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WAAS in LA


henrym001

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I live in the Los Angeles area and I have been using my eTrex Legend for a while now. However, I have never ever gotten a WAAS signal. I have been on top of mountains, in valleys, on the beach, on top of skyscrapers, etc. I have even taken my GPS to San Diego and still havent gotten it there. It's not that I really care, but just once I would like to see it. I still get pretty good accuracy (about 20 ft average) but I just want to see WAAS in action. Anyone else have this "problem"?

 

p.s. - Yes WAAS is enabled on my GPS if anyone was wondering.

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p.s. - Yes WAAS is enabled on my GPS if anyone was wondering.

But do you leave it on long enough and know what a WAAS signal looks like? :(

 

As long as you have a good clear sky and leave it on long enough I don't know why it wouldn't get a signal. I always get normal sat lock and then the WAAS starts to kick in and the "D"s start appearing on the satellite display. I think you may have to have to unit on for as long as 20 minutes before it can download enough data to initialize WAAS the first time. After that it will be quicker.

 

You might consider going to the Garmin site and seeing if your firmware is up to date. Failing that, give Garmin a call and see if your unit needs to be sent back.

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I agree and update your firmware for sure.

 

On one of my GPS 76S's I didn't have a good clear shot of the sky and my WAAS almanac never worked it's way to a good fix. Actually it wouldn''t lock on to #35 like it should here in the NorthEast, it found 33 and that isn't recieved very well or would it stay locked good. I would leave it out for a couple of hours and still no #35.

 

Anyway what I did was give it a master reset as Garmin instructs at the site. I made sure I have a clear view of the sky and gave it it's 3/4 of an hour to build a new almanac. It found #35 and has locked on to it ever since.

 

Hope this helps.

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Here in the south end of LA County, I only get WAAS consistently when I have a clear view of the horizon, like the high spots/cliffs overlooking the ocean. Then, if I stay still and tilt the GPSr toward the SE or SW, I can receive a WAAS and the "D" corrections show up on the signal bars.

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