<div dir="auto"><div>Speaking on the Rand Macnally serial GPS - I have one in my Jeep that is at least 20 years old. I pulled power off the battery so it never turns off and it's still working as of today. I'm just viewing the packet monitor of my D700 and it seems to be working as well as it has been. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">73..</div><div dir="auto">Chris N4BSA</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote" dir="auto"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Apr 24, 2019, 13:33 Greg D <<a href="mailto:ko6th.greg@gmail.com">ko6th.greg@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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My Garmin eTrex Vista also works fine, as do the various GPS units
in my 2010-vintage car. But the old Garmin GPS-III is back in
August 1999. It also lost all the waypoints that I had on it when
last used a decade or so ago. I have a backup somewhere around
here... That it still powered up and (eventually) got a satellite
lock was the big surprise.<br>
<br>
I should note, however, that the "DIED" pronouncement may be a bit
Mark Twainian, as I believe the older units will still give accurate
time (not date) and location information. It should continue to
function if you're using one within that limitation, and a sanity
patch for the date shouldn't be too hard to do. The GPS-III, for
example, has a classic (RS-232) serial interface.<br>
<br>
Matthew, I only tried firing up the GPS-III once since the epoch
rollover. It did take a long time to get a lock, but that was
inside the house (it never was good at that), and was doing a cold
boot with no clue as to where anything was in the sky. Did your
TomTom continue to have a hard time getting a lock, after the first
time? How long does it take? That might be the fatal aspect to
continued use of the older units.<br>
<br>
Greg KO6TH<br>
<br>
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<div class="m_4576542708792772994moz-cite-prefix">Matthew Chambers via aprssig wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">Here, my (really old) Tom Tom still kinda works but
takes an eternity to get a lock, and has a lot of slop now it's
location, in that it appears that I'm wondering all over even
while sitting still, and it won't keep time, I've had to correct
the time on it now the last couple times I've used it. <br>
<br>
My Byonics GPS2 puck that came with my TinyTrak 4 appears to be
working, in that the TT4 is showing good GPS and it's beaconing,
but due to lack of coverage, I have yet to get digipeated and
relayed into APRS-IS so I can see what it's actually doing.
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<div style="font-size:small" align="left"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Matthew A.
Chambers, NR0Q</span><br>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 11:52
AM Stephen H. Smith via aprssig <<a href="mailto:aprssig@lists.tapr.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">aprssig@lists.tapr.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
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<p><font face="Arial"><font face="Arial">GPS expresses the
current time and date with a?? series of binary
counters.?? This included a 10-bit binary counter for
the current week, meaning that it could only count
1024 (decimal) weeks (just under 20 years) before
rolling over from 1111111111 to 0000000000, and
starting over.?? This 1024-week cycle is known as an
"epoch".?? The previous epoch ended on April 6th of
this year.?? As of April 6th, a 16-bit counter for
weeks replaced the 10-bit one.?? This change will put
off the NEXT epoch rollover for 65,535 weeks - about
1200 years. </font><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Some older GPS hardware (actually
firmware) couldn't handle either the rollover from 1023
back to 0000, or couldn't handle the new longer 16-bit
counter format.?? Such devices quit working on April 6th
of this year.?? <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Now that the GPS equivalent of "Y2K"
(April 6th) has come and gone, here are my findings
testing a bunch of older GPS hardware.</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">-???? Radio Shack "DigiTraveller" (a
faceless serial puck-type device that looked like a
flying saucer) -?? DIED</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">-???? Holux GM-200?? USB-connected
faceless mouse-type device - DIED</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">-???? Rand McNally serial mouse-type
device - DIED</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">-???? 2nd-gen Delorme Earthmate small
yellow unit with interchangeable serial and USB cables
(not the original large Earthmate) - DIED<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">The Holux and Rand-McNally are visible
in this pic on my website:<br>
???????? <a class="m_4576542708792772994gmail-m_-2923466086708995160moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://WA8LMF.net/aprs/GPS-Antenna-Farm.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer"><http://WA8LMF.net/aprs/GPS-Antenna-Farm.htm></a></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">-???? Tri-M "Super Skymaster"?? white
hard-mount combo antenna/receiver (shown in the inset
photo of the above pic) survived and WORKS.?? This is
especially amazing, given that it was the oldest of all
these units.</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">- ?? Globalsat BC-337 compact
flash/PCMCIA unit - DIED?? <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">-???? Garmin Foretrex 201
wrist-wearable that is actually a repackaged version of
the classic yellow Etrex - WORKS</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">-???? Globalsat BU-353 (USB) and
BU-355 (serial) mini-pucks available for USD $30 on
Amazon - WORK</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">-???? Various unbranded generic units
based on uBLox G7 chipset - WORK <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">-???? Internal GPS of Kenwood TH-D72
APRS handheld - WORKS</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">__________________________________________________________________________________</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">\Stephen H. Smith?????? wa8lmf (at) <a href="http://aol.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">aol.com</a> </font><br>
</p>
<font face="Arial">Skype:?????????????? WA8LMF<br>
EchoLink: ?? Node #?? 14400?? [Think bottom of the 2-meter
band]<br>
Home Page:?????????????????? <a class="m_4576542708792772994gmail-m_-2923466086708995160moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wa8lmf.net" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">http://wa8lmf.net</a><br>
<br>
Live Off-The-Air APRS Activity Maps<br>
???? <a class="m_4576542708792772994gmail-m_-2923466086708995160moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://wa8lmf.net/map" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer"><http://wa8lmf.net/map></a><br>
<br>
Long-Range APRS on 30 Meters HF <br>
???? <a class="m_4576542708792772994gmail-m_-2923466086708995160moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://wa8lmf.net/aprs/HF_APRS_Notes.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer"><http://wa8lmf.net/aprs/HF_APRS_Notes.htm></a><br>
<br>
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