Satellite Acquisition at EUG with GX-60

[rmickey]

I am reinstalling my avionics in a RV-6A I crashed at Oshkosh 10 years ago. I wanted to test my Apollo GX-60 GPS/Com so I pulled it out of the hangar about 50 feet and hooked only the GPS to a small battery. All of the system checks are good. I reset my "seed" location to the EUG airport where I am stationed. The unit says there are 9 satellites available but will only acquire and get data from one. All the others are in searching mode with 000 strength. I took the antenna out and placed it away from everything else and no other avionics are running. Could this be due to using a small battery? Does it take more juice to acquire more satellites? Any other explanations?

Thanks,

Ross Mickey
N9PT

 

[BobTurner]

How long did you let it run? After 10 years its internal idea of how many satellites are within range will be all wrong. It may take 30 minutes or more for it to find them now.
Also, there is probably an internal battery used to remember this stuff. It may need replacement.

 

[rmickey]

Thanks for the reply.

With each attempt ( I moved the plane, moved the antenna etc) I probably let it run about 15 min. I sure hope there is no internal battery that needs replacement because no one works on these ancient relics anymore.

It does find one Satellite (labeled 10) constantly.

 

[az_gila]

Thanks for the reply.

With each attempt ( I moved the plane, moved the antenna etc) I probably let it run about 15 min. I sure hope there is no internal battery that needs replacement because no one works on these ancient relics anymore.

It does find one Satellite (labeled 10) constantly.

There certainly is an internal battery, but it's easy to replace yourself...

Thread for GX-55, but it should be the same GPS board internally.

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=93651

 

[rmickey]

You were right about trying longer. I pulled it our of the hangar and hooked up a bigger battery then just let it run. In about 30 min or so it had acquired all of the satellites. No need to mess with the battery.

Thanks again.

Ross

 

[krw5927]

Battery might still be needed if the unit doesn't retain almanac data (where the satellites are and will be at a given time). If you find in the future that the time to acquire doesn't drastically decrease, the battery is likely in need of replacing.