Hi Folks, every so often we hear about GT-31's freezing, then requiring a the battery to be unplugged to make it reset.
Herb from FNQ has travelled to Lake George, thus travelling quite some distance since last turning on his GPS. Thinking about this scenario, and remembering similar situations from Sandy Point Speed Fortnight, I think we have identified something that we haven't previously considered as a cause for the freeze.
It is recommend that if you travel a big distance, you *should* leave the GPS sitting for 30-45 mins, before using it - this allows the GPS to update its Almanac.
Well it turns out that the GPS will sync to some satellites, even without having been properly updated... then eventually after you have been sailing for half an hour or so, the GPS will freeze. I cannot confirm that is 100% accurate, but the loose collection of facts do correlate... unsure if it relates to the SpeedGeenie specifically, or to the general operation.
So... if/when you travel a large distance, make sure to allow your GPS to update itself.
Mathew,
This would make sense if it was Herby's first day at Lake G but he's been there since Thursday (so my spies are telling me) and hasn't had any issues with GT-31 for first 3 sessions (to the best of my knowledge).
Sausage, It does make sense. When I first came to Lake George I was using my navi and I had set it out for about 20minutes at Albury. Then When I thought I knew a bit about LG I used Lyn's navi for luck and it froze whilst setting it. Next day I used Hers again and it froze at the end of session. Last night Decrepit pulled it apart and reset battery. There was no session on the card, and it would not not download data. Matt from Pits had a look and got it to dump its internal memory, but also ascertained that it was muddled and thought the year was 2009. Told me to set it out today for an hour and it should be right.
....just brought them in and hope for no more trouble. By the way my results were a good match with my Garmin, which I carry on mast.
Fellas, there were about 20 sailors there yesty with a lot of over 40 knots in results.
