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Waas - Does Garmin Think We Are This Stupid?


myotis

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Here is what they told me today for my 60CSX-I worte back letting them know how upsetting their lies are.

 

With your issue about WAAS what are you referring to? WAAS works on that model unit but will show differently with the new SiRF antennas that your model has. If you see that you are getting better accuracy than 50 feet then WAAS is working. If you are not please provide more information about this issue and I will be happy to address it for you further.

 

If you have any further questions or concerns about this issue please contact me by replying to this E-Mail. For new issues or concerns you can contact Garmin Product Support at 1-800-800-1020 or via E-Mail.

 

Austin Arnold

Product Support Specialist

Garmin International

1200 East 151st Street

Olathe, KS 66062

Phone: (800)-800-1020

Fax: (913)-440-5488

Edited by myotis
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Here is what they told me today for my 60CSX-I worte back letting them know how upsetting their lies are.

 

With your issue about WAAS what are you referring to? WAAS works on that model unit but will show

 

 

This might make more sense if we knew what the "issue" was (or is that "waas")?

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I also emailed garmin about not receiving WAAS with the 60cx, and got a totally different reply. I'm not going to post the reply I got because I read the bottom of the email, I guess topic starter didn't see that part.

 

"CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE

This email and any attachments may contain confidential material for the

sole use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient,

please be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this

e-mail or any attachment is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in

error, please contact the sender and delete all copies. Thank you for your

cooperation"

 

other thread on this topic.

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=135929

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If you see that you are getting better accuracy than 50 feet then WAAS is working.

Even if it hasn't tracked the GEO at all? :laughing:

And they're implying that their receivers can't do better than 50 ft without WAAS?

A follow-up question would be: If a receiver on the west coast is tracking 47 and showing D's and an identical unit in the midwest is better than 50 ft but not showing any GEOs tracked or D's, what is that differentiation in status indicating if WAAS is working on both?

 

"CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE

This email and any attachments may contain confidential material for the

sole use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient,

please be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this

e-mail or any attachment is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in

error, please contact the sender and delete all copies. Thank you for your

cooperation"

Bah! These boilerplates aren't worth the electrons they're printed on. Did you sign an NDA? Don't give up your rights so easily.

Edited by GPSlug
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I also emailed garmin about not receiving WAAS with the 60cx, and got a totally different reply. I'm not going to post the reply I got because I read the bottom of the email, I guess topic starter didn't see that part.

 

"CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE

This email and any attachments may contain confidential material for the

sole use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient,

please be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this

e-mail or any attachment is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in

error, please contact the sender and delete all copies. Thank you for your

cooperation"

 

other thread on this topic.

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=135929

 

Read the Confidentiality Note again. It says, "If you are NOT the intended recipient..." However, you ARE the intended recipient, so I think it's ok for you to share what they said. You don't need to cut and paste the e-mail. Can you please give us the gist of what they said? Thanks.

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The data from the SiRFstar III chip is different, compared to what comes out of Garmin's own GPS chip. That's why no "D" symbols will be shown if you have SiRFstar III. Hence it's impossible to tell if the unit has a 3DD lock, or just a 3D. You may not be able to differentiate between a 3D lock with a low DOP, compared to a 3DD lock with an inferior DOP, since the EPE may very well be the same. Thus giving a rule of thumb, like the 15 meter / 50 feet EPE, would probably satisfy most of the novel users. When they come in touch with someone more knowledgeable, like you, then that user will probably understand this fact, as I stated above, himself.

 

Obviously you did.

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WAAS seems to work fine on my 60CSx-- I get solid locks on WAAS birds like 35, 33 and 47 nearly every day and have 'D's showing on the sattelite page more often than not..... As I mentioned in another thread, it might be a location specific issue.

Edited by Cache Heads
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The data from the SiRFstar III chip is different, compared to what comes out of Garmin's own GPS chip. That's why no "D" symbols will be shown if you have SiRFstar III. Hence it's impossible to tell if the unit has a 3DD lock, or just a 3D. You may not be able to differentiate between a 3D lock with a low DOP, compared to a 3DD lock with an inferior DOP, since the EPE may very well be the same. Thus giving a rule of thumb, like the 15 meter / 50 feet EPE, would probably satisfy most of the novel users. When they come in touch with someone more knowledgeable, like you, then that user will probably understand this fact, as I stated above, himself.

 

Obviously you did.

