Garmin GPS date probelm

[Jim Seamans]

Aug 15-16 time frame. Starting about 6pm Sat my Garmin 3010 date flipped out. It shows "31 DEC 89". Marcella who was rafted up to me, has a Garmin 4208 had had the same error. Third boat had a Raymarine and was reading the correct date.

Just got off the phone with Garmin tech support and said calls are coming in. Seems almost the entire east coast is affected and they don't know why yet. I have a Garmin GPS 176 at home and was showing the correct date.

Anyone else out there having this problem?

 

[Ross]

Mine says Aug 17 no year time 11:45 am
Garmin 72 hand held.

 

[Joe]

Uh, why do you need a gps to tell what day it is?

 

[kloudie1]

Man, Joe.. An old retired type guy might totally forget if the GPS didn't remind me. When I am at home the paper has the day in the top right corner.. but on the boat, the paper doesn't come?

 

[Roger Long]

Uh, why do you need a gps to tell what day it is?

Well, if the GPS doesn't know what day and time it is, it doesn't know where the satellites are. That makes the position information it gives you not necessarily wrong if it displays an improper date but suspect enough to compromise navigation.

(Yeah, yeah, GPS isn't supposed to be your primary method of navigation but, come on, this is the real world.)

 

[Ross]

With regard to his original question, Is YOUR GPS date correct? Do you use a Garmin? Has this summer gotten too long and too hot?

 

[LooseDiamond]

Mine is correct on date and time. Garmin 76C.

 

[Broke sailor SV Marcell]

If the GPS time and date are incorrect then so is the tide and current information.

 

[jerryf609]

Your problem sounds familiar.

I was a programmer/analyst working for Michigan Natural Resources during the whole Y2K fiasco. We used GPS technology a lot so not only did we have the Year 2000 rollover issue to deal with, we also had the GPS Rollover issue to deal with.

Early GPS technology used a week counter field that had a max value of 1024 then it would roll over to week 0 or 1, can't remember which. Time zero was something like Jan 6, 1980, so 1024 weeks later, August 21, 1999, the counter max was hit and the hardware/software had the wrong date.

Now what you describe is familiar but I can't say they are exactly related. But it bears looking into. It has now been about 10 years since that time period and fixes that may have been issued back then, may have their own rollover limits.

You might check for firmware and software upgrades for your GPS units that are displaying wrong date/times. If they are very old units, you might consider replacing them with new technology.

Edit: After posting, I see that your GPS units are not particularly old (and not cheap). But, programmers make mistakes, the integration of these tecnologies is complicated. I see that Garmin has some fixes available for download. Just be sure you get the correct download for your specific unit.

 

[Dan Johnson]

My SH plotter...

worked fine all weekend. No time glitch, no lost signal, etc.

Ross, the summer is never long enough and it's just heating up--think I'll reset my calender date in my GPS to July and gain another month of sailing--that's what it's beginning to feel like!

 

[jerryf609]

Here's an example of problems that can occur with rollovers. Even if your equipment is a different brand, this type of problem can be encountered on different dates depending on the manufacturer:

http://www.furuno.co.jp/en/notice/080530.html

 

[spiray]

Garmin sent me this fix

Garmin International.

We have been given a temporary fix for the date issue. Please do the
following instructions and then look for a software update in the near
future to permanently fix the issue.

In order to correct the Date issue, the Serial GPS Mode must be changed
from Garmin to NMEA.
1. Power the unit on
2. Press Enter to advance to the Map screen
3. Press and hold the ADJ/Menu button for 1 second to go to the Main
Menu
4. Select the GPS tab
5. Highlight Setup on the GPS tab
6. Highlight the Source option
7. Press Enter
8. Highlight NMEA
9. Press Enter
10. Highlight Setup
11. Highlight Info

If the time is off by one hour the Daylight Savings setting will also
need to be changed from the Off or Auto setting to the ON setting.
1. From the Map screen
2. Press and hold the ADJ/Menu button for 1 second to go to the Main
Menu
3. Highlight the System tab
4. Highlight the Time tab
5. Highlight Daylight Saving Time
6. Press Enter
7. Choose On
8. Press Enter
9. Press Quit
Now that these settings have been changed the Date and Time should
display correctly once the GPS has acquired its position.

