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My 60 Cx went crazy


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I have a Garmin 60 Cx and I've been using it on a daily basis mainly for car navigation without any problems.

Today, glancing at the screen I noticed that the location shown was totally different than where I actually was. According to the GPS I was driving on a parallel street, about 200 meter (650 feet) away. I switched to the Satellite screen and the error was +/- 4 meters.

 

This happened quite a few times on my way to work; sometimes, looking at the screen it appearead that I wasn’t even driving on a road but somehow parallel with it.

 

I shut it off a few times, then restarted it. A couple of times the satellite page showed an error of +/- 60 meters, however the location showed on the map page showed was correct. Sometimes, even though the error was +/- 5 meters, the location was off by 100-200 meters.

 

Anyone experienced this before? Any idea about what I should do before calling Garmin?

 

Any input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

 

Laurentiu

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Ah - this makes me feel better already. See my nearly identical post, which beat yours to the forum by about three minutes!

 

Okay... it makes me feel better too.

Something in the air?!

 

Mr. President Bush... what did you do now? Forgot to tell us something?

 

At first I though it was because of the batteries. I changed them but the problem persisted.

 

BTW: This is the same unit I've had for over a year and I have never seen this happening before. So, JohnInDC, I don't think your problem is because the unit Garmin sent you back.

Edited by Laurontario
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If this apparent positional error relative to the maps always occurs in the same place, there is a possibility that there is an error in the map data. The GPSr may be reporting the correct position and displaying the cursor in the right place on the map. But if the roads were digitized in the wrong place, it will look like the GPSr is wrong. I've seen this happen on my eXplorist with DirectRoute maps, so it is possible that NAVTEQ or whoever provides Garmin with their maps did some sloppy digitizing.

Edited by geognerd
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That would make sense in the case of a unit that never showed the right spot on the map - but mine still has yesterday's trackpoints running right down 17th Street, where I rode.

 

Hm - I work a block from the White House. Maybe they just installed some kind of local jamming device!

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I've had this happen with my 60Cx while hiking in the northern NY in forested conditions and down in a narrow creek gorge. All was fine looking on my map screen (with topo), when suddenly my indicated position started to move laterally. I stood still and watched "my position" move a distance of at least 500', and stay there. I had to reboot and it stopped that silliness. It has not happened again. My thought was this was caused by my "canyon" type location, and I was getting multi-path or otherwise poor signals for a while.

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If this apparent positional error relative to the maps always occurs in the same place, there is a possibility that there is an error in the map data.

 

I understand and agree with that. However, this is the same map I've been using for months now and on the same daily route and yet, I have never seen this situation before.

So, this is not the case.

 

I have seen though, that situation happening.

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Hm - I work a block from the White House. Maybe they just installed some kind of local jamming device!

 

Hmmm... I am quite far from White House (Ontario/Canada). I hope that 'local jamming device' does not affect the entire world!

 

Hm. I wish I could say with confidence that that wouldn't be the case!

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LOL, I had the same exact thing happen to me today. I have the 60CSx and it's always been perfect. This morning I turned the unit on, let it acquire and off I went. As soon as I switched to the map page, I noticed I wasn't even close to the road I was driving on. In fact it showed me going the opposite way.

 

I tried turning it off and letting it re-acquire but it failed each time. It was inaccurate the whole ride to work! I'm in Massachusetts and will have to see if it is still wacky on the ride home tonight. Either way, something funky is going on :D

Edited by moonpup
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LOL, I had the same exact thing happen to me today. I have the 60CSx and...

 

I wonder if whatever_it_is affects the 60-series only :D

 

I'll check it again on my way back tonight.

Anyway, this is not funny... Assuming I was hiking and... Well... that's why they say, never rely solely on your GPS; always have some kind of backup.

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I also noticed my 60cx needed allot more time to get a accurate fix a few days back. Usually in my house I'll have around 20ft claimed accuracy in a couple minutes, this time after 5minutes of sitting in the usual place I was still around 35ft claimed accuracy. I also noticed much more wandering on the map screen, so bad one time the cursor would move about 10MPH over 200ft from actual location(then wander back slowly).