But haven't other Cx and CSx users reported that they do, indeed, get D's if they are in view of 47 or 33? I thought the only difference seen by users for which WAAS is working was that Sirf wasn't reporting ranging to the GEO.

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I also emailed garmin about not receiving WAAS with the 60cx, and got a totally different reply. I'm not going to post the reply I got because I read the bottom of the email, I guess topic starter didn't see that part.

 

"CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE

This email and any attachments may contain confidential material for the

sole use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient,

please be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this

e-mail or any attachment is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in

error, please contact the sender and delete all copies. Thank you for your

cooperation"

 

other thread on this topic.

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=135929

 

Read the Confidentiality Note again. It says, "If you are NOT the intended recipient..." However, you ARE the intended recipient, so I think it's ok for you to share what they said. You don't need to cut and paste the e-mail. Can you please give us the gist of what they said? Thanks.

 

here's your copy/paste...... it's pretty much useless thats why i didn't post it.

 

"As for the issue of the WAAS I recommend that you try a MASTER RESET of the

unit.

 

How to perform a MASTER RESET

 

Press and hold the following buttons together: QUIT + MENU + ZOOM OUT +

POWER Release these buttons upon the unit powering on, then give it a clear

view of the sky for at least 30 minutes in a stationary location outside

while it is powered on.

 

I cannot guarantee that this will resolve the issue at the moment however,

one cannot expect 100% compliance on this issue from every GPS receiver

until such time that the WAAS adjustments by the Department of Defense are

complete. We have not been notified that they have completed the WAAS

adjustments."

 

it's funny because there is no mention of turning WAAS back on after the master reset. you need to goto main menu, setup, system to re-enable WASS. I just hope this gets cleared up in the next few months. the other thread I listed goes into more detail of issues I am having/ others are having.

 

other thread on this topic.

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=135929

Edited by hogrod
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The data from the SiRFstar III chip is different, compared to what comes out of Garmin's own GPS chip. That's why no "D" symbols will be shown if you have SiRFstar III. Hence it's impossible to tell if the unit has a 3DD lock, or just a 3D. You may not be able to differentiate between a 3D lock with a low DOP, compared to a 3DD lock with an inferior DOP, since the EPE may very well be the same. Thus giving a rule of thumb, like the 15 meter / 50 feet EPE, would probably satisfy most of the novel users. When they come in touch with someone more knowledgeable, like you, then that user will probably understand this fact, as I stated above, himself.

 

Obviously you did.

 

Ok, I have the 60csx, and have not see the infamous Ds on the bars; that is until I went over to a friends and I was downloading some routes for him off my laptop. My 60csx, inside his home, picked up the following, and they were all Ds. I connected my GPS and captured the screen. So, it appears if you have 33 at least, you can have Ds.

 

Well, it appears snapfish does not give the correct extensions for this website. I received this message when trying to post the screen capture:

You are not allowed to use that image extension on this board. A valid format is: http://www.domain.com/picture.gif, an invalid format is: http://www.domain.com/picture.one.gif

 

Anyone know a work around?

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It has been explained many times in other threads....... You need to be able to see 47 for WAAS to work. 47 is the only fully active WAAS satellite. If you hold 47 long enough to obtain the almanac, it will then use 35. It uses them normally with full ranging. There is an obvious bug in the software that causes it to forget the almanac when you shut down and so every start requires you to do this again.

 

47 is only visible in the western part of North America. Anyone out of site of the satellite is out of luck at the moment.

 

33 does nothing (usefull) as it is an EGNOS transmitter.

 

48 and 51 are in test mode and the units will not try to pick the up at all.

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A few quick points before I post Garmin's reply.

 

!) I've been following the discussions about the issues with WAAS and the 60CSX. So I knew Garmin was lying to me. That's the point. I am a long time owner of Garmins and have really liked them, but lately I am getting very frustrated with them. So the point is not only is Garmin not fixing the WAAS, they are not even telling the truth on what is happening with it.

 

2) As to the confidentiality notice, I never saw it. But if I did, I still would have posted what I was told. I was the intended recipient. Their response is not copyrighted and even if it was, my use would have been covered by the fair use exemption. Give me a break, do you want to argue Garmin can prevent exposure of how they are dealing with WAAS by a notice like this? I also told the guy I was going to post his message on the forum so others can see how Garmin is lying. His response did not object to this.

 

3) As I said, I have been following the other discussions on the 60CSX and WAAS so I knew I was being lied to. For those who have not been following the other discussions, the issue is WAAS only works on the 60 CSX in some parts of the country. It does not work in other parts.

