Re: Eagle Explorer version 1.4 firware lockup problem
John Fenton
Sun, 08 Jun 1997 21:33:02 -0700
Joe Mehaffey wrote:
>
> I have now received six reports of the Eagle Explorer with firmware
> version 1.4 ceasing to function. The reports state the while entering a
> waypoint, the display would go blank and then the EE would not function
> for a period thereafter. Each report says that eventually, the EE did
> recover. This problem seems very isolated as only six instances have
> been noted.
>
> I offer this information because someone could conceivably get into
> difficulty if his EE locked up and he was without alternative navigation
> means. Please be sure (as instructed by the EE's startup screen) that
> you do not depend SOLELY on the EE to get you home. IF YOU GET INTO A
> SITUATION WHERE YOU MUST DEPEND ON YOUR EE, DO NOT TRY AND ENTER ANY
> WAYPOINTS DURING THIS PERIOD.
>
> This problem is NOT known to exist in firmware earlier than version 1.4.
> If anyone has any further information about this problem, please
> contact me with the details.
>
> I have forwarded reports on this problem to my contact at Lowrance
> Electronics, but they have not had a chance to respond.
>
> Joe Mehaffey
>
> These details furnished by Richard Wilson.
> ================================================================
> Details of the Eagle Explorer Waypoint Lockup Problem
> I decided to enter four waypoints and create a route back to the
> harbor. I turned on the unit and went into the Plotter 2 screen,
> then pressed WPT, went up to the next unused waypoint (number 7)
> and entered the name and coordinates. I then went to number 8,
> entered the name, then the latitude. I checked my navigation
> book for the longitude and when I looked back at the screen, it
> was blank. I had been looking away for 10 or 15 seconds, so I
> don't know what had appeared on the screen prior to going blank.
>
> I pressed the PWR key and the warning message came on. At this
> point it was locked up and the exit key (or any other key) would
> not operate. In about five seconds the message disappeared, a
> vertical line appeared on the screen and the unit went blank. I
> repeated this several times with no success.
>
> I replaced the batteries, but no change. I later removed the
> batteries completely and left them out overnight. Still no
> change. I left the batteries in for a day, and again no change.
>
> I then tried pressing the power key, then other keys rapidly and
> at random. Various screens would pop up at the start: Icon
> Selection, Plotter 2, Menu, POWER OFF IN 3 SECONDS; but the unit
> would be locked and would go no further. Even the power-down
> would not work and the message never went past 3 seconds, but
> again the screen would go blank, a single vertical line would ap-
> pear at random locations on the screen, then go blank. I
> probably did this 25 times or more. At some point the mode
> selection screen came on and I was able to move the highlight up
> and down. I pressed the PWR key and it counted down normally and
> turned off.
>
> After that everything worked properly. Waypoint 8 had the name I
> had entered, but no coordinates. This would be expected since I
> hadn't come to the point of pressing enter at the time of the
> failure. I finished entering waypoint 8, and entered a number of
> others with no problem.
>
> Unfortunately, this was the last day of our trip and I only used
> it for about 6 miles, but everything worked fine.
I reda in an erlier post that if the above happens: Hold down the mode
key while powering up the GPS and this causes the eagle to reset. I have
had the same problem and I tried the mode power up and it worked fine.
This of course i found out after I bought a Garmin 12xl so the Eagle
explorer I am selling at $125.00 firm. in actuality I have owned it new
for 2 weeks while only using it for one week. if you are interetsed in
purchasing it with the data cable E-Mail me at john@compu-doc.com
Re: Sensitivity: 12XL vs. II+
skeeter@nospam.usask.ca (Skeeter Abell-Smith)
9 Jun 1997 05:08:31 GMT
mani (mani@btinternet.com) wrote:
}my initial thoughts on it were that the helix aerial and/or the
}sensitivity of the set was far better than the 12xl, as the II+
}achieved locks INSIDE my house when stationary with no clear view of
}the sky anywhere. i was duly impressed, as the 12xl had problems
}locking indoors (the exact same location), and even had trouble when i
}dangled it out of the window :-) the II+ acquires easily in the same
}location.
