Suppport Thread for the TND 500, TND 700 or future Rand McNally products.

Ever since GPS units came out we've been in a sunspot minimum. Once flares start picking up again we're going to be experiencing things that have never happened before. I can't wait to be going 65 mph through the atlantic ocean!

 

It isn't that bad. But if you are really interested or concerned you can check the space weather forcasts out of Boulder, Co eithor on the web or the time signal broadcasts in the HF bands. Forcasts include solor flux indicator, solor winds, flare and sunspot activity etc.

One item concerning sunspots. Remember the hayday of CB radio- just so happened to correspond to one of the most active 11 year cycles we ever experienced.

As I posted before though, the gps constellation had a number of birds down for routine maintenance which may have been responsible for the ratty data.

Think I've posted enough on this and it's a little far of field from the purpose of this forum.

 

For the guys complaining about satellite problems...It seems other systems deal with bad data better. If your going 65 mph it shoudl know your not on a side road even if the position is off. Yea maybe some sats were down and causing problems, but Rand mc should be able to deal with it better.

 

Meh it wasn't a big deal, it recalculated for me once then it was fine. Like I said above if you think this is a problem, wait until we start getting solar flares again. The last time was around 04/05. We've been in a minimum since. This will affect us and all GPS units more than what happened Tuesday.

 

Gps is not going to "know" what speed your going of it can't get or see the sat data. Speed is a comparison from where you just were to just now basically. As Mark posts- generally you need at least four sats for what's called a 3d fix which is the best fix. Have to remember these are dang near microwave frequencys the GPS nav strings are broadcast on and are absoutly line-of-sight. Does not take much to lose the signal.

 

Yep, I think that was the point Richter & I were trying to make, but upon further investigation it seems to be an unfair comparison since Google & certain qualcomm/maptuit/navigo units also use cell towers.