 

4) A hard reset is not the issue. The issue is your location. I live in IL by St. Louis. I have now had 3 60CSXs (there is a software issue with proximity POIs and they kept saying it was the unit) and they never got a WAAS fix here. A couple of weeks ago, I went to WV and turned on WAAS. It worked. When I got home, it no longer worked. A few days ago I went to Milwaukee, WI and WAAS would not work there.

 

Here is their latest reply-now they are saying WAAS does not affect accuracy so don't worry about it (so why then do they have WAAS-it certainly improves your accuracy):

 

What does accuracy measurement are you getting on your unit? This information you have not provided me so that a determination can be made as to the accuracy of your unit. With the information you have provided this is not an issue with your unit.

 

With the new SiRF antennas you might not see the D's and when you do it is most likely because the WAAS satellites are located at the equator and are more visible by either the East or West coast states and you are in on of those states (ex. West Virginia). In the middle of the US (ex: Missouri) you might not see this show up but can get just as good accuracy with the new SiRF antenna without WAAS. The following is what you will see for accuracy standards for your unit and if your unit shows an accuracy of <5 meters typical then you are getting as good of accuracy of WAAS with or without the D's showing up on the Satellite Page.

 

Receiver: 12 channel SiRFstar III high-sensitivity GPS receiver

(WAAS-enabled) continuously tracks and uses up to 12 satellites to compute and update your position

 

GPS accuracy:

 

Position: <10 meters, typical

Velocity: .05 meter/sec steady state

 

DGPS (WAAS) accuracy:

 

Position: <5 meters, typical

Velocity: .05 meter/sec steady state

 

There is no false advertising in our products because it is WAAS-enabled but with the SiRF antennas it is not usually needed to provide the same accuracy standards.

 

If you have any further questions or concerns about this issue please contact me by replying to this E-Mail. For new issues or concerns you can contact Garmin Product Support at 1-800-800-1020 or via E-Mail.

 

Austin Arnold

Product Support Specialist

Garmin International

1200 East 151st Street

Olathe, KS 66062

Phone: (800)-800-1020

Fax: (913)-440-5488

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Here is something I posted last week:

"Complaints about the 60x series and wandering, WAAS, and inaccuracy got me out to a survey monument to check my 60cx.

 

The only problems I have had was when I first got it and every few minutes it would fade to grey and I would have to restart it. I took the batteries out,put them back in and no problem since.

 

I have just done the 2.90 webupdate. I had WAAS before but now the 35 and 47 no longer blink but are solid.

 

Ok, so I am at survey moument PID# sy5582.

I have a goto of 2' which stays fairly solid. I had 4' until I refined the coords in utm. Lock on roads off. Tracks and trip reset. No wander. Zilch. I saw the utm coords jump up 1m once. No map wander. No trip wander. Little coordinate wander as stated above. 11 to 12 sats. D's. solid #35. 10' accuracy.

I end goto, and just watch the coords. Solid.

 

Hang around about 15mins. I don't see a problem.

 

My coordinates had me 2'south of the monument, and my elvation ran from 269' to 275'. Data sheet says 275' "

 

The one thing I do notice about the new x units is that they handle the sats differently. With the older units the sat screen displays all sats that the almanac says you "should" be able to see. The numbers are displayed whether you have bars or not. The new units seem to drop out the numbers of those the unit does not want to use at the time. Thus, I suppose this is why those back east rarely see 35 or 47. The units are taking a perferencial tact with the sats. 35 and 47 for me come and go, as do some other sats.

 

The other thing is that I believe I only see one WAAS at a time (though this I'll have to make sure on)

Edited by EraSeek
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Both my Map60Cx, and the eXplorist XL, do not receive WAAS in Detroit Michigan, except for Satellite number 120(33), that is parked next to Europe. I am thinking of turning off WAAS on the eXplorist and the 60Cx until the FAA can get the WAAS satellites into service.

 

There are alot of impatient people here blaming Garmin, but alot of this is not Garmins or Magellans fault, it is with the FAA of the USA.

 

I been having accuracy problems with the eXplorist too, so it is all about where you live.

 

I would not trust any older Garmin including the older Map60C, until the FAA gets the satellite at 107 degrees west longitude into service so even the airliners have WAAS too, since even the airliners would have to depend on WAAS #33 or #35, so even they have to wait until September or October to use GPS.

Edited by GOT GPS?
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IMO

 

This is sort of like blaming Ford because there are no super highways in your area. Sure your new Mustang will do 140... but not on the back streets.