With Best Regards,

Michael H
Product Support Specialist
2nd Shift Marine Team
Garmin International
913-397-8200
800-800-1020
913-440-8280 (fax) Att: Michael H
www.garmin.com

 

[Jim Seamans]

Was just getting ready to post up the fix myself. They now have it up on the support web site:
http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/site/us/support/searchsupport?search_key=3010&Go=Submit

Select -> How do I change the date and time if displaying incorrectly on a GPSMAP 21xx, 22...

It gives an answer for the 4000 series also.

Not bad, it only took them two days to figure it out... Well done

 

[Roger Long]

Sho' Nuf.

I just went out to the boat and checked my Garmin 3205 bought last winter and firmware immediately updated. It says it is Jan 03 1990.

My GPSmap 76Cx has the correct date however.

 

[Tim R.]

Just found this on another boating forum:

Important Note:

When you select NMEA vice Garmin in the setup your gps antenna will not display as being connected in your network .... but not to worry, it is.

Here's what you'll see.

But never fear your antenna is sending positional/time/date info to your chartplotter.

__________________

 

[Roger Long]

Just found this on another boating forum:

Garmin told me today that the problem is in the antennas and not the chartplotters which is why the handhelds are not effected. The final fix will be via firmware updates for the various chartplotters however. This firmware will push a fix through to the antenna.

Garmin is keeping pretty quiet about this. Hamilton hadn't heard anything about it through their dealer support and had just been unable to tell one customer why his tide data seemed to be way off. I couldn't find anything on their web site either. The rep told me they've pulled engineers off many other projects to get a permanent fix out.

I did see on their web site that another software glitch has disabled a different family of GPS products which have stopped working until they can be updated.

I'm glad I was using paper data to look up tides while I was up in Passamaquoddy Bay!

When I go back to the boat, I'll have to download my tracks and look back to see when the GPS jumped back in time to the early days of the Clinton adminstration

 

[Tim R.]

Roger, you should still be able to get the correct tide/current data by selecting the correct date in the tide/current screen. People have a problem because they do not check that date and assume it is correct(which it should be). I always verify the date when I check my tides.

 

[Roger Long]

Roger, you should still be able to get the correct tide/current data by selecting the correct date in the tide/current screen. People have a problem because they do not check that date and assume it is correct(which it should be). I always verify the date when I check my tides.

I just followed the instructions Garmin emailed me and they boil down to "Just switch GPS source to NEMA" (as in the post above). I didn't have to do any time resetting or other fiddling after making that simple change. The proper date and time came right up.

It's pretty clear what happened here. The Garmin antenna puts out both Garminish and NEMA, probably because they bought the basic unit and/or software from someone else and added the Garmin speak function because, well, they're Garmin. The chartplotter is set to read Garmin as the source by default but can also read NEMA for use with other antennas or inputs. All was well until the Garmin software had the rollover glitch.

Right now, I don't see any downside to taking NEMA from the antenna although I haven't had a chance to verify that the functions like aligning the radar overlay are supported by the NEMA input. It's probably more of a huge public relations fiasco for them, "Garminish is flakey, NEMA is solid."

 

[sailaway78]

Some of you missed the whole boat

As usual, my mind set is way off from most. Not to say it's better, but certainly different. When I head off on a cruise, I Don't Want To Know What Day It Is. I don't want news on the radio, don't want any TV, don't want a newspaper. I do keep up with the weather, and sometimes watch a movie on computer. But as far as the day, or date, don't care.

 

[Tim R.]

I checked my 3206 tonight and sure enough it read 3-Jan-90. I made the change and it worked but also had the problem where it thought the GPS17 was not connected. The GPS still worked flawlessly and the tidal info was correct.