Poor GPS reception?

[peterb]

Was anyone trying to use their navigation system on Sunday afternoon (4 Jan)?

I made a trip from Reading to Loughborough to Coventry, back to Reading. Having come to rely on the Nav system, I no longer carry maps in the car, nor do much route planning before I set off!

As I left home, the Nav system came up, but my RoadPilot had great difficulty establishing its position and was useless for the whole trip. I travelled via M40, A43 etc. As I joined the A43 at M40 j10, I wasn't too concerned when the system started showing 'off road', since that section of the A43 has been re-routed in the last year or so, but it became clear that things weren't right when it didn't recover once we had rejoined the old road. In fact, I got to Loughborough with the Nav still thinking I was somewhere between north Oxford and Banbury. I had, thankfully, had to visit multimap in order to find a road name for the school I was trying to get to, so managed to remember enough to find my destination. As I left Loughborough (I hadn't even turned the engine off, since I was simply picking my son up), the Nav system started working again and the RoadPilot even found itself for a few minutes. The RoadPilot then lost itself again, and didn't come back, but the Nav continued functioning for the rest of the trip.

I have been using Audi Nav for almost four years, and have never seen anything like this before, but did anyone else have problems with their Nav yesterday, or have ever experienced anything like it?

Oh yes, the Truvello half way up the A43 nearly caught me out - I've also become too reliant on the RoadPilot!

[wombat]

Hi Peter,

I have experienced this kind of problem but only on two occasions in the last 14 years!

On the first occasion (approx. 4 years ago?)I had some test equipment in the car that used a Garmin HCS35 GPS antenna that was placed close to the in car (Blaupunkt Travel Pilot) GPS antenna, beneath the rear parcel shelf. Neither GPS receiver would acquire lock (2d or 3d) until the distance between their respective antennae was around 1 metre.

The second occasion was more recent (late last year) when an in car Siemens VDO Sat Nav seemed to have GPS lock but could not report position/directions during a journey that lasted about 1.5 hours. (Returning from Yorks, IIRC). The Sat Nav only started making sense when I was about 10 minutes from home on the motorway when the helpful voice prompts were no longer required.

Is it possible that your two GPS devices were interfering with each other due to co-location?

Darren
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[peterb]

Is it possible that your two GPS devices were interfering with each other due to co-location?

Unlikely - the Nav antenna is on the roof just in front of the tailgate. The RoadPilot antenna is on top of the dash. The two systems have been working like this since March last year.

[ChrisG]

Often have problems in north norfolk with my Morpheus, ok on the way up but after a day standing it is often 30 / 40 miles before it seems to pick up a signal. On a couple of occassions I've got to Thetford before the blue light comes on.