GPS logging in and logging out

Last Saturday, thinking due to the weather, my GPS was constantly losing signal-happening on such frequent basis that the unit was unusable for following a track. Is there a way to combat this? Antenna (2000) is in a clear location with no intference.
Puck is good and buddy’s lowrance did the same thing to him on Saturday.
Is this something I just have to live with with bad weather or is there something that can be done. All current updates for puck and unit have been done.

Ours does that all the time also. not realy sure how to fix it and our antena in in a wide open spot in the back of the boat. sometimes it happens so much we just turn it off and use the front one and the one that came with the boat in the dash. even though the one in the dash isnt color its still better than listening to pings all day!!

Weather can play havoc with them, but biggest factor I have found is getting a good Signal started before moving.

Sit still and wait a few minutes to get a good Signal and make sure unit/antenna is securely mounted. My handheld GPSMAP76 does that all the time when it is bouncing around and not in the cradle.

Might want to go to the Satellite screen and see what you’re picking up. This may lead you to your answer.

Mornin’ Doc,

Just after observing you’re setup on Saturday, have you tried moving the puck further away from the head of the unit itself?

While I cannot find anything per Lowrance stating that, after a little searching around it seems many with that problem have fixed it by mounting the puck 3+ft away from the unit itself.

Also moving it might allow the puck to get a better shot up in the air when it not partially next to the windscreen.

Coincidence? No idea, but might be worth a try.

Hope you get it working!!

I was thinking the same thing Pete, but it worked fine in that location every other time. Woody’s unit did the same thing Saturday–and his puck is a million miles away mounted on the boat rail.–won’t hurt anything moving it.

Lowrance recommends that LGC 2000 and LGC 3000 GPS antennas to be mounted at least 3 feet away from the head unit. The interference noise from the head unit will damage the filter in the antenna and it demonstrate the symptoms you are describing and eventually stop working all together.

The new LGC 4000 that came out this year is new hardware and can be mounted right next to a head unit. This new antenna can replace a 2000 or a 3000. Besides the location of the antenna, the 4000 updates your postion 5 times a second and locks on and holds satalites better. If you replace an LGC 2000 with an LGC 4000 then you will need and adaptor cable to convert from black to blue to plug the 4000 into where your 2000 plugs into now.

Ken,
thanks for the heads up. I have ran my other lowrance for years with antenna next to the unit with no problems (2000 puck-3500c unit), but occasionally weather did cause unit to go in and out-like my previous day. I checked with my friend and his puck was approx. 3 feet from his unit-seemed for he and I to be a rare weather related event.
Looks like HB will eventually replace my lowrances due to the current differences in customer service between the two companies-both put out a good product, but lowrance seems to have other things on their mind at the current time.

DocFrigo,
Lowrance has been diligently working on the customer service issues over the last few months. They have trained and added numerous personal and worked out issues with the new software in house. Could you please let me know what specifically are the problems you have experienced and when they were so I can address them for you? Have you called lately? If so and there was a problem in the last month or so please let me know what it was.

I appreciate this question on here because Lowrance considers this to be of the highest priority to address. If you don’t ask the question then it’s hard to get an answer, I’m glad you asked!

On a similar note, but different, over the weekend, I was out both Saturday and Sunday. Both days around mid day, while moving slowly around 1.0 mph, my GPS track looked like a drunken sailor walking home from the bar. It was zig zagging all over the place. I could watch the icon jump around the screen. It happened on both my HDS5 and my HDS7 and I’m running the internal antenna on both. Craziest thing I’ve ever seen one of my units do, and they were both doing it, both days, right around the same time of the day. They worked flawlessly the rest of the day. I figured it was some atmospheric anomaly since it happened both days on both units.

The internal antenna on the HDS units is the LGC 3000 antenna which updates your position one time a second. This is the information which places your icon on the screen at the proper location. The LGC 4000 is Lowrance’s new external antenna which can replace any of the older external antennas. This antenna updates your postion 5 times a second so the wandering of the cursor is virtually elliminated. Check out jwshear’s post in the thread “LCx 27 another gps?” He changed his antenna and testifies to the improved performance.

jwshear quote: “I chose to update to the LCG-4000 which locks in faster (even indoors!), isn’t susceptible to the ESD problems of the 3000, and eliminated the “wandering” of the cursor I had with the 3000.”

Ken,
I too am having issues with my GPS module. I have a lcx-111c and lms-520 networked with an lgc-2000 antenna. For the past three days, I cannot get either unit to hold a gps signal for longer than a couple minutes. Frustrating to say the least. The status screen will show the units reading the satellites, but it will not lock in and stay locked in. It constantly drops them. I tried the head unit on a friend’s boat, and it seemed to be fine, so I am guessing it is the antenna itself. Is there a software update that can fix this problem?

Thanks for the help.