GPS Broken? No, WAAS changed

2580 Views 12 Replies 9 Participants Last post by AgentFlounder, Jan 10, 2009

AgentFlounder

Discussion Starter · Dec 17, 2008

So, my eTrex Legend started crapping out while hunting this year. Screen would blank out at random times.

Rather than throwing the unit away, I submitted a query about repairing it with Garmin support. They wrote back to say:

The issue that you are having is directly related to changes that are being made in WAAS satellite signal. Garmin is aware of the issue and has made an update available that will resolve the freezing problem that is being exhibited on your GPS. A quick fix for this issue is to temporarily disable the WAAS reception from your system setup page. This will have a very minimal effect on your GPS accuracy.

Thought I'd let folks know in case you haven't used yours in awhile and find it freaking out.

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Canadian

· #8 · Dec 17, 2008

A compass is always good. I used to work at a camping store and during the first gulf war they shut off the GPS signals that go to the normal units that everyday people buy. We didn't sell any GPS units for a while.

They work great but there is a chance that the government can simply switch them off for a while if they feel they need to. Otherwise everybody loves GPS. Simple to use and super accurate.

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Canadian

· #10 · Dec 17, 2008

Most nice compasses have a mirror on them. It was always fun to see how people who had never used a compass before reacted to the mirror. A lot of the cute girls would start checking their makeup as soon as they flipped it open.

When we wanted to "break the ice" with a customer who never used a compass before we'd ask them...

Staff: "Do you know what the mirror is for?"

Customer: "No."

Staff: "So you can see who's lost."

The customers would laugh and we'd go on to explaining how it works and what the features are.

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