Raymarine loosing position fix

[timjet]

I have a Raymaine RL80CRC Plus on a boat I just purchased. I'm getting familiar with it and noticed that twice last weekend it lost position fix and it never was able to re-obtain it. First time was in the morning about 8 am the next time was in the evening about 7 pm. On the Navigation Status page when NO FIX is displayed only 2 satellites are being received. Using the Restart GPS function does no good.
The GPS antenna is located on the bridge.

Anybody have any idea whats going on?

 

[Sea Gull]

Which GPS do you have?

 

[Good Grief]

If you have the Raystar 120 GPS antennae, it's time to replace it with the Raystar 125. The 120 is not compatible or upgradeable to/with the new GPS satellites. Raymarine was offering a deal on the upgrade, not sure if they still are.

 

[timjet]

I don't have all the manuals for the unit with me, but I think I do have them all on the boat. (2 hours away). The unit has to my knowledge not been updated and everything I believe is original when installed around 2001.
I do have the display manual "hsb2 Plus Series Color LCD Display Owners Handbook" with me and in Appendix B it mentions the Raystar 120 WAAS Satellite Differential Receiver. So I'm assuming that is what is on the boat.
A couple of questions:
Is the Raystar WAAS Satellite Differential Receiver more than just the antenna? It sounds like it's a receiver. So do I need to upgrade the receiver along with the antenna?
Does loosing sat reception "No Position Fix" consistent with having the 120 antenna.
Any idea what this is going to cost to upgrade?

Thanks so much for your help.

 

[Good Grief]

The white dome shaped unit is a receiver. It receives signals from satellites. Since the satellites it relied on are no longer in service, it's function is questionable. I would call ray marine and talk with them. I would go after the 125 first, either way, it needs replaced, if that fixes your problem your good to go, if not you can consider upgrading the chartplotter. If the chartplotter is not integrated with any other devices, you could consider a different manufacturer for less $$$. There are a lot of new plotters and technology (3D is way cool). If you search CSR you can see what people like and don't like.

 

[sbw1]

I have a Raymaine RL80CRC Plus on a boat I just purchased. I'm getting familiar with it and noticed that twice last weekend it lost position fix and it never was able to re-obtain it. First time was in the morning about 8 am the next time was in the evening about 7 pm. On the Navigation Status page when NO FIX is displayed only 2 satellites are being received. Using the Restart GPS function does no good.
The GPS antenna is located on the bridge.

Anybody have any idea whats going on?

Try rebooting it the next time it looses the fix. Pushing the Restart does not reboot it. You have to turn off the power to the antenna and then add power back to reboot it. This almost always fixes the problem.

 

[Henry Boyd]

The white dome shaped unit is a receiver. It receives signals from satellites. Since the satellites it relied on are no longer in service, it's function is questionable. I would call ray marine and talk with them. I would go after the 125 first, either way, it needs replaced, if that fixes your problem your good to go, if not you can consider upgrading the chartplotter. If the chartplotter is not integrated with any other devices, you could consider a different manufacturer for less $$$. There are a lot of new plotters and technology (3D is way cool). If you search CSR you can see what people like and don't like.

Sorry, that is just wrong information. There is nothing wrong with the satellites. You do not need to upgrade everything just to get a chartplotter function.

Timjet
I went through this with our RL70 CRC plus and Raystar 120 that was original to our boat. The Raystar 120 had a battery hardwired into it. That is what kept it powered to latch onto the sat signal. Given time, the battery dies and with it the functionality of the 120. You can replace it with a Raystar 125 and will be good to go as it sounds like you are describing the symptoms of GPS battery failure. I replaced the 120 in 2007 and continued to use the RL70 until this spring. It by the way was gifted to a friend, who is using as a slave display to his RL80 system.

Henry

 

[timjet]

Given time, the battery dies and with it the functionality of the 120. You can replace it with a Raystar 125 and will be good to go as it sounds like you are describing the symptoms of GPS battery failure.

Henry

OK, I'm a little confused. The unit I have: Raymarine RL80CRC Plus, is connected electrically to the battery bus on the boat. I understand the main display unit has an internal battery that retains personalized settings that when goes bad requires the operator to reset those settings when restarting. Are you saying the Raystar 120 WAAS Satellite Differential Receiver which is the dome shaped antenna looking thing on my bridge also has an internal battery that is required for operation, separate from the ships battery? You mentioned when this internal battery dies the unit is toast. However the unit works-sometimes. I have noticed on the navigation status page when NO FIX is displayed, the unit is still receiving signals from 2 satellites. If the internal battery was bad and it was required for the receiver to work, then I would get no signal from any satellite and it would never work. It does work normally some times and when it doesn't it does show 2 satellites being received.

Does this help explain the situation a little better.