Well, my 12XL locks inside my house. I have read in this 'group that
there seem to be a few 'bad' 12XL units out there that are not as
sensitive as they could be. Maybe you have one of these bad units.
Others, testing the 12XL and IIPlus side-by-side, seem to not
notice much of a difference.
= = To send me e-mail you must replace "nospam" with "teapot". = =
The above opinions may differ from those of others. Take no offense.
Check out the Canadian Firearms Home Page:
http://cdn-firearms.ml.org/cdn-firearms/homepage.html
--
Nothing should be banned; only regulated. Control != prohibition.
Re: GPS and software
chuckfor@flash.net
Sun, 8 Jun 1997 19:32:02 -0500
Garmin 12XL with SA4 and Waypoint+ (freeware) is a great combination.
Take a look at
http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter/index.html and
http://www.bridge.de/~tom/garmin.htm
for reviews of mapping software.
Chuck
In article <01bc745d$5e0e3060$2b17adce@crc3.concentric.net>,
ducecoop@concentric.net says...
> I am looking for a good gps handheld that would be compatible with
> oreninting,backpacking,mountain running. The more features the better.
>
> This unit would be even nicer if it could import data of a pc (do not have
> a laptop),from such programs as sa4 and pm3, foe the purpose of vehicle
> navigation on trips without the use of a laptop.
>
> Any suggestions, advise,critisioms would be very helpful. I don't even know
> if what I want is available (at a reasonable price).
> Thanks
> Dave Cooper
> ducecoop@concentric.net
>
>
Re: 12xl and trimble mini-mag at 30,000 feet.
chuckfor@flash.net
Sun, 8 Jun 1997 19:10:44 -0500
Mike,
I've been using the 12XL for about four months on all my flights that I
can get a window seat on. I've also had very good success with the
minimag antenna. I've got tracks (1 minute increments) from Houston to
Sao Paulo-Brazil,Miami,Phoenix,Milwaukee,Cleveland and LA. I agree with
you - "What fun".
One question - why translate the waypoint+ formatted files? Are you using
the files from
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rimmer/WaypointFiles.htm?
Anyone interested in the same format of files for South America, Canada
and the Caribbean?
Chuck
In article <339A998A.76AD@wru.org.spamsucks>, mjm@wru.org.spamsucks
says...
> Had the pleasure of taking my 12xl and trimble OEM antenna on a few
> flights in the last couple of weeks. The "readers digest" version of
> the story is *what fun*
>
> Was fortunate enough to catch gentleman with four stripes on his
> shoulder while waiting to board, asked him if I could use the GPS. He
> said "SURE, but you you probably won't pick anything up, you may have to
> hold it to the window", etc.
>
> I stuck the mini-mag between the window and the sunscreen, plugged it
> in, and switched on, it started tracking, takeoff was nice, rotation was
> at about 170 mph, climbing quickly to 200mph, we leveled out at a bit
> over 30,000 and over 600mph..
>
> I'd loaded in waypoints of larger airports, (taken from the waypoint
> formatted file, converted via a unix awk script to g7to format and
> uploaded before the flight), so it was fun to watch airports float by on
> the map screen.
>
> Most of the time, the unit was tracking all but one or two SVs, only
> missing the ones on the opposite horizon from the side the antenna was
> on. EPEs were in the 60 foot range most of the time.
>
> Thinking about the comments some folks have made about the 12xl not
> being able to start navigating when moving, or having problems on
> airplanes, I reset the unit's almanac (power on while holding down
> 'page', it said "searching the sky" and it had 3d nav in under two
> minutes, (this was on a shorter hop at about 20k altitude and 400mph.)
>
> Getting off the plane, the captain that had told me to have fun was
> standing in the jetway and he inquired about how it worked, I ended up
> standing in the jetway and chatting with him for a while, showing him
> the 12xl and the trimble antenna... He was quite impressed, seemed he
> owns an older trimble receiver... he told the co-pilot that was with him
> that they'd have to go get one of these new ones (Grins).
>
> this was on Southwest airlines, btw.
>
> Haven't had time to download all the tracks I saved to the 'puter and
> plot them on PM3 yet, got in from the trip and had to turn right around
> and go to work! :-( I'll be able to find out where that racetrack was
> that we flew over (Grins)
>
Does NASA encrypt any satellite photos?
pbs@iaccess.za (J. L.)
