GPS accuracy is off

[+slomurphs]

My Garmin 60csx seems to have lost its accuracy. At first I thought it was others making a slight mistake but after a couple dozen you start looking in a mirror. Any suggestions on how to fix it, if that's even possible. Makes Geocaching that much harder if your off by about 20 ft.

[+bittsen]

My Garmin 60csx seems to have lost its accuracy. At first I thought it was others making a slight mistake but after a couple dozen you start looking in a mirror. Any suggestions on how to fix it, if that's even possible. Makes Geocaching that much harder if your off by about 20 ft.

 

Countdown till this thread is moved.....

 

Have you run the Garmin updater on your unit? I have heard that it will provide a master reset in the process.

Otherwise, search the GPS technology forum for "+master +reset" (without the quotes) and you should get a few results.

[+Turner and Stitch]

I had the same problem with a vista HCX. After much discussion with Garmin (and a picture of it with another Garmin and a Magellan (both of which were reading the same while it was reading 20 feet off) they had me send it back to the factory. When I got it back it was spot on.

[+Earl B. Fisk]

My Garmin 60csx seems to have lost its accuracy. At first I thought it was others making a slight mistake but after a couple dozen you start looking in a mirror. Any suggestions on how to fix it, if that's even possible. Makes Geocaching that much harder if your off by about 20 ft.

 

If you're only off by 20, then I'd say that is within acceptable error. If you start finding all of the caches you find are all systematically off by 50 to 100 feet in the same direction, then there may be a problem.

 

After I find that I'm within 20-30 feet of where the cache is supposed to be, I turn off the gpsr and just start looking everywhere within a 30 to 50 foot radius.

 

YMMV.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

It probably isn't yours, it everyone's. 20' accuracy is about what is expected.

 

Next time you are with others throw a rock on the ground and get everyone with a GPS to record its coordinates. If y'all have 5 GPSr then you will have 5 coordinates! Which one is correct? None, it's probably somewhere in the middle of the three closest readings.

 

Now, if you did this a couple of times and 4 of the machines agree to within a few feet and yours is still way off then I'd send it back to Garmin.

[+Prime Suspect]

My Garmin 60csx seems to have lost its accuracy. At first I thought it was others making a slight mistake but after a couple dozen you start looking in a mirror. Any suggestions on how to fix it, if that's even possible. Makes Geocaching that much harder if your off by about 20 ft.

Make sure you haven't accidently turned on Battery Saver mode (which would also turn off WAAS).

[+Coach Steve]

My Garmin 60csx seems to have lost its accuracy. At first I thought it was others making a slight mistake but after a couple dozen you start looking in a mirror. Any suggestions on how to fix it, if that's even possible. Makes Geocaching that much harder if your off by about 20 ft.

 

Try turning off the compass. Just press and hold down the "page" button. Worked for me.

[+Prime Suspect]

My Garmin 60csx seems to have lost its accuracy. At first I thought it was others making a slight mistake but after a couple dozen you start looking in a mirror. Any suggestions on how to fix it, if that's even possible. Makes Geocaching that much harder if your off by about 20 ft.

 

Try turning off the compass. Just press and hold down the "page" button. Worked for me.

The compass has no bearing (Ha!) on GPS accuracy. Discussed ad nauseam in the GPS and Technology section. If you don't calibrate the compass when appropriate to do so, it can throw the navigation arrow off. But that's a compass, not GPS issue. It won't cause you to be X feet off when your distance reads 0.

 

And being off 20ft, is perfectly normal. That's well within the combined error range of the hider's and finder's GPS units.

[4wheelin_fool]

My Garmin 60csx seems to have lost its accuracy. At first I thought it was others making a slight mistake but after a couple dozen you start looking in a mirror. Any suggestions on how to fix it, if that's even possible. Makes Geocaching that much harder if your off by about 20 ft.

 

Could it be that it was dropped a few times too many? Mine has terrible reception, and that is when I compare it to other people's who have the same exact model. I suspect an internal antenna problem.

[+StarBrand]

The general accuracy of most handheld units is in the 15 - 25 foot range. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. Add your potential error to the hiders potential error and it is easy to believe that you may have to search an area up to 50 foot from where your unit says the cache should be. Often you will find them within 20 foot or less but be prepared to widen your search.