 

[sbw1]

Since we don't know for sure what kind of receiver you have, it may or may not be a battery failure in the antenna. Two satellites is not enough to give you a reliable fix. Three should do it and I usually have 7 or 8 being tracked. I have a 125 and just by chance lost the fix last week end. I have no idea why this happens but it does very occassionally occur. When I looked at the set up I had two satellites and no HDOP. I shut the power to the antenna off and turned it back on to reboot the receiver. Came right back with 8 satellites and worked perfectly. Aside from initializing the unit back in mid April, the 125 has worked perfectly all season until this littte hickup occurred last week.

Your display unit is not your satellite GPS. The GPS is in the little mushroom antenna and the receiver and computer that produces the fix is inside the antenna. The display simply shows you the results of the calculations. 120s had a small lithium battery inside the antenna. 125s are powered by a 12v line to the antenna. Mine and I believe most are on their own DC circuit so you can turn them on and off. I keep mine off when it's not being used so it reboots every time I use the boat.

 

[timjet]

Thanks everyone for their help. I'll call Raymarine tomorrow to get the scoop on this. Just guessing here but I don't think it's an internal battery problem because sometime it works. I'm still learning this boat, but to my knowledge there is no way to turn off power to the antenna/receiver to re-boot without shutting power completely down on the boat. There is no switch on the bridge that's labeled to indicate this. I'll poke around and find out next weekend.

One other question: The chartplotter has a C-Map chip for my area of about 2004 vintage. The depth contours are very hard to see and unlike some other GPS displays, does not display deeper water in a different color. My android cell phone with navionics on it is easier to read depth than this chartplotter. I'm hoping that an updated C-Map chip will show a better presentation. Am I right?

 

[Henry Boyd]

OK, I'm a little confused. The unit I have: Raymarine RL80CRC Plus, is connected electrically to the battery bus on the boat. I understand the main display unit has an internal battery that retains personalized settings that when goes bad requires the operator to reset those settings when restarting. Are you saying the Raystar 120 WAAS Satellite Differential Receiver which is the dome shaped antenna looking thing on my bridge also has an internal battery that is required for operation, separate from the ships battery? You mentioned when this internal battery dies the unit is toast. However the unit works-sometimes. I have noticed on the navigation status page when NO FIX is displayed, the unit is still receiving signals from 2 satellites. If the internal battery was bad and it was required for the receiver to work, then I would get no signal from any satellite and it would never work. It does work normally some times and when it doesn't it does show 2 satellites being received.

Does this help explain the situation a little better.

The display is an independent unit. The 'GPS' in its entirety is the the dome shaped thing. It also is an independent unit. It is both antenna and GPS processing device. So yes is the answer to your question.

The RL80 is a multifunction device that takes the GPS lat/lon data and and superimposes it on chart data from either the built in world map, or C-Map chip.

The 120 unit gets its power from the battery, unlike the 125 that requires a power feed. Yes, a total battery failure would result in no satellite reception. From my experience and research, it turns out that a weakened battery results in the reception of only the strongest sat signals, that may, or may not, be enough to establish a fix.

Henry

 

[timjet]

Thanks Henry, that does clear up a lot. I had a hard time understanding the dome unit was both a GPS receiver and antenna. Got it. There are several black box's behind the steering station and I just assumed that one of them was the actual GPS processor.
I'll call Raymarine this week and find out what they recommend. I noticed they no longer have info on the 120 on their web site.

In reference to my last post, do you know if the newer C-Map chips give the display unit a better presentation? Specifically I'm referring to the depth contours which are very hard to see on my 2004 vintage C-Map chip. Also the new GPS units display deeper water in a different color that makes it very easy to distinguish between shallow and deeper water. Do the newer C-Map chips do this?

 

[Henry Boyd]

Tim,

I honestly can't recall. I do know what you are talking about as I set up the new C80 to show multi-color depth readings. My sense is that this is a combination of data contained in the chip and functionality of the display. A new may only get you updated cartography.

When you talk to Ray, I seem to recall there was a deal on replacement 125s for 120s. The rationale was the cost of servicing the 120 exceeded the cost of the new unit. You might see if that is still around.

Henry

 

[sbw1]

Thanks everyone for their help. I'll call Raymarine tomorrow to get the scoop on this. Just guessing here but I don't think it's an internal battery problem because sometime it works. I'm still learning this boat, but to my knowledge there is no way to turn off power to the antenna/receiver to re-boot without shutting power completely down on the boat. There is no switch on the bridge that's labeled to indicate this. I'll poke around and find out next weekend.

Most electronics are installed after the original boat sale so it is unlikely that you will see a DC breaker on the bridge labeled GPS. More likely you will have 2 to 4 accessory breakers that are not used until there is a need for them after the boat is placed into service. I have a depth sounder and a GPS circuit connected to two accessory breakers. They are unlabled and located beneath the helm wheel. Most people would not know what they are for. You may have a similar situation. My last SR was set up this way as well, so it is not uncommon.

