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On monday Morning my Sat Nav wet berserk, it was showing my car gyrating in a 300 m radius around the road clockwise. It continued for 2 hours despite multiple resets and restarts.
It is now back to normal. Is it just the US playing with the satelite signals?

Doubt if the US would need to play with the GPS satellite over you lot down-under....unless they think Osama is hidding in the Opera House [img]images/graemlins/nodder.gif[/img] [img]images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

He is here, but under the Parliment House [img]images/graemlins/nodder.gif[/img]

When the unit loses track of some satellites for whatever reason, like tall buildings or other obstructions blocking the signals, it can hiccup the GPS decode and result it it temporarily not knowing where you are. In these conditions it falls back to the GALA sensor signal to indicate speed and the ESP sensor data to determine directional changes.

The problem seems to be that the ESP and GALA sensor data is not entirely accurate, and often leads to the unit thinking the car is drifting. I suspect dirty ABS sensors are the culprit.

I've had this happen under a few conditions;

• Once when going down several levels in a covered car park. By the time I got to the bottom, the Nav had me about 50 yards out of position and tracked to the nearest road to the position it thought I was in. It corrected itself after about 2 minutes.
• When I leave my office, sometimes the layout of surrounding buildings confuses the GPS receiver. A couple of tight corners and it loses it's ability to figure street names out, but I'm displayed as being roughly where I actually am.
• On the motorway once under route guidance, the indicated route suddenly jumped from the M1 to a small road that ran parallel to it, then would keep jumping back to the M1 when there was no other road nearby, then back to the nearest road on the left once once was within 1/4 of a mile of the M1. This went on for about half an hour and resetting couldn't cure it. My GPS based speed camera locator also had trouble keeping an accurate speed display and seemed to lag behind my actual speed more than usual.
• When I was stuck in some roadworks, rolling forward at about 1 or 2mph, I passed under a bridge and from that point onwards, the display showed me making lazy clockwise circles for the next 2 miles. The circle was not consistent - if I could have left a trail on the screen it would have looked like a lamp filament coil. Once I got moving above 5mph, it corrected itself within a couple of minutes.

Chris, the last thing yo mention is exactly what happened to me but it went on for an hour and I just could not get rid of it. It is back to normal now.
It is interesting that your other GPS based gizmo went out as well. Maybe it is the Americans after all. [img]images/graemlins/biggrin2.gif[/img]

Well finally, they have changed the base plate and the problem has gone. I hope it is for good this time.