[time-nuts] FW: IIMorrow GPS units non-functional since Sunday

[Magnus Danielson]

> So I jump in my little bird yesterday for a 320 nm hop to a customer
> location, and find my GPS just can't get a fix on my position (Flybuddy 820,
> Apollo 360).  While a little irritated by this fact, it isn't a critical
> piece of a equipment so I flip the power switch off and navigate via VOR,
> which delivered me safely and efficiently there and back.
> 
> I head back out to the field today to see if I can troubleshoot the issue
> (armed with my manual), and find the thing can't keep track of the time.  I
> set the time and a little while later it thinks it's Jan 3, 2089 (right time
> of day however).   After my tinkering, I call the support line thinking I
> have a dead internal battery or something similar.
> 
> It turns out every one of these units stopped working sometime Sunday and
> they don't fully understand the cause or the fix as of yet.  Good news, I
> don't have a malfunctioning unit.  Bad news, it's a brick until something
> changes and I get to look at 2 INOP stickers.
> 
> They are working with the engineering group that provided the GPS engine for
> these units , and asked that I give them a few days and check back on the
> progress.   If you have one of these units, expect it isn't functional.  I
> will share any news I get.

This is not a that supprising thing really. Various bugs and limits in 
receivers creep up regularly. Commercial airlines have lost GPS tracking 
while in flight over the USA. The vendor has, to my knowledge, still not 
upgraded the software even if this was a few years back. In this case, 4 
extra 1024 week rollovers gets you in the neighborhood (+79 years). It 
is infact exactly 4194 weeks wrong. It occured after exactly 1494 weeks.
I think someone has a bug in the week roll-over mechanism.

Cheers,
Magnus