 

I decided to check the current solar activity after noticing this, it was showing active when I was having issues. That doesn't mean thats what was causing the issue, but it's just an idea.

http://www.n3kl.org/sun/status.html

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Well whatever was disrupting the GPS this morning is gone as of this evening. I powered it on as I left work, it quickly acquired the satellites and I had accuracy of 7 - 11 ft the whole ride home with it being dead on accurate as it used to be.

 

Just must have been some strange interference this morning...

Edited by moonpup
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Well whatever was disrupting the GPS this morning is gone as of this evening. I powered it on as I left work, it quickly acquired the satellites and I had accuracy of 7 - 11 ft the whole ride home with it being dead on accurate as it used to be.

 

Just must have been some strange interference this morning...

 

Posted a comment to similar question in http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=161877 concerning possible causes being greatly degraded satellite signal by gov't, at various times.

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My Map60Cx took about 5 minutes to get a signal a couple days ago on my front porch, and thought that kind of odd, but after that it seemed like it worked ok, and no problems in the last 3 days with the position shifted over any. Maybe there is government testing going on with jamming devices.

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Well whatever was disrupting the GPS this morning is gone as of this evening. I powered it on as I left work, it quickly acquired the satellites and I had accuracy of 7 - 11 ft the whole ride home with it being dead on accurate as it used to be.

 

Just must have been some strange interference this morning...

Same here.

Yesterday, on my way back everything was back to normal. Today no problem either.

Anyway, this was pretty scary...

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The gov't isn't supposed to be using selective availability anymore, but you never know with all the war stuff going on. Could also be the sunspot problem that will only be getting worse until 2011. I've had similar problems recently with my Venture Cx.

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One day, right after I turned on my GPSr, a Vista C, it said I was here:

 

N29 42.000 W121 52.595

 

It insisted I was there, and wasn't trying to correct its mistake.

 

I finally had to turn it off and back on again for it to find me, high and dry, on land, and no longer treading water 200 miles off the coast in the Pacific Ocean . . . :anicute:

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Has anybody compared the 60Cx/CSx with an eXplorist GPS during these troubles??

 

I have the eXplorist XL and Map60Cx, and they both have been effected by ground based interference, and one time while doing a hike on an island, the eXplorist XL got a bad signal, and the tracklog showed that it was many miles away for a split second then suddenly back.

 

If more than 50 meters off, the GPS needs a "I AM REALLY HERE" selection on the Satellite page, or map page, and you would walk up to the street corner or other identifing feature on the map, then scroll to the feature on the map screen, then select in the menu "I AM REALLY HERE", then the GPS would likely look to see if it has bad satellite data, then figure out which satellites to avoid, and if none of them are the right satellites to use, it would ask you if the map data was correct before, and if you said yes, then the GPS is being jammed by intentional/unintentional interference.

 

I think it would be a good idea to have a cheap magellan as a backup to cross compare your flawed position.

Times like these it is a good idea to have a paper map, both pocket sized and an atlas in the car, and both my friends always have an atlas, since they never trusted electronics, also a compass is a very good idea too.

 

Having a database of benchmarks is a good idea too, and loaded into the GPS, and this is when we need a "I am Really Here" function on the GPS.

 

Another thing the GPS needs is a speed filter setting on the Satellite page menu, where, if you are hiking, you set the speed filter on the GPS to no more than 6mph, while hiking, and this would help the GPS to select the best satellites for determining your position, and if there are no good satellites, the GPS just warns you that it is having trouble with a position fix. The Electronic Compass has a speed filter setting, and the GPS needs a speed filter setting that you set to help it determin a better position fix.

 

Wonder if Garmin is reading these threads here??

Edited by GOT GPS?
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About the apparently being on a parallel street:

 

I saw somewhere a post about something similar. There's a setting somewhere in the 60Cx series to tell it to snap to streets. If there was a little bit of satellite error and a little bit of map data error, then it may have snapped to the nearest street.

