Gps and data intermittent

[Ben Hansen]

Has anyone else having trouble with the gps signal and data just dissapearing for undetermined amounts of time? I have a Stratux as well as an installed older Gps unit in the plane. The signal coming to my foreflight and avare will both go out at the same time then re aquire the signal at some undetermined time. I get several messages from foreflight when this is happening, sometimes re booting the wifi on the tablet helps. 

Messages are "intermitent traffic" " no towers" 

The GPS mounted in the plane never looses signal?

Thanks,

Ben

[John W SBA]

> Has anyone else having trouble with the gps signal

I used to, when using the FlightBox ("StratuX") bought some years ago.
I couldn't upgrade it to the latest version of the StratuX (capital X
added by me to differentiate from the proprietary StratuS unit)
software. Flightbox occasional loss of GPS and inability to update
software led me to buy the parts for a less expensive Crew Dog unit. So
far no more GPS loss, and it seems to use less power and work better in
general (faster startup, signal acquisition, etc.).

My impression is that the electronics parts have improved over time,
while prices have gone down some. Added to the software updates, maybe
some of this relates to the problem you reported?

As I understand it, there are many differences between an inexpensive
StratuX and your panel GPS. A dedicated external GPS antenna with
expensive top quality wire feeds the weak satellite signal to an
expensive top quality GPS receiver and signal processing unit. It
probably also has expensive ways of addressing signal interference
(google the cheapo GPS jamming transmitters in use). StratuX also uses
SDR (Software Defined Radio) technology to receive the two channels of
ADSB data. The USB SDRs in a StratuX are typically the ones designed for
receiving European HDTV signals, but the StratuX software shifts their
frequency ranges to receive the direct individual position transmissions
we get mostly from airliners, and the "UAT" transmissions from FAA
ground stations that send us all position data along with the many extra
U.S. goodies like weather, TFRs, etc. To me it's frankly amazing that my
StratuX units perform so well, and how much the Crew Dog has improved on
my first unit while selling for considerably less.

Bottom line is you might consider buying or borrowing a new StratuX to
see if that helps. If you're comfortable to use a screwdriver,
assembling it yourself can bring extra benefits in better understanding
how it works.

[Jeffrey Ross]

John is correct that the GPS module is suspect.

I responded to another thread back in August about the same issue and
included an image of the internal GPS -

https://groups.google.com/g/apps4av-forum/c/xfkguHfc16k/m/wYW4qmYkAwAJ

The simple answer is to replace the internal GPS with an external unit,
the VK-162 works well, just remember to remove the magnet from the
bottom of the antenna lest you have interference with your compass!

Jeff