Do you have WAAS?

[+hdmama2002]

Almost a year ago I upgraded my GPS from a Gamin E-Trex to a Magellan Explorist. It was great! It came with a rechargable Ly-on battery, I bought the SD card, got the street map software, and was WAAS enabled for about $150.00. Then I noticed recently that my accuracy finding caches was as bad, or worse, than when I used the E-Trex. Today I called Magellan about my GPS not being WAAS enabled anymore. They told me that the "United States Government reset the satellites," and that if I wanted to be WAAS enabled that I needed to upgrade to the Triton.

My question is this-is this a Magellan thing? Has the same thing happened with any of the Garmin products?

I am not sure that I want to upgrade if the same thing is going to happen a year or two down the line. Besides, I like the fact that I have a rechargable batterly that can last 14 hours. I guess more questions would be:

1. Can you put rechargeable batteries in the 60CSX, Colorado, or Triton?

2. Can the Triton do the Wherigo caches? or is that only the Colorado?

3. Will the Map Send Software I have for the Explorist work with the Triton?

I know these questions probably seem stupid, but IF I decide to upgrade I want to get the most bang for my buck, even if that means I can use some of the extras I have now on the Triton. I have also noticed that no one in the caching community around me uses a Triton, seems to be "Garmin Country" here. I have tried to get the local REI to turn ON a Triton once so I could play with it and they thought I was crazy.

Thanks for any and all of your help.

[+KD5XB]

Reset the satellites??? Well, my GPS V is still working fine, WAAS and all. I suspect the person you talked to might have been having a bad day.

[+user13371]

My eXplorist 210 still gets WAAS.

 

A lot has been written about this in the past year. Search magellan waas problem...

Edited July 22, 2008 by lee_rimar

[+storm180]

What happened was they didn't reset the sats, the waas sats were upgraded and they changed. They sent a signal last year up to June notfying all gpsr of the new changes of the new waas sats.

 

If your magellan was not on long enough during that time frame to get the new sats your out of luck or if you did a master reset after that time. I was lucky on my 600 I got the new sats listed.

 

Magellan hard coded their sats into their firmware. Since the explorist line is retired they won't fix the problem. There is some euro firmare 2.57 which fixes the issue but there isn't anything available for the XL.

 

1) Yes

2) No

3) Yes but you have to update to vantage point instead but you can use the same maps

Edited July 22, 2008 by storm180

[ryleyinstl]

Call Magellan……some people have had luck getting them to exchange their eXplorist’s for a new Triton because of this problem (among others).

[+user13371]

...some euro firmare 2.57 which fixes the issue but there isn't anything available for the XL....

Storm, are you sure x2.57 completely fixes this? I'd like to believe so, but I've avoided doing a full reset just to be safe. I've also got a full backup of the system as I received it, including the CRITMEM file.

 

I didn't realize eXplorist XL users were left out in the cold -- but any other US eXplorist user with the older firmware can apply the EU firmware without problems. Just be sure to apply ONLY the firmware update, not the basemap. Only negative impact I've found is the unit defaults to metric after the EU patch, but that takes about 10 seconds to fix in system preferences.

Edited July 22, 2008 by lee_rimar

[+hdmama2002]

What happened was they didn't reset the sats, the waas sats were upgraded and they changed. They sent a signal last year up to June notfying all gpsr of the new changes of the new waas sats.

 

If your magellan was not on long enough during that time frame to get the new sats your out of luck or if you did a master reset after that time. I was lucky on my 600 I got the new sats listed.

 

Magellan hard coded their sats into their firmware. Since the explorist line is retired they won't fix the problem. There is some euro firmare 2.57 which fixes the issue but there isn't anything available for the XL.

 

1) Yes

2) No

3) Yes but you have to update to vantage point instead but you can use the same maps

Well, that makes me a little frustrated. I registered my GPS on their web site, I have been cacheing just about every day. and I never recieved any notification about the sats being changed. The Explorist being WAAS enabled was the whole reason that I bought the unit, plus it was in my price range. I will call them again tomorrow and see what they can offer. Still, frustrating.

[+storm180]

...some euro firmare 2.57 which fixes the issue but there isn't anything available for the XL....

Storm, are you sure x2.57 completely fixes this? I'd like to believe so, but I've avoided doing a full reset just to be safe. I've also got a full backup of the system as I received it, including the CRITMEM file.

 

I didn't realize eXplorist XL users were left out in the cold -- but any other US eXplorist user with the older firmware can apply the EU firmware without problems. Just be sure to apply ONLY the firmware update, not the basemap. Only negative impact I've found is the unit defaults to metric after the EU patch, but that takes about 10 seconds to fix in system preferences.

 

Yeh the 2.57 EU patch defintley fixed the problem, it basically changed the firmware to actually do a search for new waas sats instead of the static waas search. You can only update the 2.57 if you have 2.03 to begin with. Some of the newer explorist came with a newer firmware which cannot be updated to the 2.57 and if you try it you will brick your magellan.

 

As for the triton upgrade, most of the time they will do it if you ask them but I consider the tritons garbage compared to my explorist 600. Just a real bad design in my opinion.

Edited July 22, 2008 by storm180