Mon, 09 Jun 97 07:30:38 GMT
Hi All,
I have a curious question. I've been downloading GOES 9 images for several
weeks. Every now and then I get a "garbage" photo downloaded. It's
"garbage" in the sense that the entire photo consists of light and dark
areas with a consistent pattern - but there is absolutely no normal
picture. It's not as if PART of the photo is "Garbled". Nope, the entire
photo has the same quality.
I used to write it off to a transmission error on my machine, so I'd
download these garbage photos again. But after a download the photo remains
exactly as is - IOW, this is the normal quality of the photo.
This happens with reasonable regularity. Every now and then I happen upon
such a strange photo. I was also looking through the GOES images to see
what auroral photos might exist - so these strange photos had me
fascinated.
A while back on CNN I saw some s/w which was being marketed which enabled
you to send COLOUR PHOTOS by FAX. You scanned the photo into your PC. The
program would print out a garbage-like print-out (encoded obviously). Then
you'd fax it. The receiver would scan it into his pc. The s/w had various
CRC checks in it - so much so that you could scribble over the printout
with a pen or pencil and it would still decode it correctly.
Now I pose the question (perhaps a very stupid question): Is it possible
that these strange garbage photos are perhaps encrypted? I could e-mail one
to anyone who's interested.
Kindly reply by e-mail if you can help.
Regards,
Jan
Re: GPS and Psion 3c
Pierre Lagrange
Mon, 09 Jun 1997 10:23:45 +0200
mani wrote:
>
> be careful to find SOFTWARE for your 3c before investing in gps that you *may*
> find you can't use with your existing pda.
>
> for the 3x series, i am only aware of one software package, which will not use
> scanned maps, only proprietory built in maps with no options to order anything
> else. using the 3x series may box you into a corner...
This is absolutely not true. There are some very good programs
avalaible for the Series 3a/3c working with GPS units, especially
with the Garmin line. I tested many of them, particularly Mapper
from Steve Litchfield. I also wrote some OPL (basic) programs to
draw my maps), but had no time to finish them.
Please go to Steve's pages, and find many things concerning the
Psion and GPS connexions...
http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/
There are many other links that I have to remember and will be able
to give to you...
Best regards from Paris
Pierre
Re: Trailblazer Question
rickg@callamer.com (Rick Gilligan)
9 Jun 1997 03:06:07 GMT
In article <339B14FA.304F@atlanta.com>, Jan & Scott Banks
wrote: >I have a Magellan Trailblazer vintage 1994.
I am interested in knowing >if any of the current mapping applications
(Street Atlas, Map n' Go, >etc.) will support this receiver. I do have
the power/data cable and >external antenna. I'd like an excuse to buy a
new unit but want to >investigate what is out there that supports my
Trailblazer. I looked >through Peter Bennett's FAQ page quickly and
didn't see any information. >Anybody have any suggestions or know where I
can look or have experience >with this unit? Thanks. > >Scott
Supported by MNG and SA4 by getting the newest GPS driver from their site.
Works ok.
Don't waste your money on an upgraded receiver until you see if it will do
what you want.
See http://www.w6bhz.calpoly.edu/~rgilliga/NMEAWiring.html for hints on
hooking up the Trailblazer/Merdian. You can skip the suggested RJ45 if
you like, just follow the wiring. This wiring standard was designed to
support different units to different systems, and to allow 568B (cat 5)
wiring to be used by pairing up useful signals as to destination and also
to not have power sources next to pins which, if shorted, would blow out
something important.
Also, for interoperability of equipment for APRS use.
73
Rick
N6NL
--
Rick Gilligan
Senior Software Specialist
Computer And Software Enterprises, Inc.
E-mail: rick@case.net
Lecturer in Civil Engineering Measurement at Imperial College [UK]
ag414@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Colin R. Leech)
9 Jun 1997 05:40:52 GMT
Reposted from the transp-l list:
John Polak (j.polak@ic.ac.uk) wrote:
> IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
>
> DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
> LECTURER IN CIVIL ENGINEERING MEASUREMENT
>
> Outstanding and highly motivated candidates are invited to join us,
> to take a leading role in expanding and enlarging our activities in
> quantitative aspects of civil engineering. We are looking for
> someone with a strong background in areas such as GIS, positioning
> technologies, remote sensing, computing and statistical analysis,
> who can bring together and build upon existing work in fields such
> as transport, earthquake engineering and water resources, at the
> same time developing his/her own research interests.
