Topic: ALL SI Models - Unit loses GPS signal at slow speeds - Below .6 mph

[mfbab]

Model:	ALL SI Models
Suggested Upgrade:	Unit loses GPS signal at slow speeds - Below .6 mph
Explanation:	When I am in navigation mode, my tracking arrow goes away and is replaced by a circle (Donut) at speeds below approx. .5-.6 mph.  This makes it extremely difficult to hold the boat on underwater brushppiles, etc without the use of marker buoys (or a competitors GPS unit).  As I understand it, this problem could be fixed with modified algorithms through a firmware update.  It would be a good idea for HB to address this problem soon because it is costing them a great deal of money in lost sales and referral/repeat business from current customers like myself.   http://www.crappie.com/crappie/fishing-electronics-trolling-motors/
Added in Software Version:
Comments on Update:

[Bob B]

+1 On wishing Humminbird would fix this.

[mfbab]

This is the donut screen I'm referring to....

[rnvinc]

IF THE "DONUT" AFFECTS YOU....

If you are reading this , then more than likely, you have experienced the "HB Donut" or are curious about how this "HB Donut" might affect your use of your HB Combo product...

Let me explain what the "Donut" is....

The "Donut" is the round circular donut shape that the "boat shaped directional tracking icon" turns into on a chart view when the boat speed drops below 0.5mph...

You may have never seen the "Donut" if you never use your chart views for navigating at speeds of less than 0.5mph...

Paraphasing Greg_Humminbird's explaination (I apologize Greg).... "The powers that be at HB decided it was unneccessary to show and plot the 'boat directional tracking icon' at speeds of less than 0.5mph..."

We at "Project HB Donut"...dissagree with HB's train of thought....

We use our HB units for slow trolling and moving around from "waypoint marked brushpile" to Waypoint marked brushpile"... at speeds of .01mph to 0.4mph..this is very difficult, if not impossible to achieve when the HB unit will not indicate which way the boat is moving at those slow speeds...

http://www.crappie.com/crappie/fishing-electronics-trolling-motors/162145-project-hb-donut.htmling

Now, we know for a fact that the Lowrance and the Garmin units will, indeed, show this "boat directional tracking icon" at speeds down to 0.1mph...we have recorded fact of this and will soon have a side by side comparison video of the HB, Lowrance, and the Garmin prov this very soon...we will be posting this comparison video on every airwave we can find to show the proof...

"Project HB Donut" is basically a group of sonar GPS users (and potential sonar GPS buyers) that want HB to live up to the already implied industry standard of showing the "boat directional tracking icon" at speeds down to 0.1mph...(If Lowrance and Garmin can do it it without question...then  HB should be able to do the same)...

If you (as a HB owner or a potential sonar/chartplotter buyer) have imput that could further our quest to get HB to address the "Donut"...

Please vist our exploding threads ....

 http://www.crappie.com/crappie/fishing-electronics-trolling-motors/162145-project-hb-donut.html

http://www.bbcboards.net/zerothread?id=638890

Or even start your own crusade to say ...!!!

HB FIX THIS DONUT...!! AND GIVE ME A "BOAT DIRECTIONAL TRACKING ICON" DOWN TO SPEEDS OF 0.1MPH LIKE A $3000 UNIT SHOULD...!!

Rickie Culp (an almost satisfied HB owner)

[sonar2000]

Right on guys,.........
but if HB does not fix this they should ensure that when displaying the donut then they should be able to offer you a cup of coffee with the screen. 
Chuck

[Moose1am]

Garmin calls this the "Accuracy Circle".  You can read about it on page 10 of the Garmin eTrex Vista Personal Navigator Owner's Manual and Reference Guide.
 
Humminbird's dougnut is the same thing that the Garmin People are using to show the uncertaintly of the direction vector when you are not moving.
 
Remember that you have to have two points to form a line or vector. If your points are right on top of each other there is no way to draw the vector arrow.  You must have the points seperated by more than a couple of feet before you can draw a line between the two points. 
 
This is a non issue IMHO and something that can be easily overcome by simplying going faster than 0.5 mph or 0.73 ft/sec
 
If the accuracy circle is big and you are going slow there is no way that the directional arrrow (vector arrow) will be accurate.
 
The stated accuracy of the Garmin eTrex Vista GPS Unit is DGPS (USGC) Accuracy: 3-5 meters (10-16 ft), 95% typical with DGPS Corrections (1).
 
 With DGPS (WAAS) Accuracy: <3 meter (10 ft), 95% typical with DGPS corrections (2).
 

