GNS480 Seed Position

[Jim P]

Well, I'm now having fun working the bugs out of the newly flying RV-7.

For some reason, had an LOI on my GNS480, and it had previously tracked. At this time the Seed Position is all 000's and won't seem to take a new seed position. Garmin indicates that the time/ position both need to be within 1 minute. Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks,

Jim

[Jim Percy]

I set the seed position on mine before my first flight by using a portable automotive GPS that displayed lat and long along with current UTC time. It worked fine. The manual says the seed position is not required, but it can take up to 20-30 minutes (I think) for the unit to "find itself" without it. Just pull the airplane out where it has a good view of the sky and wait... and wait.

I was recently talking to customer service about something else and it came up that if you shut down with a master switch instead of the unit's power switch it's possible to lose the seed position, requiring re-entry or self-acquisition (time consuming). Maybe that's what happened?

If you can't get it to work or have other questions, I have found John Hendrickson at Garmin tech support to be very helpful- (800) 525-6726, ext 3016.

Hope this helps!

[Jim P]

Thanks Jim, I may use the seed position off another GPS and see how that works. Hopefully it might capture. If not, I'll let it sit for 20 minutes to see if it eventually captures. I may have dumped by shutting down main power without shutting off the unit first. Not surprising. If that doesn't work, it's a call to Garmin Monday.

Jim

[Jim Percy]

If you haven't done so already, wouldn't hurt to check the antenna connections too. If your setup allows, you could try plugging the antenna into another GPS to verify it's working.