>
> Applicants will be expected to contribute to undergraduate teaching,
> particularly surveying, and to postgraduate teaching, where a double
> emphasis, on interdisciplinary approaches to MSc teaching and a
> specific contribution to the Transport MSc will be expected.
>
> The Department is widely recognised as one of Europe's centres of
> excellence in civil engineering teaching and research, achieving
> top grade (5*) in the recent UK assessment of research quality and
> performing very well teaching quality assessments. Our
> international profile is very high; we have teaching and research
> contacts with the best universities worldwide, and particularly
> strong contacts in mainland Europe. Links with Industry are also
> excellent.
>
> Further particulars are available at
>
> http://www.cv.ic.ac.uk/vacancies/measure.htm
>
>
> Applications, in the form of a CV and list of three referees,
> should be send to Mr Colin J Kerr, at the address below, by post or
> fax.
>
> Department of Civil Engineering
> Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
> Imperial College Rd
> LONDON SW BU
>
> Tel: 0171 594 6044
> Fax: 0171 594 6042
> E-mail: c.j.kerr@ic.ac.uk
>
> The closing date is 20 June 1997
>
> --
> John Polak
> Centre for Transport Studies, Imperial College
--
#### |\^/| Colin R. Leech ag414 or crleech@freenet.carleton.ca
#### _|\| |/|_ Civil engineer by training, transport planner by choice.
#### > < Opinions are my own. You may consider them shareware.
#### >_./|\._< "If you can't return a favour, pass it on." - A.L. Brown
Re: Sensitivity: 12XL vs. II+
skeeter@nospam.usask.ca (Skeeter Abell-Smith)
9 Jun 1997 03:26:21 GMT
mani (mani@btinternet.com) wrote:
}taking it out into a local forest today, my impressions are that it is
}better and achieving lock when stationary, and just a finnicky at
}locking when moving. what the technical reason is for them taking
}longer to lock (both models) when moving is not known by me.
The signals are more stable when you are stationary, allowing the
receiver to more easily listen and compensate for background noise.
When you are moving, the signal levels are constantly changing and
other influences, such as multipath distortion/reflections, come into
play. I hope I have explained this properly...
= = To send me e-mail you must replace "nospam" with "teapot". = =
The above opinions may differ from those of others. Take no offense.
Check out the Canadian Firearms Home Page:
http://cdn-firearms.ml.org/cdn-firearms/homepage.html
Maps around Lake Michigan?
Timothy Jacobs
9 Jun 1997 10:23:07 GMT
I'm planning a circular tour of Lake Michigan for October, starting and
finishing in Chicago.
Can anyone recommend a good source of digital maps to cover the area.
The info I have about the USGS maps seems to indicate that I'd need
around 16-20 sets to cover the area. This is obviously expensive for a
one-off holiday!
Does the Route 66 route planning sofware have a GPS interface? This is
the only US mapping software I know of that is available here in the UK.
It is expensive, UK£99, and covers most of the world, so I'm not sure
about the detail.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Tim
--
Tim Jacobs timothy.jacobs@gecm.com
Driving a boat is 90% mental. The other 10% is in your head
These are my views, not GEC's.
Re: HELP! Looking for Waypoint Software
louw@prefer.net (Lou Wiener)
Mon, 09 Jun 1997 11:43:56 GMT
Try Delorme's Map'n'Go 3.0 and Street Atlas 4.0. Also good is
Precision Mapping/Streets with Compass. These packages provide maps
and GPS d/l capabilities.
Waypoint+ d/l data from the Garmin in a form that can be read by SA4
and MNG 3.0. You can pick it up at the site below
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rimmer/waypoint.htm
BTW, I am a relative newcomer so others may have better advice.
On 9 Jun 1997 01:11:10 GMT, pheaney@eagle.freespace.net (Paul Heaney)
wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I'm looking for some waypoint software to use with my GPS 12XL. What's
>the best software for upload/download, plotting and complexity. Please
>let me know, and where I can get it.
