GPS not locating satellites

[Rocky Maxwell]

I have a Lowrance 5200C Chartplotter, 1 year old, that is not locating satellties and therfore cannot find my location. I have changed the antenae, but still it will not locate the satelites. I have installed the newest software from the Lowrance websitre, and reset everything to the factory setings. Any ideas on what to do?

[muskybob]

Is your antenna outside in the open? Are you giving it time to locate or just switching to screen mode too soon? Sometimes it takes as long as 2 minutes to locate all the satellites for good triangulation. If none of the above, send it back to the factory.

[Gray Fox]

This may sound stupid, but did you put power to the antenna. We have an X-15 and the antenna gets power directly from the head unit when you plug in the antenna cord. Last year we added and X-113C and had to add power to the GPS antenna. Just an idea as another guy in camp bought a new unit and had the same problem, but he didnt realize that you had to put power to the antenna with the new units.

[seasquirrel]

Give Lowrance a call, I am sure they will be willing to help. Oh, by the way, make sure you have at least an hour to wait on hold for a customer service rep. I have a Garmin that is doing the same thing. Good luck.

[Ray]

As Gray Fox stated, make sure you have power to the antenna.

I have an older lowrance product and I had to replace all the cables...not sure why, but Lowrance, did give them to me for free.

As Seasquirrel stated, call lowrance, they can help you troubleshoot.

Good Luck, Ray

[Misty IV]

There is a chance the software may be out of date and needs to be updated. I had a similar issue a few years back with my GPS unit. It worked fine the first season, but the second season at first power-up, it couldn't connect or find any satellites. Ended up the software was outdated. I had to send the unit in to have the software loaded, but they had it back to me in a week.

[skipper19]

does this GPS have WAAS? If so, find GPS settings and go to WAAS enable and turn it off. Then it probably will read satellites. Not sure if it has waas but that was a problem for my Lowrance once.

Mark

[Rocky Maxwell]

Thanks for all the ideas. The local sales rep gave me a new antenae. I hooked it up and it worked. I put the boat away and 5 days later when I took it out on the lake, the same problem re-ocurred.

Question, how do you power-up the antenae?

[Ray]

Are you getting a "GPS Not Responding" response on the unit? If it worked with the new antenna, then I am assuming you have power to the LGC-2000 (antenna). Click on the following link....it will help you troubleshoot your problem.

http://www.lowrance.com/en/Support/Prod ... esponding/

Good luck. Ray

[Rocky Maxwell]

Thanks for all the input, especially the link to lowrance on troubleshooting the NEMA2000 network I checked the volts and found no power to the antena, even though the unit had 12.5 volts coming into it. . I now have new cables and another new antenna and will be hooking up the new cables and antenna to see if the problem is the cables, T connector or the unit itself. Have been working with the local sales rep and he has been great.

[Rocky Maxwell]

The new antenna is working with both new cable and the existing cable. Will not prtmamently mount the antenna and the cable yet though.

Have found there is some type of electrical charge on the boat. The dealer thinks it is static electric, but it cause quite a shock, especially when I am puting on the cover on and off. The cover could be enhancing the charge and making it more apparent.The dealer could actually feel this charge on the gunwale today, and is trying to figure out the source. You could see the hair on the dealers arm moving when he held it near the gunril. And one of the mechanics said he could feel the charge by holding his hand near the side of the boat. At this point, they are thinking about installation an addiional ground, especially for the hard top and plan on calling Lowrance.

This electrical charge may be the reason why 2 antennas stopped working. It will be interesting to find out what has happened, especially since the boat is less than 1 year old.