C

Clarkie

Well Known Member
Any of you guys losing GPS signal on either Wing X or Foreflight? I get a position intermittently. Annoying. Running iPad 2 with wifi and 3G.
 
I've not had any problems.

If you have not "rebooted" your iPad in a while, its a good thing to do from time to time.

Hold the power button (top edge) for about 10 seconds until the "Slide to Power Off" message appears and then slide to power off. A spinning icon will appear for 15-30 seconds as the iPad completely shuts down. Now press the power button again for a couple seconds and the "Apple Icon" will appear, indicating the iPad is booting back up.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1430
 
Tom,

No problems here in my RV. I noticed in the Cherokee that sometimes it wouldn't be able to lock on to the satellites and other times there was no problem.

What I have noticed is if I don't keep the iPad on, and with it's poor battery life I don't, it takes minutes to find the satellites. At one point I had a remote GPS antenna (Dual) that was tied by blue tooth to the iPad and then when I turned the iPad on it had instantaneous GPS location.
 
iPad GPS is not true GPS

Clarkie,
How high are you when you lose the "GPS"? Remember, iPad "GPS" is actually a phone/tablet feature that triangulates its position between cell towers, each with a known fixed position on the ground. True Global Positioning System involves signals from satellites in geosynchronous orbit over the Earth, not terrestrial cell towers. The higher you are from the ground, the more likely you will lose cell coverage...and particularly so if the cellular signal is blanked out by the all-metal bathtub of a cockpit.
 
GPS Signal

I've been to 13000 ft recently going from St Louis to Reno (read: large areas with no cell service) and never once lost signal. I have the AT&T 4G version of the iPad mini running Foreflight, wich I understood uses GPS signal not cell signals. I usually reboot and shut down all apps at least weekly.
 
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scrollF4 said:
Clarkie,
How high are you when you lose the "GPS"? Remember, iPad "GPS" is actually a phone/tablet feature that triangulates its position between cell towers, each with a known fixed position on the ground. True Global Positioning System involves signals from satellites in geosynchronous orbit over the Earth, not terrestrial cell towers. The higher you are from the ground, the more likely you will lose cell coverage...and particularly so if the cellular signal is blanked out by the all-metal bathtub of a cockpit.
Click to expand...


iPads that have the 3G/4G chipset absolutely do have a GPS reciever that uses the sats. WIFI only models do not.

The ones that do have GPS's can also use triangulation of towers to aid the GPS in finding a lock faster and to replace the GPS if it can't get a lock on the sats.
 
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I respectfully wish to disagree. The chipset on an IPAd contains the GPS and the cell stuff, but the GPS is in fact a very FULL standalone satellite gps system, operating totally independent of the cell towers. The only advantage if you have cell service is that the IPAD can tell the gps where to start looking in a very general area. I don't even have a sim card or phone service but receive GPS at any altitude.
This said, therefore if you do not have a 3g or 4g cell capability (chipset), you also have no satellite GPS capability.

scrollF4 said:
Clarkie,
How high are you when you lose the "GPS"? Remember, iPad "GPS" is actually a phone/tablet feature that triangulates its position between cell towers, each with a known fixed position on the ground. True Global Positioning System involves signals from satellites in geosynchronous orbit over the Earth, not terrestrial cell towers. The higher you are from the ground, the more likely you will lose cell coverage...and particularly so if the cellular signal is blanked out by the all-metal bathtub of a cockpit.
Click to expand...
 
GPS

Well OK then, I stand corrected. Looks like I need to catch up with technology.
 
It pukes often, sometimes shuts an app but recovers fast and never loses GPS signal. I still have a Gen1 tablet circa April 2010 (thanks campi) and a newer Mini. Entertaining enough.


 
iPad lock up

I have seen on occasion Foreflight essentially "lock up". Sometimes manifested as loss of GPS, sometimes screen lock. Down powering the iPad and rebooting aways fixes the problem

Based on my experience, I HIGHLY recommended rebooting the iPad before any flight. I've not seen this problem occur during flight if it's been rebooted first. Call it a technology "quirk", but annoying as all get out when you're depending on the position info (like approach plates) and it craps out. I definitely see a weakness in the iPad if you don't take the reboot precaution.
 
