until the end of the season.. The electronics guy charged me £84, which I did think was a tad expensive for what he had done, but if the problem was cured it wouldnt have been a problem. Has anyone had a similar problem? I dont want to keep throwing money at it hoping to cure the problem, I would rather put it towards an upgrade. Any thoughts??

 

[mcanderson]

Upgrade. I had a 435, upgraded to an e7 and it was a great move.

 

[stuartwineberg]

There is a lot of experience on the forum with the Raymarine GPS aerials developing a dead internal battery after about 10 years - I would want to check that before spending a fortune on a plotter

I have a Raymarine 435 chartplotter fitted to my new boat, and whilst it seems to be in good working order it struggles to find a GPS fix, or if it gets a fix it quickly loses it too often to be reliable. I had a marine electronics chap out to look at it, and he thought he had found the problem - a loose central pin on the GPS antenna cable which he re-soldered. I have been down to the boat this weekend expecting it to work- no luck! same problem as before. During the afternoon I tried resetting the GPS, switching on and off, and it wasnt until early evening that it got a fix - great! 20 minutes later gone again and it hasnt got fix since. It is ten years old, and I would like to replace it, but not until the end of the season.. The electronics guy charged me £84, which I did think was a tad expensive for what he had done, but if the problem was cured it wouldnt have been a problem. Has anyone had a similar problem? I dont want to keep throwing money at it hoping to cure the problem, I would rather put it towards an upgrade. Any thoughts??

 

[ozzie]

Have been in contact with the electronics guy and he is going to plug in a new antenna to see if that cures the problem - didnt know there was a battery in the antenna - fingers crossed! If that doesnt work it looks as if it will be a new plotter.