GPS Problem

[lehighsail]

Went out yesterday and my Garmin 545 did not work. It would give me the time, voltage, and I could pan and set a route to a waypoint, but the boat icon never left the dock. The route it would give always started at the dock..the last place it did work. Any ideas?
Thanks

 

[Ross]

Is it set up for simulation? Does it indicate satillite acquistion?

 

[lehighsail]

The unit is not set to simulation. I went to the GPS screen and it does not appear that it is acquiring any satellites. Could this be a software problem that could be solved by updating?
Thanks again.

 

[Joe]

If it's not acquiring satellites there's probably a problem with the internal battery.... how old is the unit?.... Your first call should be to Garmin customer service.... I've had mixed success with them over the years... first time with my Garmin 45 (the white one) I sent them the unit and they returned it completely refurbished within the week, no charge. The next time it went down, a year later, they wanted $100 to do the same thing. NO WAY... I went out and bought a Garmin 76 that has performend flawlessly for nine years.

The problem I had was exactly the same that you described. Good Luck....... you must call Garmin though...

 

[Bill Roosa]

If it is not acquiring sats then the antenna is not receiving (or passing along) the signal. I'm thinking that it is NOT a battery internal or otherwise as the internal battery just maintains your user setting which do not seem to be the problem and the regular batteries a clearly powering the unit.
I suspect Garmin has designed it with "no user serviceable parts inside" Is the unit over 5 years old? under warranty? I'd crack the case and check out the antenna connections. Those are all VERY LOW voltage and just a little corrosion can completely kill the signal.

 

[Warren Milberg]

Have you tried moving the unit to an entirely different location to see if will acquire satellites?

 

[rardiH36]

I don't have your unit (mine's a new horizon or something like that). Presumably your have the owners manual. I took a look on Garmin's sight and it is quickly there in pdf format. Check that the unit is acquiring the satellite signals and that the unit displays the lat/long/time etc data. If your boat isn't moving on the display that might be the reason. Also the manual will tell you how to reset the unit in case something has glitched with the internal firmware or if you have unknowingly gone into some other mode than you have been using.

I also see from 545 installation manual that your model has an input for an external gps antenna. If you have one connected and the antenna is outside, and your unit is not acquiring the satellites,a fault in/from the external antenna could be the culprit. This has happened a couple of times on my unit. Upon opening the antenna housing, I found that the solder joint of the antenna wire to the antenna circuit board had broken. A soldering iron got the unit working again. And or just a bad connection in the water-tight joints might account for no gps acquisition.

 

[shanker]

It may need to be updated. I had similar issues, downloaded the latest software version from the Garmin web page and it fixed everything immediately.

 

[lehighsail]

I upgraded the software from the website via an SD card and it cured almost everything. It acquired the satellites immediately and all the new stuff on the unit is overwhelming. However, the "guide to" function does not work when the G2 card is in. I'll call Garmin in the AM. Thanks for the interest and ideas.