My Icom won't work...

[hippie]

My Icom, 360ML chartplotter has gone on the blink. It has worked fine all year but when I plugged it in, it fails to acquire the satelites. Everything else works fine except for that. I checked the connection (antanea to the back of the unit) and it appears fine. About every 3 or 4 minutes it displays "sky searching" which means it is trying to get a satelite fix. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thank you, Bob

[Tom Powers]

Does it have a built in antenna and an external antenna? If so you may want to figure out a way to power it up out in the open in order to see if it acquires the signals or not. If if does then it is your antenna, the cables or connectors. Maybe someone on the board has the same unit and you can plug yours into their setup to see if it is the unit or the antenna.

Tom

[hippie]

Tom, thanks for the reply. It has an external antenna. Last winter I had it in my garage without the antenna and it would aquire satellites without any problem. I tried it outside yesterday hooked to a battery and all worked good except for the satellites and getting a fix on them. But what gets me is it was working fine and I put it in the cabin for a couple days then get it out and it does not work. We all know about these head-ache causing gremlins but after 3 days is not right!. Thanks again, Bob

[Tom Powers]

Oh how long did you let it try to acquire the satellites? I know that once in a while my garmin will get really lost and it will take like 15 to 20 minutes to find them.

[hippie]

It normanaly acquires the satellites in less than a minute from being turned on. I'll hook it up today and let it sit there trying to get a fix. Thanks again for the advice everyone, Bob

[hippie]

Update- I was at the boat today and the GPS worked fine. Ipowered it up and in 1 minute it had a fix. I shut it off and repowered it and this time it took 15-20 minutes to acquire a fix. I ran into the bay for 4-5 miles and it had acquired 10 satellites and was accuracy within 3 ft. Good enough for me!!! Thanks to all who responded, Bob

[Tom Powers]

Does it stay plugged in all the time?

I wonder and this is grasping at straws about the symptoms of the internal backup battery going bad. Most of these devices have a battery the size of three quarters stacked on top of each other that is used to keep the Non volatile memory up and running when the primary power is cycled off. This is a question that you would have to send back to the manufacturer.

On my unit it is easy. It forgets all of the way points when the backup battery goes bad and you remove the 4-AA batteries.

[hippie]

Yea, mine is set up from the factory to loose waypoints when the internal battery goes bad. I have all my waypoints. Thanks, Bob