>
>Thanks.
>
>
>--
>PHEANEY@FREESPACE.NET
>Ham Radio Callsign VA3HST
>
Regards,
-lou-
More on ML-150 and ECM jamming?
bdcst@vermontel.com
Mon, 09 Jun 1997 08:02:10 -0600
I've been posting material on the new ML-150 GPS as it is an interesting
unit, maybe an alternative to the G-12XL. This weekend I had the
opportunity to take it out in the Atlantic Ocean off of Cape Cod.
My usual locale is mountainous Vermont with a limited sky view. Out on
the ocean with horizon to horizon views the ML-150 would lock up to
every bird. With 7 or more satellites being tracked the microprocessor
was kept very busy, so much so that its response to key presses was very
sluggish! This was a rather annoying bug though far from fatal.
The ML-150 is designed primarily for marine use although its sensitivity
and 12 channel parallel receiver design and UTM grid capability makes it
equally suitable for land use. Indeed, it includes vertical filters for
Automobile, Walking, Boat and Airplane. On the water the internal
marine database is very handy. You can ask it to produce a list of the
twenty closest lights, buoys and lighthouses. You can then bring up a
data screen for each one describing the light by color, flash rate,
sounder, name and location.
By looking at the list which includes range and bearing to each light,
it is easy to identify what you see out over the water. Heading out of
Provincetown harbor, it was easy to differentiate between the lights
marking each end of the nearby and fairly short breakwater. Each light
had a large number painted on its identification sign and the same
numbers are in the GPS database.
At night from my hotel room window I could see several lights further
down the Cape. With the ML-150 locked to satellites I was able to
identify those lights that were 2-3 miles away.
There are four versions of the steering display that you can choose to
view. Three of them have a compass rose. One of them also includes
dots around the rose that represent a speedometer, while the arrow
represents the direction you should be heading and the boat outline,
facing top, points towards the actual heading as read on the rose.
Nowhere in the owner's manual is this explained! A small set of digits
on the right bottom of the broken speedometer circle sets the maximum
range. You can use the curser keys to select that field and change the
speedometer setting.
The highway navigation screen shows a lane receding into the distance
with dashed lines moving towards you as though you were driving down a
striped road. This screen has a field labeled ED, elapsed distance. It
is an odometer that will accumulate mileage until you reset it by using
the curser to highlight it and then you can change the digits. This is
a bit more awkward than a simple reset command. Again, this is not
documented in the user manual.
The screen also has an ETE field, estimated time enroute and an ETA
field which calculates the time of arrival (ETA). The first is an
interval while the second is an estimate of absolute time of day, what
your clock will say, upon arrival.
The tide prediction table uses the nearest reporting station to your
current location and provides a sine wave curve graphed with Y axis as
water height and X axis as time of day. A vertical bar marks the present
time and conditions. Below the graph are fields with two high and two
low tide times and the expected footage.
Another screen, related to tides, displays sun and moon rise and set
information including an animated display of sun and moon crossing the
sky. This gives you a sense of where the sun and moon will rise and set
in the sky!
The plotter can show a background map of land/water country and state
boundaries, buoys, waypoints, tracks, routes and coordinate grids. You
can select the features to show as dots, numbers, by name or by icon.
It was neat to zoom out and see the entire shape of Cape Cod, then
finally see all of New England. The mapping database is fairly crude,
so you have to be zoomed out to greater than 20 mile scale to see the
map.
A funny thing happened to me on my travel from Cape Cod to a destination
in a suburb of Boston. It was Saturday, June 7th at approximately 8PM
in the vicinity of Natick MA. The ML-150 was happily locked to
satellites while sitting on the dashboard of my automobile. Suddenly
the "navigation may be inaccurate" warning screen flashed, my speed
display went to zero and the estimated error in feet went up to 99999.
I was still locked to at least 4 satellites! And according to the
satellite status display screen, they were in reasonable geometry. So
the DOP's should have been good. I turned off the GPS and restarted it.
After locking and looking OK, it again stopped tracking and alerted me
to a possible accuracy problem. The signal strength bars were nice and
high for at least 4 satellites. This problem persisted for the ten
minutes it took to reach my destination and continued after my arrival.
