Rino 120 lock question

[taylortd]

Hi,

 

Any of you owners experience this? While locked on four or more sats. the unit will beep and display the "lost satalite" message and flash the "weak gps signal". All the while the four for more sats. are still black. Is the unit just slow in updating the satallite screen?

Doesn't seem right to me.

Thanks,

todd

[+Cadence]

My Rino does the same thing, I guess I looked at it as a "Don't rely on these numbers" type of message. It has only a weak signal. If all 4 satellites are black and showing that they are at the highest signal strength, there may be a problem - 3 satellites is a weak signal, unless you have 4 medium to strong signals it will report weak.YMMV

 

OddTodd

[+Searching_ut]

I've seen this sort of behavior, and other similar behavior on many GPS receivers I've owned. If you contact the manufactures, they don't really say what the satellite signal bars mean, although the general consensus seems to be a signal to strength ratio. Depending on the receiver, the calibration (Or whatever you choose to call it) of these bars seems to vary quite a bit. When observing the behavior of my eTrex units, when a bar is displayed, the unit always seems to be using the satellite as evidenced by positional accuracy, detection of altitude or direction changes etc. On the other end of the spectrum, my Sportrak often seems to be using far fewer satellites than what is displayed on the sat status screen. The Sportrak will often indicate 4+ good satellites with good geometry, yet behave as if in a 2d lock, not report direction changes promptly etc..(To me it often seems the sportrak is detecting the satellite, but can't really read the signal.) Other units I’ve used have seemed to behave somewhere in between these two extremes.

 

With practice, you’ll get good at figuring out what sort of satellite geometry works best for your receiver, and under which conditions you can rely on it, and when you should use other methods to verify your real position.

[taylortd]

thanks for replying, that helps.

todd