 

[Woody]

Here's the Owners Manual. It shows a power feed and also lists the lithium battery as memory backup. Have you check to see what you have for power? It may be sensitive to borderline voltage. http://raymarine.custhelp.com/cgi-b...p_tbl=9&p_id=775&p_created=1032806841&p_olh=0

 

[timjet]

I checked on the Raymarine site and they had a FAQ section that addressed this issue. Their fix was as was mentioned earlier in this post to remove power and re-establish. They also said I can replace with the 125 unit but did not indicate that was essential. The internal battery is good for 10 yrs, this unit is 12 yrs old, but there is nothing mentioned that the unit will fail to operate when the internal battery fails. I just assume the battery is to store the last position for easier sat acquisition on start up.

I don't think I have a power problem since I had engines running, new batteries and good voltage.

I'll try and call Ray tomorrow and get the final scoop on this, they're closed today-Labor day.

Thanks guys for sticking with me on this, I'll post what Ray says.

 

[timjet]

I called Raymarine today and got someone that was not real knowledgeable. However I determined that when the GPS antenna/receiver unit starts to fail you will get a NO FIX warning. It is intermittent for awhile until the unit fails and no further fix positioning will be available. The only fix he mentioned was to replace it with a Ray Star 125 or 125 Plus antenna/receiver as several of you have mentioned.

I forgot to ask about the issue of the possibility of the newer satellites being incompatible with the older Ray Star 120, but the tech never mentioned this as a possible problem. When I asked him about why the units fail or what in them fails he did not know. So it is my assumption that the 120 units last about 10 - 12 years and then start to fail. Why I don't know, they are after all solid state electronics and I mentioned that to the tech, but again he did not know.

I'm sorry I forgot to ask about the battery and if it had anything to do with the failure, but my guess is he would not have known. However since the 120 unit does have a electrical hook up to the ships power, my guess is the battery is simply to retain the last know position so acquisition of position when powered up is quicker.

Concerning my question about color shading and depth contours, I called Jeppsen and the tech felt that this issue was not a function of the charts, but rather a function of how the chart-plotter is set up. Under the chart setup function there is some adjustments that can be made that will change shading. I didn't see that in my manual, so I'll focus on that when I get to the boat this weekend.

Now I must make a decision. This is all old technology here, so I'm wondering if it makes sense to spend $300 on a new Ray Star 125 or save the money and get a newer plotter. My unit has the radar scanner hooked up to it and I would not want to loose or have to replace that function. Any ideas?

 

[Henry Boyd]

First off the Raystar 125 is compatible with any chartplotter that can receive a NMEA0183 input.

The Pathfinder radar is not compatible with any of the new Raymarine displays.

The RL80CRC is probably Raymarine's best ever display. I can tell you the quality of the C and E series displays does not even come close.

To move up to a radar GPS display is at a minimum a $ 3000.00 ticket (not including installation cost). My C80 with 18" dome with the Boat Show special discount was $ 2800 after sales tax, nav chip, stand for the dome and new mast light. Plus $ 300 for a 125 and there you are.

My suggestion is to spend the $ 300 now, finish the season and spend the winter thinking where you want to be with this boat next spring. Had I had the RL80, and not 70, I would have just bought a compatible dome.

Henry

 

[fc3]

Ray made a couple of GPS units. Some units had the receiver built into the display with a separate antenna. However, most had the entire GPS functionality built into the same unit as the antenna. A small PCB in the base of the unit with the antenna mounted above is the general configuration. Several different models were built. Each model was available with one of two interfaces, either NMEA 0183 or SeaTalk. I think Sea Ray mostly used the 0183 models. A tiny battery is built soldered to the PCB. The battery solely powers the system's memory when the power is removed from the GPS receiver. The memory maintains position, ephemeris, and other bits of data that help the GPS unit startup faster.

When the battery dies, it does not make the unit non-functional. It simply makes every power on a cold boot. During cold-boot the GPS must determine it's current position and download ephemeris data. That can require as much as a half-hour! You can short cut a cold-start by manually entering the approximate position of the GPS unit. That can cut the cold start time to just a minute or two.

The memory battery on my GPS failed a few years ago. It's not worth pulling another cable though the arch for a new receiver or finding and soldering a new battery to the PCB. I just enter my approximate lat-long when I power up the unit and that's that.

There is no such thing as a GPS that is not compatible with newer satellites. There was a problem with some of the earlier GPS receivers not accounting for "rollover" weeks. GPS counts weeks up to 1024 from 1980. At 1024 it starts over. Some early models had a fit at rollover. That should not be an issue any longer since the first rollover happened in 1999.

Best regards,
Frank

 

[timjet]

Frank,

What GPS antenna/receiver do you have?