Vista HCx drift possibly caused by WAAS

[+Hrethgir]

Uh, oh, looks like the original post got gobbled up by the forum monster. tomc61, if you could re-ask the question, that would be great!

Edited February 8, 2009 by HondaH8er

[tomc61]

Yeah, I got a server error the first time I tried to post this and it didn't show up, so here it is again:

 

I bought my Etrex Vista HCx almost 2 years ago.

I have upgraded it each time Garmin released a new version and it is currently at 2.8/2.8.

I have never experienced the infamous drift problem until today.

 

Apparently most people that have the drift problem get it after several hours of operation at slow speeds. I have never used mine for more than about 2 hours at a time.

 

There is a hike/bike/horse trail near me that I walk on a regular basis.

It used to be a railroad so it is almost flat and straight with no tree cover or signal blocking obstructions. I wear the unit clipped to my jacket at shoulder level so it has a good view of the sky. Under these conditions with WAAS enabled I normally get position errors of 7 to 16 feet or so and have never had the drift problem until today.

 

Today I walked about a mile before I looked at the unit. It showed I was about 1500 feet south of where I should have been (the trail runs east-west). I power cycled the unit and it came back to the correct location. I did not notice what the position error was.

 

I walked another mile or so and this time when I looked at the unit I was over 1/4 mile south of where I should have been and the postion error was 39 feet. I power cycled the unit and it came back to the correct location and with a position error of 8 feet.

 

For some reason I decided to disable WAAS. I then turned around and walked back over 2 miles to my vehicle and I had no drift at all and the position error stayed around 9 to 12 feet. It appears as though turning off WAAS fixed the problem.

 

Again, this is the first time I have ever had this happen.

Has anybody else turned WAAS off to see if it had any effect?

 

Tom

Edited February 8, 2009 by tomc61