NixiChron Slow to Acquire Satellites

[nixiefanvinh]

Hi!

After a very long hiatus of being off, I powered up the NixiChron. The GPS module, a Haicom HI-203E, blinks at a very slow rate, which means no solid satellite acquisition. Normally, at some point, it would start blinking faster, indicating a solid acquisition. Due to this, the NixiChron boots up normally, but the count up continues, seemingly, forever. The count up exceeded one hour and the counter reset to 00:00.

Is there a lifespan with the GPS module? If so, where can another one be acquired? A quick search turns up manuals, not where to buy another one, at the very least, to debug with.

Thanks!

[nixiefanvinh]

Well, as soon as I emailed out, the GPS started blinking fast and the NixiCron is back in business...

[John Rehwinkel]

Well, as soon as I emailed out, the GPS started blinking fast and the NixiCron is back in business...

GPS receivers have a concept of an "ephemeris", which is basically the orbits of the GPS satellites in view and information about them.  It uses this for a "warm start", so once it gets the signal from a single satellite, it can use that to get the current time, and then use that with the ephemeris to figure out where to look for other satellites.  However, if it's been off for a while, the ephemeris will be out of date, so it has to do a "cold start" and work out everything from first principles.  This takes a varying amount of time, depending on algorithms, antenna type, positioning, and sensitivity, the current arrangement of the satellites, and (of course) signal strength.  While yours is one of the longer ones, it's not unheard-of.

- John