Problem with Garmin GPS map 546s

[Mark260DA]

I recently bought a 2005 260 Sundancer. It has a Garmin GPSmap 546s. It worked fine for weeks then it started loosing satellite every now and again but would recover and be back in business. Last week it lost satellite and now rarely works and if it does only for a few seconds before it looses satellites again. The boat has a radar arch. Trying to figure out if one of these antennas is for the gps. Other functions work fine, bottom machine and other things working fine.

 

[hottoddie]

My backup GPS is 546s. It has an internal antenna but you can connect an external antenna as an option. The smaller antenna on your arch looks like an external Garmin antenna. It may have been installed as the primary GPS source for 546s. Try looking thru the menu for what source the 546s is using for its signal (internal or external). If external try switching to internal to see if the problem goes away. If it does then the external antenna has an issue. Could be failing or just have a bad connection. Good luck.

 

[bahamabreisus]

Not to uncommon with the Garmins. Try restarting a few times. Also try leaving it on.

 

[Mark260DA]

I looked through every menu page and couldn’t find anything referring to antennas.

It worked fine for weeks and slowly started having this issue which is now constant. When this first started happening I would try shutting it off and restarting but that doesn’t correct the issue and even like today, yesterday it worked for about an hour and today back to not working.

 

[Royal Lichter]

Upgrade your software to the latest version. You need a mac or a PC and an SD card. Also, they take a while to initialize. Turn it on for a half hour or so before you want to use it.