 

[mfbab]

Moose, the Vista is pretty much about as entry level as it gets, I wouldn't want to base any comparisons of my high end bird on that unit.  My 997 has a more powerful external antenna and much better tracking ability.  In fact, I actually misnamed this thread, the unit is not actually losing the GPS signal at slow speeds, it is just not programmed to track/predict directional movements at speeds below .5 mph. That is why the pointer turns into a donut at that time, the unit will still show your speed and coords as you drift aimlessly.   The highlighted part is a direct quote from a HB employee, this could be corrected with some programming and updated algorithms as I have stated many times.  Let's stop beating the old horse here, hopefully HB will get the message and take care of this for those of us who know they can do better.

Rob

[kosmo]

hay yall. i guess that it would be better for the diectional  arrow did not change to the donut ,but my garmin gpsmap76csx doesnt do very well at that low speed that yall are talking about.i think the reason that hummingbird uses the donut is for that reason.i dont no about lowrance. the gpsmap76csx is a high in unit with the electronic compus.if i dont keep a little movement with my boat tthen the garmin starts to move around to mutch to stay on a brush pile. i  have to get up a little speed an aproach a brush pile ,then when i get over it i  will drop a marker then just turn th garmin off.when i want to go to another one i turn it on and start moving at a steady speed.  i think the only differance in the garmin and my hummingbird is when im going at this very low speed ,the garmin just kindof jumps all over the place not really noing what to do while the hummingbird changes to a donut and waits for me to start moving a little faster.hummingbird will probably  change this in a future update,but i dont no if this will help because it will be lost just like my garmin until i move at  a higher speed

[Moose1am]

This is exactly what I have been saying.  Thank you Kosmo:
My Garmin eTrex Vista also has the built in electronic compass and an altimeter and it's screen flip flops at very low speeds just like yours does.  But that only occurs when I am using Track UP view on the map screen.  If I use North UP the screen won't entire map won't move but the direction arrow will flip around a lot at very low speeds.
 
Humminbird said you must be going between 1 and 2 mph to get a vector pointer instead of the donut.  But the donut is showing your current location within the limits of any GPS's accuracy. 


I like to know how Lowrance programs their GPS to determine which way to point the directional vector or arrow!  I'll bet that they are guessing and it may or may not be very accurate.  It sounds more like a marketing ploy that anything else to me but then again I know some people that use the Lowrance to slow troll and according to them they say it works.  So I am puzzled as to how they do it.

Perhaps they have more accurate ways of determining their position using GPS than Humminbird does.  I'll have to investigate and see what their specs are on the Lowrance units.  If they are the same specs at the Humminbird then I just wonder how they do it with the same limited accuracy.

hay yall. i guess that it would be better for the directional  arrow did not change to the donut ,but my Garmin gpsmap76csx doesn't do very well at that low speed that yall are talking about.i think the reason that hummingbird uses the donut is for that reason.i don't no about Lowrance. the gpsmap76csx is a high in unit with the electronic compass.if i don't keep a little movement with my boat then the Garmin starts to move around to much to stay on a brush pile. i  have to get up a little speed an approach a brush pile ,then when i get over it i  will drop a marker then just turn th Garmin off.when i want to go to another one i turn it on and start moving at a steady speed.  i think the only difference in the Garmin and my hummingbird is when I'm going at this very low speed ,the Garmin just kind of jumps all over the place not really knowing what to do while the hummingbird changes to a donut and waits for me to start moving a little faster.hummingbird will probably  change this in a future update,but i don't no if this will help because it will be lost just like my Garmin until i move at  a higher speed

[Moose1am]

Actually the Garmin eTrex Vista was top of the line when I bought it.  It's not an entry level GPS. 

You missed the point.

The point is that both the Garmin and the Humminbirds have a limitation on their accuracy.  I'll bet that if your were to read the specifications on the Lowrance GPS that they would be very simlar to my Garmin eTrex Vista or my Humminbird's 898C SI.

My velocity accuracy is 0.05 m/sec and the GPS accuracy is plus or minus 3 meter @95% confidence Level. Your specs will be no better.

The Garmin eTrex Vista also have an altimeter and can be used for Sky Diving.  People depend on it for their lives when jumping out of airplanes.  I would not call that an entry level unit. 

The Humminbird GPS is working within it's specifications.

Moose, the Vista is pretty much about as entry level as it gets, I wouldn't want to base any comparisons of my high end bird on that unit.  My 997 has a more powerful external antenna and much better tracking ability.  In fact, I actually misnamed this thread, the unit is not actually losing the GPS signal at slow speeds, it is just not programmed to track/predict directional movements at speeds below .5 mph. That is why the pointer turns into a donut at that time, the unit will still show your speed and coords as you drift aimlessly.   The highlighted part is a direct quote from a HB employee, this could be corrected with some programming and updated algorithms as I have stated many times.  Let's stop beating the old horse here, hopefully HB will get the message and take care of this for those of us who know they can do better.