 

Apparently that "snap to" feature can be disabled.

 

As to the other wild accuracy problems... they sound like a whole different problem to me.

 

I regularly tell my 60Cx "new Location" the first time I turn it on for the day.

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Yesterday I took my dog for a hike. I hadn't used my Map60csx for awhile, and so I thought I would take it along. I noticed right away the accuracy was way off. I usually get 9-12 ft., and it was showing 50 - 80, and varying all the time. After my walk, I looked at the "trip', and it said almost 3 miles. This, on a route I know to be 1 1/4 mile. It was cloudy, so I thought, bad signal because of weather, although I never had that happen before.

So today I get the unit out and fire it up. Beautiful blue sky's. My accuracy is showing from 24 ft. to as high as 100 ft +. varying again, all the time. I am at a loss, and looked on this site for any others problems. Seems it is something many others are experiancing. I thought at first maybe it was the recent software upgrade, as I hadn't used my unit since I upgraded. It appears this is not the problem though.

Just posted so others are aware many are having problems.

Thanks to anyone that can give us help with this issue.

 

Dave

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Noticed quite a few threads on this topic, so I picked this one to post to. Here's my story of today. I laid down a track a few months back with a venture cx. That track has been sent to a friends Legend CX, my Legend CX and my 60 CX. Today we went fishing, and all the way along the 3 km ATV ride the GPS's (my 60cx and my friends Legend CX) indicated both of us dead on the track. On the way back I turned my GPS on and when it locked in it showed approximately 150 to 200 feet of the track. My friends Legend cx showed dead on. After about 5 minutes riding, mine still showed off. I turned it off and on again and it immediately locked DEAD ON the track. So on we went, and after about 15 minutes, I noticed my gps starting to drift off the track again. I left it on to see what it would do. It drifted back on track, and then off again. When we got back to where the truck was parked, my gps showed me as about 150 to 200 feet on the other side of the road. The entire trip, in and out, my friends Legend CX never drifted off track. If it happened to both GPS's I could kind of go with the jamming theory, or solar activity theory. On the satellite page, both gps's showed the same sattelites, so i'm convinced that the problem is with the gps and not jamming or solar activity. This is not good enough for a 400 dollar (Canadian) gps. If Garmin soon doesn't explain this problem I will be selling this and relying on my trusty legend cx, which other than the lack of sirf is in my opinion a better gps anyway. Certainly has a sharper display albeit smaller. Has anyone heard anything from Garmin on this?

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Has anyone heard anything from Garmin on this?

GC:

Do you ever use BLuecharts on your GPSr? I just recently purchased a 76CSx and returned home from a lengthy trip down the Trent canal - my first real use of the unit. I am appauled at the inaccuracies with the maps as to the positions of the man-made portions of the canal - particularily the locks - and seams at chart transitions where the depth goes from 50 feet on one map to 'max. 6' direcectly adjacent on the next map. I bought this unit entirely to eliminate the need for me to stop and look at paper charts every 10 minutes but the basemap of my old Lowrance GM100 was more accurate for the canal than this Garmin.

 

Just got home so I plan to make a lengthy post once I unpack to see if others have noticed this.

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Has anyone heard anything from Garmin on this?

GC:

Do you ever use BLuecharts on your GPSr? I just recently purchased a 76CSx and returned home from a lengthy trip down the Trent canal - my first real use of the unit. I am appauled at the inaccuracies with the maps as to the positions of the man-made portions of the canal - particularily the locks - and seams at chart transitions where the depth goes from 50 feet on one map to 'max. 6' direcectly adjacent on the next map. I bought this unit entirely to eliminate the need for me to stop and look at paper charts every 10 minutes but the basemap of my old Lowrance GM100 was more accurate for the canal than this Garmin.

 

Just got home so I plan to make a lengthy post once I unpack to see if others have noticed this.

 

In short, yes I have used Bluechart, and have noticed inaccuracies as well. but not to the extend that you have. The coverage of our bay is actually quite good.

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