Garmin Oregon Satellite Reception Woes – Beta 2.95 or Something Bigger?
The last four days have been trying times for some Oregon users. Around the time Garmin released Oregon beta 2.95 users started reporting intermittent but serious GPS reception issues. Initially it looked like it might be just another issue with a new beta drop but it remains unclear whether this is a generic issue affecting all Oregon software or just some of the beta code.
Oregon identifies PRN 01 and 05 which are not in use
This issue feels like it might have something to do with recent changes to the GPS satellite constellation. The Oregon will at times display both PRN 01 and PRN 05 on the satellite page. Currently, neither of these satellites should be used; PRN 01 was launched just a few weeks ago and testing is still underway and PRN 05 was removed from service on 3/26. When the Oregon believes both 01 and 05 should be visible it fails to lock onto other good satellites causing poor GPS reception (signal loss and very high EPE). The image shows a typical case of only four satellites locked when 01 and 05 are listed. The problem seems to disappear when the Oregon thinks these two satellites are no longer visible.
I’ve done side-by-side testing with the Oregon, Colorado and 60csx and the latter two units ignore PRN 01 entirely and the Colorado ignores PRN 05 after a master reset to update the almanac. My 60csx does still lock on PRN 05 but I have not master reset to rebuild the almanac.
The Oregon Beta team has my screens shots and data but so far no word on a fix for Oregon users.
Oregon owners, have you seen this issue? If so, please share!
- Have you seen poor GPS reception in the last four days (characterized by only being able to lock 3-5 satellites like the image above)?
- If you see the problem which satellites are listed but not locked (e.g. like 10, 12, 13 and 23 the image)
- Which software version are you using?
- Have you ever upgraded to beta 2.94 or 2.95?
- If you’ve seen the problem are PRN 01 and/or PRN 05 visible on the satellite page during the outage?
Related posts:
April 8th, 2009 at 10:05 am
I have noticed this for the past few days – I just started collecting screen snaps to send to Garmin, but I thought I’d check here first to see if there were any comments. I am using 2.95 beta.
I also have a screen snap showing an 82ft accuracy with 4 locked satellites and 10 satellites listed on the signal strength graph but not on the satellite map. This was after 20 minutes in the open, and neither PRN 01 or PRN 05 are listed as being visible.
Let me know if you want that.
-Craig
April 8th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Interesting, thanks Craig? Do you have another GPS which you could use as a comparison to see if the Oregon is listing any additional satellite or not?
April 8th, 2009 at 11:28 am
One more thought Chris, can you enumerate the satellites which are listed that aren’t locked?
April 8th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
In one screen snap:
Locked: 09 14 18 22
Listed but no signal (no bar, open or closed): 02 03 04 06 07 08 17 20 24 27
In another:
Locked: 10 12 13 23 29 30 31
Listed but no signal (no bar, open or closed): 01 02 04 17 24
I’ve got a 60CSx somewhere – I’ll dig it up and put some batteries in. I also haven’t heard back from Garmin yet – sent an email with the screen snaps to the beta address…
-Craig
April 8th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
In Indiana, WAAS mode, Oregon 200
When I first turned it on (I haven’t turned it on since Saturday), I had white 01, 05 and 51. 01 and 05 soon went dead, but it settled onto 11D, 12D, 14D, 18D, 20D, 22D, 30D, 31D, 32D. 51 never came to ‘D’.
Questions I want to add:
1) what does the ‘D’ stand for?
2) Maybe I just never noticed this before, but if I set Screen Shot to ON, it reverts back to OFF after I restart the Oregon 200. Is this different than before?
April 8th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
I gave up geocaching the other day when EPE dropped to 130 feet and went down hill from there. I found it interesting that I would have okay signal except on SVN’s 7,16,25 the difference between 7-16 is 9 and 16-25 is 9, not sure if that has any significance but worth mentioning. I also discovered that just downgrading from 2.95 to 2.94 (both of which have the GPS version 2.80) did nothing to solve the reception problems. I ended up loading 2.93 (with GPS version 2.70) before I had any kind of usable signal again. I eventually put 2.95 back on and so far it has been working but as I say that it sits on my desk with ‘Weak GPS Signal’, which isn’t usually the case.
Perhaps it’s after receiving the ephemeris from a particular satellite that sends it into a frenzy since it worked okay for a day?
Although annoying I’m confident Garmin will have a fix shortly.
April 8th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
I noticed it yesterday as well too… Had to give up on a cache that would have been real easy if the GPS led me to the right spot. Worked great today though. I didn’t pay too much attention to the satellite screen but I did notice yesterday that not many satellites were visible.
April 8th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Interesting – I put the GPS into demo mode, then back to standard. No problems since. Will see if there’s any difference when I get a chance to dig up the 60CSx…
-Craig
April 9th, 2009 at 3:52 am
Here is what I sent to Garmin.
I installed the new 2.95 beta version and it worked perfectly for three days. I tested its different modes and there were no problems. On the fourth time, however, it caught signal from four satellites only while actually there should have been many more satellites because the spot was high in the mountain and it was an open space. After I climbed down the mountain and went back to town there was even an instant when the signal was lost and that was really abnormal. I cannot send you any data from the GPS report because I got really disappointed and reinstalled 2.85 beta version and then again installed the latest 2.95 beta. Now the GPS works properly but I am afraid the same issue may occur again. Before going up to the mountain I reistalled 2.93 because I didn’t want to face any similar problems. I personally think this is the biggest bug so far and I hope it will be fixed in the next version.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Here what i have. I loaded the 2,95 version since it been release. I checked this morning and this is what i have.