 

It seems to me that if all of the WAAS birds that matter are either in test mode, being moved or otherwise out of service or unavailable this whole WAAS thing is a non issue until the actual service has been activated.

 

They'er down until at least Sepetember (we all know how deadlines can slip)... anything we see before then is pure gravy.

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It's a big issue with a lot of facets. Don't you have better things to do than police the board?

 

I was providing a link to more information. In addition, in the post above that one, I clearly described what is going on with the units.

 

I apologize for being helpful.

Edited by Red90
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IMO

 

This is sort of like blaming Ford because there are no super highways in your area. Sure your new Mustang will do 140... but not on the back streets.

 

It seems to me that if all of the WAAS birds that matter are either in test mode, being moved or otherwise out of service or unavailable this whole WAAS thing is a non issue until the actual service has been activated.

 

They'er down until at least Sepetember (we all know how deadlines can slip)... anything we see before then is pure gravy.

 

This is true. I think the main complaint is that someone's $100 etrex is getting WAAS and great EPEs whereas their newest, greatest top of the line handheld unit does not. Certainly every other unit in sight of 35 is picking it up easily and using the WAAS signal nearly all of the time. It is a fairly obvious bug that these units are not using it without first download the alamanac every time the unit is turned on.

Edited by Red90
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My issue with Garmin is they are not being honest and up front with its customers. I paid lots of money for the unit. I think they should show me and the others who paid hundreds of dollars for a unit the respect of being honest with us on what is going on. While they cannot control where the WAAS birds are, if they wanted to, they could put something on their website explaining the situation and what is being done to address it. That would satisfy me. What I started this about is how they are lying about what is going on. I have suggested over and over to Garmin that they should put something on their website to explain what is happening and all I get is lies and inconsistent stories.

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3) As I said, I have been following the other discussions on the 60CSX and WAAS so I knew I was being lied to. For those who have not been following the other discussions, the issue is WAAS only works on the 60 CSX in some parts of the country. It does not work in other parts.
If you already know that, why do you complain here about Garmin?

It's not Garmin's fault, call the DoD and tell them to put the satellites into production.

By the way, WAAS is a hyped unnecessary technology for the handheld user, it is made for flight- and sea-navigation. That's one of the reasons why the WAAS satellites hang around stationary above the equator, though it would be technically possible to send a comparable signal also from other satellites.

So if you own a handheld GPS like the 60 CSX, just turn WAAS off and be happy, accuracy is more than enough for the typical land and mountain navigation, and if it is bad because one e.g. is under heavy wood coverage, WAAS would not remarkably enhance it.

 

Unfortunately the vendors MUST implement WAAS in their handhelds, because people insist to have it, though it doesn't buy them anything (in an airplane or a ship on the sea people likely have a more expensive GPS).

 

With the new SiRF antennas you might not see the D's and when you do it is most likely because the WAAS satellites are located at the equator and are more visible by either the East or West coast states and you are in on of those states (ex. West Virginia). In the middle of the US (ex: Missouri) you might not see this show up but can get just as good accuracy with the new SiRF antenna without WAAS. The following is what you will see for accuracy standards for your unit and if your unit shows an accuracy of <5 meters typical then you are getting as good of accuracy of WAAS with or without the D's showing up on the Satellite Page.

 

Receiver: 12 channel SiRFstar III high-sensitivity GPS receiver

(WAAS-enabled) continuously tracks and uses up to 12 satellites to compute and update your position

 

GPS accuracy:

 

Position: <10 meters, typical

Velocity: .05 meter/sec steady state

 

DGPS (WAAS) accuracy:

 

Position: <5 meters, typical

Velocity: .05 meter/sec steady state

All that is correct, at least with my CSX. If I look at my tracks, I can even see that the accuracy is in most cases below 5 meters, and I have WAAS always turned off.

I forget completely what the EPE value on the satellite page tells me, because this value is much to high.

If I would be Garmin, I would compute it with a random number generator, and let always display a number between 1 and 9 feet, so that people are happy (and that would be a more accurate value than it is now).

Edited by NewZealand
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When I complained about not getting the actual profile of a route in a unit using DEM maps, like was promised in the documentation, I had to systematically laso and coral 3 different Garmin tech support people untill I finally got them in a box the couldn't wiggle out of. Yes, I was right, the documentation is deceptive, you can not get the actual profile, just a straight line from point a to b.

Are the tech support people, the experts, that stupid, or is this a marketing strategy?

