Landis
Well-Known Member
I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced this and may have any insights in how to resolve it.
I work with a fleet of 4 C172s with Garmin GNS430Ws installed.
One plane that kept losing signal appears to have been rectified by moving the GPS antenna from the empennage to the top of the wing.
Another has reports that it loses satellite reception intermittently. This is very intermittent - on the order of once in several hundred hours.
The one I fly the most also loses reception and seems to go through phases. It may not lose reception at all for 2 or 300 hours and then over the course of the next 50 hours it will lose reception on an hourly basis or once up to 7 times in one flight.
When it happens all we see is the message about "loss of signal - use alternate means of navigation". If the pilot turns to the signal strength page we'll see the signals dead and immediately starting to re-aquire. There will usually be 3 or 4 satellites jumping up to good signal right away and the GPS will usually come back within 3 or 4 minutes.
Unfortunately the last two times this happened to me I was in or just out of IMC. Upon descending out of the clouds on a GPS approach about a month ago and getting the field in site, the GPS gave me the "loss of signal" message. Last week upon setting up for an instrument approach at night to minimums the GPS did the same thing. Luckily I was still VMC and could divert elsewhere.
I can't say for sure that every time we've lost signal has been in wet conditions, but I do know the last two times were.
Anyone had similar problems? Thanks for any insight.
I work with a fleet of 4 C172s with Garmin GNS430Ws installed.
One plane that kept losing signal appears to have been rectified by moving the GPS antenna from the empennage to the top of the wing.
Another has reports that it loses satellite reception intermittently. This is very intermittent - on the order of once in several hundred hours.
The one I fly the most also loses reception and seems to go through phases. It may not lose reception at all for 2 or 300 hours and then over the course of the next 50 hours it will lose reception on an hourly basis or once up to 7 times in one flight.
When it happens all we see is the message about "loss of signal - use alternate means of navigation". If the pilot turns to the signal strength page we'll see the signals dead and immediately starting to re-aquire. There will usually be 3 or 4 satellites jumping up to good signal right away and the GPS will usually come back within 3 or 4 minutes.
Unfortunately the last two times this happened to me I was in or just out of IMC. Upon descending out of the clouds on a GPS approach about a month ago and getting the field in site, the GPS gave me the "loss of signal" message. Last week upon setting up for an instrument approach at night to minimums the GPS did the same thing. Luckily I was still VMC and could divert elsewhere.
I can't say for sure that every time we've lost signal has been in wet conditions, but I do know the last two times were.
Anyone had similar problems? Thanks for any insight.