DonFromTX said:
I respectfully wish to disagree. The chipset on an IPAd contains the GPS and the cell stuff, but the GPS is in fact a very FULL standalone satellite gps system, operating totally independent of the cell towers. The only advantage if you have cell service is that the IPAD can tell the gps where to start looking in a very general area. I don't even have a sim card or phone service but receive GPS at any altitude.
This said, therefore if you do not have a 3g or 4g cell capability (chipset), you also have no satellite GPS capability.
Click to expand...

Also, GPS satellites are not in geosynchronous orbits. If you are losing position, you either don't have a GPS chip (wifi only version), it's not working right, or you have something that is blocking the GPS signal. I was just in the back seat of a Cessna 182 and had no GPS signal most of the time. In the RV's, I never have a problem, even up at 15+ thousand feet.
 
NOTAM'd Outage; iOS-7?

Two comments (er, one comment and one question)...

1. It shouldn't affect you in NC, and I've personally never been affected by this, nor has anyone I know been affected, but there are frequently NOTAM'd GPS "outages" that cover HUGE areas of the U.S. Here's an example one from a week or two ago, taking place at 4:00 in the afternoon local time!

Code: 
!GPS 10/110 ZSE NAV GPS SIGNAL WITHIN A CONE SHAPED AREA DEFINED 
AS A CIRCLE CENTERED AT 393835N/1174702W (MVA 010 RADIAL AT 66NM 
AT FL400-UNL) DECREASING IN AREA WITH A DECREASE IN ALTITUDE 
DEFINED AS:
341NM RADIUS OF 393835N/1174702W AT FL250,
263NM RADIUS OF 393835N/1174702W AT 10000FT,
264NM RADIUS OF 393835N/1174702W AT 4000FT AGL,
246NM RADIUS OF 393835N/1174702W AT 50FT AGL 
UNREL 1310222300-1310222359

This is the typical affected area. I think they're doing some sort of GPS interference testing in Nevada. (The 263 NM at 10,000' vs. 264NM at 4,000' may be a typo, but that's how the NOTAM was published.)

2. I have a 3G iPad-3 which has always worked very well in the airplane in terms of GPS reliability. The iPad is typically in my lap and it rarely loses satellite signal. In fact, I found it to be just about as reliable as the external BlueTooth GPS I used to use, which was sitting on the dash! However, both it and my iPhone 4S appear to lose GPS signals quite frequently in recent weeks. The only change common to both that I can think of is I've updated both of them to iOS-7. You wouldn't expect a software update to affect GPS reliability, but has anyone else noticed an apparent less reliable "iDevice" built-in GPS since "upgrading" to iOS-7?
 
Gen 1 iPad, 3G with real GPS, works dandy through 15,500. Even on the floor in the passenger foot well, kind of a suprise. (No glare there.)

Dave
C-180
 
I purchased a G4 mini strictly for e-mail on business trips. Eventually I could not resist trying Xavion. I have had no snags or hang ups of any kind with the GPS reception or speed. The runway database has been impressive and accurate any place I have been in northamerica.. Recently London Heathrow also proved just as accurate syn vis wise on 27L. This past Saturday at Bantry Ireland the GPS and flight instruments were spot on as usual but discovered the database had a error of about .8NM ! The displayed Aircraft position was right on the coast were the actual runway is located, but the sythetic runway generated from the coordinate database was over a rocky ridge to the east about .8NM:eek::eek:In other words I would not blindly trust the approach path to an airfield you have not proven a few times in decent VFR.

I still prefer paper maps and TSOd aviation GPS and flight instruments.
 
Another thing to consider is the actual software you're using and how it is built.

With OzRunways, you need a good quality accurate position. While the iPad may have a GPS position, until it meets the required DOP for OzRunways, it won't display your position.

I dare say they're not alone in this. Much better to have no position displayed than an incorrect one.
 
another reason i like using the bad elf pro, throw it on the glare shield and forget it, the signal never gets blocked. with the internal sometimes setting the ipad on the floor it looses the sat signal.

bob burns
RV-4 N82RB
 
While trouble shooting an IPhone issue last year with Apple service they recommended that the phone and the iPad should be shut down, meaning powered off once a day. They explained that updates get loaded upon power up.
I do this habitually and have had no issues since.
 
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