Is it because there are a lot of immature buyers of Garmin products where it counts to have the best bells and whistles? Then the answer is yes, Garmin thinks we are stupid.

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Well, I got my new 60CSX yesterday and when at first I didn't seem to get a WASS lock these threads had me worried. I actually had my new GPSr sitting next to my old Etrex Vista in the garden and the latter had a lock on bird 33 (I'm in UK) and a nice row of 'D's. EPE 10ft, the new GPS no 33, no 'D's EPE 18ft. But left it for about 20 mins and it all started working. Once it locks 33 (or sometimes 37) a row of 'D's IS displayed on the satellite page.

 

BUT! and here it is: on page 97 of teh 60CSX manual here it states that because enabling WAAS where it is not available can actually reduce performance the 60CSX automatically overrides this setting if it thinks best. The way to notice this is on the satellite page: On the Etrex, when WAAS is enabled, the last two channels of the receiver are reserved for WAAS / EGNOS birds (numbered above 32) and will often be empty, leaving only 10 channels for normal reception; on the 60CSX the channels only get allocated once it 'knows about' and can 'see' the WAAS satellite.

 

Other comments are also valid, without a WAAS lock I have seen EPE down to 12ft already, and with down to 9ft (although I once got 6ft on my Etrex). So apart from that pretty row of 'D's it's not a huge thing to get hung up on.

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It seems it's inconsistent, then, these "D" symbols with the SiRFstar III receiver. When I first got my StreetPilot c550, there never were any "D" symbols in the signal bars. I was told that the SiRF module didn't give the information required to determine whether to display these symbols or not, hence they were never shown.

Now the skyview is gone alltogheter from that unit, so now you can never tell. You can still set it to either "Normal" or "WAAS/Egnos", though.

Some of you seem to have these symbols anyway. Perhaps SiRF has modified their units to include this information.

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Here is what they told me today for my 60CSX-I worte back letting them know how upsetting their lies are.

 

With your issue about WAAS what are you referring to? WAAS works on that model unit but will show differently with the new SiRF antennas that your model has. If you see that you are getting better accuracy than 50 feet then WAAS is working. If you are not please provide more information about this issue and I will be happy to address it for you further.

 

If you have any further questions or concerns about this issue please contact me by replying to this E-Mail. For new issues or concerns you can contact Garmin Product Support at 1-800-800-1020 or via E-Mail.

 

Austin Arnold

Product Support Specialist

Garmin International

1200 East 151st Street and definitely smug an

Olathe, KS 66062

Phone: (800)-800-1020

Fax: (913)-440-5488

 

Garmin doesn't think we're stupid. They do know two other things: They need to sell products to survive and the average person doesn't understand much mathematics--even less statistical math.

 

We talk about EPE as though it is some absolute, and as an absolute it is some measure of the quality of the GPSr, or the GPS/WAAS system as a whole. This furthers Garmins belief that we are mostly inept, quite possible ignorant. Our own arrogance as consumers-the customer is always right thing does little to dispel this belief.

 

Looking at the various threads concerning this issue; especially at those where copies of the correspondence has been included one can see a definite trend. If you write to them in general terms or make errors in terminology you get a generic denial--blame it on the satellite realignment. As you include more information, especially correct information such as a reproducible bug list, Garmins response becomes terse, denials cease and they become almost lawyerly.

 

I sent a bug list of approximately 10 issues in my e-mail to them. The response came more than two days later and contained a one sentence 'explanation': We are working on problems with the SiRF interface and expect to have updated software for users to download in the near future.

 

So, with a substantial portion of the unit working as expected, Garmin did as many other high-tech businesses do: they moved to production and distribution with the intent of fixing and fine tuning the tool 'on the fly'. Simple business sense-annoying to those who jump-up and buy first, disappointing in some ways but all too typical of 20th/21st century commercialism.

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I see that this thread is dealing with the 60csx.... Curious...I am about to buy a 76csx...should I expect similar issues? Trun off WAAS and wait until testing is over? I really do not want to dump several hundred $$'s on hardware and software if something else is going on. Thanks

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I have the Map76CSx and I'm very happy with it's performance. I personaly don't worry too much about WAAS. I live in the SW and always get a good lock on aprox 10 satelites. If I activate WAAS I get Ds on all the displayed satelites. I have not noticed any difference in my EPE with WAAS on or off. Most of the time my EPE is in the 8 to 10 foot range. I don't expect any better accuracy than that.

Edited by bgarland
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