 

Don't get too caught up looking at the accurcy reading on the unit - that is what is known as an EPE. Estimated Position error is a low confidence guess under the current conditions. Actual error could be as much as 2 times that reading.

[+Okiebryan]

I've been having the same problem. For 2 years, every time I'm in open sky I show 9 feet accuracy...

 

Now I'm lucky if I get 34 feet.

 

Another thing I've noticed is that the position update rate used to be 1 second. Now it's more like 5 seconds. I, too would like to know what has changed.

 

Now my phone is better for caching than this 60CSx. I'd like to know what changed.

[+Morning Dew]

I'm not sure if this will be of any help but who knows.

 

I have a Delorme PN-20 (For about 2-3 years now). When you power it up for the very first time you are warned that it needs to do some type of acquisition and that it could take up to 15 minutes to complete. You're advised to do this in a clear area, outside.

 

Fast forward about 18 months and one day my GPS had drifted noticably. It would no longer grab WAAS and the best I ever saw was +/- 28ft. This went on for about 4 days. Finally, I called tech support and they walked me through a reset that included reseting what I believe was called a NVM reset (it's been a long time). The tech said this will basically force it to reacquire like it does the very first time you turn it on. It worked and I've never had another problem since.

 

I'm not sure if the Garmin's act in the same way (first time turn on) or they have this reset capability but I'm guessing they're are more of your model than any other model used in geocaching, I'm sure a google search would pull up the correct way to reset it to reacquire (if it exists). Does Garmin have a tech support number?

 

Oh, I'd also like to add that I always see people talking about "GPS are really only accurate up to 15-25 feet, blah, blah" and I'm sure there is some truth to this but what I don't understand is how come cache placements are so accurate?

 

Before I geocached, I never knew because I had nothing to compare it to. But after about 200 finds now, one thing I've learned is that at least my GPS and the GPS of about 150 other owners seem to agree very very closely. Yes, lots of times I've found them 15-25 feet away but the overwhelming amount of the time the coordinates are very very close.

 

Just this morning I found a difficulty 5 cache. It took me about 30 minutes of continous searching. I usually set my GPS down during this and check it every 5 minutes to see how close it is to ground zero. If it isn't I move it closer and set it down again. In this case it ended up 16 INCHES from ground zero. I've also done a handful of "bison in a pine tree" caches that the coordinates are so accurate that I can tell which side of tree (~ 10-12 foot diameter) it's in before I even start looking. We have very good hiders in our area who take placement seriously and this may be the reason but it still speaks to just how accurate these things are.

Edited September 26, 2009 by Morning Dew

[+Curioddity]

Do the caches you're finding have any commonality, like a single hider? We have a cacher around here who has a large number of hides and his posted coordinates are notorious for being off by 25 feet or so. He's much better now at providing accurate coordinates, but there are still a hundred or so of his old caches in play with 'loose" coordinates, and you can get into areas where that's just about all you'll find.

 

Pete

[+Prime Suspect]

I've been having the same problem. For 2 years, every time I'm in open sky I show 9 feet accuracy...

 

Now I'm lucky if I get 34 feet.

 

Another thing I've noticed is that the position update rate used to be 1 second. Now it's more like 5 seconds. I, too would like to know what has changed.

 

Now my phone is better for caching than this 60CSx. I'd like to know what changed.

Check the Battery Saver mode is Off, and WAAS is on.

[+LightHouseSeekers]

You might want to verify the inaccuracy.

I would go look for an ADJUSTED benchmark found recently (last couple of years).

If your comparison of coordinates is more than the EPE, then you have proved its inaccuracy.

Then check into doing a reset or returning to Garmin for repairs.

[+StarBrand]

You might want to verify the inaccuracy.

I would go look for an ADJUSTED benchmark found recently (last couple of years).

If your comparison of coordinates is more than the EPE, then you have proved its inaccuracy.

Then check into doing a reset or returning to Garmin for repairs.

"proved"???

 

Hardly - the reported EPE is a low confidence estimate of the true accuracy. If you were more than 2 times the EPE away from the benchmark - then maybe you have something but still not "proof".