I checked the plot log and found that my trail had suddenly shifted over
two hundred miles due south!
Did anyone else experience a discontinuity around the same time? Did
anyone in the Natick MA area notice it? The DoD does have facilities in
Natick and elsewhere in east central MA. So this could have been ECM
testing. Or was it a brief GPS satellite failure?
--Ira Wilner
* *
/|-------------------------------------------|\
/ | Ira A. Wilner | \
/ | ** WILNER ASSOCIATES ** | \
/ | Broadcast Engineering Services | \
/ | Email: bdcst@vermontel.com | \
/ | URL: http://www.vermontel.com/~bdcst | \
/ |-------------------------------------------| \
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Re: Tripmate updating on airplane?
ih@ducky.ee.udel.edu (Charlie Ih)
9 Jun 1997 13:10:52 GMT
In article <19970607162300.MAA21552@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
Weeves wrote:
>Has anyone got their tripmate to initailize and update the position
>successfully on a commercial airplane?
>
>I have tried many times with no success. I can get as many as 4 sat. in
>view, have my V,E,N all equal 4 with still no updating of my position.
I tried a total of 8 times, and no luck. I had to conclude that
Tripmate does not work on airplane. I posted this a few time in the
past.
--
Charles S. Ih
302-831-8173, FAX 302-831-4316
e-mail, ih@ee.udel.edu
Re: Garmin GPS II+ Problem - POSSIBLE FIX UPDATE
Randy
Mon, 09 Jun 1997 08:54:24 -0400
My GPS II+ with the Vaseline on the batteries now has 3 hours of
mountain bike trail and 2 hours of off road motorcycle use on it with
out turning itself off. Before the fix it never went more than about
1/2 hour. I guess it isn't completely fixed unless it lasts for the
life of the batteries but so far so good.
The following diagram represents the Garmin II+ battery compartment.
'A', 'B', 'C', and 'D' are batteries. 'S''s are the contact springs.
'P' is the contact post. The thin film of vaseline was applied between
'A' and 'C', 'B' and 'D', and 'P' and 'B'. I didn't put any between the
springs and the batteries.
S P
A B
C D
S S
If anyone else having the turning off problem would try this and let me
know how it works for you I'd appreciate it.
Also, all of this off road vehicle use with the II+ has been in the
woods and the tracks it's recorded look great. It lost lock once or
twice on the bicycle in about 26 miles of single track woods trails. On
the motorcycle it looks like it never lost lock in 23 miles. I think my
body blocks the signal more on the bicycle.
Randy
Re: New Zealand Map Grid (NZMG) and 12XL
jcs@zoo.bt.co.uk (John Sager)
9 Jun 1997 13:55:18 GMT
In article <3387DEAB.155C@mehaffey.com>, Joe Mehaffey writes:
:
: I did not know the answer to your question. Here is the answer I have
: received from Garmin Engineering. If you have any more questions, let
: me know.
...
:
: I'm not familiar with the NZMG, but if the explanation was correct, then
: the User grid function would not work as it is strictly a mercator
: projection and the format is that of UTM. (offset as desired by the user).
:
:
: Thank you and best regards,
:
: GARMIN International
Not much use as a user grid then. Is NZMG *really* the only grid system
in the world not based on the Transverse Mercator projection?
The most general would be a polynomial-based projection. I believe
that NZMG is of this type with terms up to 6th or 8th order. For
the required accuracy in a handheld GPS (1m??), fewer terms would
be necessary, and other grid projections could also be modelled by
polynomial expressions. With the required update rate, the maths shouldn't
be too onerous.
J
Re: GEOREF and Grid software conversion
Jan Galkowski
Mon, 09 Jun 1997 10:00:09 -0400
Dave White wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> Dare one ask what the difference is between "World Geographic Reference
> System" and WGS-84 unless it is WGS 72?
>
The "G" in WGS comes from "Geodetic" not "Geographic".
[snip]
--
Jan Theodore Galkowski,
developer, statistician,
Digicomp Research Corporation,
Ithaca, NY 14850-5720
jan@digicomp.com
(also jtgalkowski@worldnet.att.net)