Rob

[sonar2000]

Software code can be time consuming and lengthy at times to get fixed.

In our frustration with not being able to accelerate the fix time we need a place to beat the old horse. It does help the user to complain (beat the horse) as long as we dont get to the point of whinning..

One part of this forum is the way that guys get along and empathize with other folks who are not experiencing the same level of joy as those who have working units.

Robert maybe we should put a forum sub menu for beating and whinning.. ... ... ... 

For those who dont want to read posts just skip the thread. and move to the next topic..

Chuck

[Singleshot]

Be it my Garmin or Lowrance or my HB. There are accuracy limits based on the hardware for all.  Unless we all have mil spec equipment.  In short it sounds like everyone would rather have the icon just lock on the screen until a new valid position is calculated.  This should not be a difficult task.  I'm probably alone on this but I would perfer to have some indication of the quality of my position and the donut aka circle shows me this.

JK

[Bob B]

I keep up with several forums in order to learn as much as I can about my new HB.

These guys are beating this thing to death everywhere.  Apparently they think if they keep it up HB will eventually have to give this thing attention......I think it is having the opposite affect.

I personally think there are several things on the wish list more important than this and am really tired of all the whining.  If I was in charge of the prioritizing the wish list I would put it on the bottom of the list.

It is on the wish list......stop the whining.

[Moose1am]

You are right about that!  It's an accuracy issue and until they make a more accurate GPS unit for fishing we will continue to not know precisely where we are located.   When your accuracy is limited to plus or minus 10 ft 95% of the time you can't tell you moved only .73 ft/sec.  (going 0.5 mph)

I keep up with several forums in order to learn as much as I can about my new HB.

These guys are beating this thing to death everywhere.  Apparently they think if they keep it up HB will eventually have to give this thing attention......I think it is having the opposite affect.

I personally think there are several things on the wish list more important than this and am really tired of all the whining.  If I was in charge of the prioritizing the wish list I would put it on the bottom of the list.

It is on the wish list......stop the whining.

[reddog]

My experience with this is that the actual trail laid down while in the slow speed mode is exactly correct.  There is never a large "jump" in your trail when you speed up and get your directional arrow back. just movement of the map to coordinate with the direction headed.

Perhaps when it goes into the slow speed mode, the map  could be programmed to "lock" at that time also, so it doesnt spin around. I feel the spinning is more of the problem than the circle.



My .02 worth,

and yes, I am also tired of the whining about this

[Moose1am]

I know on my Garmin eTrex Vista gps I can set it up to lay down a bread crumb by time or distance and can change the value of either the time or the distance. 

Say for example I only want to lay down a bread crumb for the trail ever 10 ft or every 50 ft.  I can make it do it either way using the setup menu.  Or I can change it to lay down a bread crumb every second or every ten seconds

The defaults are "AUTO" on my Garmin

I am not sure but I wonder if you can do the same thing on the Humminbird 898C SI unit?  I can't remember if that's possible on the HB units.  So I won't say for sure if you can or can't do that until I look it up on my unit or in the manual.

My experience with this is that the actual trail laid down while in the slow speed mode is exactly correct.  There is never a large "jump" in your trail when you speed up and get your directional arrow back. just movement of the map to coordinate with the direction headed.

Perhaps when it goes into the slow speed mode, the map  could be programmed to "lock" at that time also, so it doesnt spin around. I feel the spinning is more of the problem than the circle.


Using my Garmin and standing in one spot  the bread crumb trail will not lay down a new bread crumb unless I move a certain fixed distance.  So the map view will show me stopped in that spot for the time that I stay there.
 
I can use the Garmin Computer Software Program and look at the bread crumb trails and click on each bread crumb or waypoint and it will tell me the GPS location and time it was laid down on the computer. 
 
Try taking your unit in a car and hook it up with the gps antenna and a power supply and set it up to leave a bread crumb trail.  I can trace the path of my truck when I go to the lake and back.  When I get home I can download that trail to my computer and see all the bread crumbs and locations on the computer screen using the Garmin MAPSOURCE computer program.


My .02 worth,

and yes, I am also tired of the whining about this

[Humminbird_Greg]

You can set the unit to drop a trackpoint by both distance and time (both conditions have to be met before the unit will drop another trackpoint).  Be sure your unit is in the Advanced User Mode and than look under the Nav menu tab for the Trackpoint Interval and Track Min Distance menus.