Satellite 2,4,10,12,13,23,24,29 and 30 are locked. I have a little 66ft in the bottom right corner and my precision is 6 ft. Wish it can help you! I have some screenshot about that
April 9th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Thanks to everyone who has provided data. I’ve been looking through it and I’ll be honest there isn’t any obvious trend to me. This morning at around the same time I saw the problems the last two mornings (the constellation is very similar on consecutive days at the same time) I tried my test again and everything worked fine — the four satellites that wouldn’t lock yesterday and the day before locked fine this moring.
The constellation was the same today as yesterday except this morning I locked to 20 which wasn’t in the picture yesterday because it was below the horizon.
So it seems that this issue doesn’t have much to do with the particular constellation configuration. Maybe it has something to do with how the unit gets its updates when it is first turned on after a cold start or the HotFix empheremis data is bad for certain days.
April 9th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Scott, do you know if there’s a way to clear the almanac or ephemeresis data short of a full reset?
-Craig
April 9th, 2009 at 11:10 am
I’ve asked Garmin this in the past. Here is their response (essentially no):
You are correct, this is related to the HotFix feature. When you
perform a master reset, it does not clear the data used by HotFix.
There is not an actual auto locate option on the Oregon as there is on
our other handheld units.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
I went out Geocaching today and did a 12 cache set. For most of the time 2.95 had no issues in the UK and was working well with good reception and accuracy . On one cache however I got to about 1 meter from the indicated location, after looking for 5 minutes with clear view of the sky and indicating a 2 meter accuracy it suddenly said the cache was 100 meters away. This time it was accurate.
I have not experienced this type of error with other GPS devices.
April 18th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Have had 2.95 loaded on my 400c since it was released. Had no satellite problems here in Tasmania but have had what appears to be very good accuracy calculation. The only problem I have found is that the wireless sharing feature now does not work.
April 28th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Have downgraded to 2.95 in my 400T after having seen frozen maps when driving when using 2.96.
But discovered a strange behavior sonday when caching. A fellow cacher was using a 300 with identical software(2.95). My unit was suddenly several hundred meters away from the location comparred with the 300. The reception indicated weak signals on mine although it had clear view of sky. After several resets the unit went back on track. ??
April 28th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
That sounds a lot like the issues many of us saw when we first upgraded to 2.95 (and I’m still seeing issues with 2.96).
-Scott
April 30th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
I am having troubles with my new Oregon 400t, too. I bought it about a week ago and immediately installed 2.96. Everything was fine until yesterday. I had trouble getting my position after switching the oregon on, there were lots of green bars but only four satelites on the “sky”. It took very long to get a position. Lost the signal several times.
Today it was even worse, accuracy was 20m at best, and my position was 50 m off or more. Lost signal quite often. No fun at all, and tomorrow my holiday starts.
I couldn’t see any difference in the behaviour regarding the environment. Open space or forest or city, all the same.
April 30th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Sabrina,
I’m not sure if this issue is fixed in 2.97 or not but because of other issues with 2.96 I would recommend upgrading to that software and making sure that you leave the Oregon outside with a clear view of the sky for 20 minutes (or more) after the update. I’ve seen the problem you describe in 2.95 and 2.96 but not in 2.97 although I think it is triggered by a certain satellite constellation so I just might not have had the time to see it yet in 2.97. Strange thing is for most people it seems to go away after 2 or 3 days.
May 3rd, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Sounds just like my problem – first discovered april 8th – still present yesterday on beta 2.97…
(Oregon 400t, location Denmark)
/Jakob
May 3rd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Until today I used 2.95 Beta. I never had this problem, but today a had a very bad acuarcy and my oregon received only 4 to 5 satellites. A few hours ago I upgraded to 2.97 beta but nothing changed. It’s the same problem. I worked several weeks with 2.95beta without any problem. First I thought there’s something wrong with my device.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:33 pm
I started getting this problem today. I’m running 2.97. I took screen shots and sent them to Garmin. The satalite pages from the Colorado and the 60CSx were identical where the one from the Oregon was totally different. My Oregon is 100% usless at this point. I’ve left it on all day and still isn’t working.
May 4th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
This started happening to me on 05/01. I was running 2.95, but I upgraded to 2.97 hoping it would fix, but it didn’t.
Strange thing is that it occurs around 5pm CST but it works fine the next morning. On Saturday, 05/02, I was able to use it all day until 5pm CST. Same thing happened on Sunday as well. Going to see if the same thing occurs today after work.
May 4th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Joe, this tends to happen because the GPS satellite constellation is similar every 24 hours. I noticed the same issue for 3 days in a row and then it disappeared after my upgrade to 2.95 and 2.97.
-Scott
May 4th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
I have a User Interface question. At the very top of this thread is the original posting and image provided by the author. That image shows the satellites in a “constellation” section of the screen. What does that number “243 ft” in the right-hand corner mean?
May 4th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
JohnC – that is the GPS elevation.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:40 am
I have the same problem with bad satellite-receiving.
It appears from one day to another. Only 2-3 Satellites are present with a bad accuracy. One day under open sky dod not help. This must be a firmware-issue which has to be fixed.