Drive without a GPS? Is such a thing possible?!?

June 30, 2009 11:04 PM

My TomTom One 3rd Edition stopped getting a GPS Signal Yesterday! Please hope me!

So I was driving home yesterday when I reliased it stopped getting a signal. No big deal I thought, and kept driving. But I left it on in the car on my normal route where it gets signal, and no luck. Same on the way home. I think its dead.

I tried a cold boot of the device, and also connecting it to the web to get the "quick GPS update" fix things, but no loving. Any other tips?

Assuming its dead, and assuming (correctly) that I don't have the reciepts or remember exactly WHEN I bought it, what should I buy? I'm in Sydney, Australia, use it for car travel and the only thing that annoyed me about the device was that if it couldn't get a GPS signal it was difficult to use, and you couldn't look ahead for turns coming up easily that I could see.

Thanks!

posted by Admira to technology (5 comments total)

Same thing happened to mine. After a few days, it magically started working again. No idea what the deal was.
posted by The World Famous at 11:20 PM on June 30

It may not be dead. There's little reason for it to suddenly just stop working, short of the antenna breaking off or something.

Since GPS is only specified to work in US military operational areas (including the US), it's my understanding that the rest of the world is served only accidentally. It may be that the satellites are out of position for you to pull in a fix. Is the unit failing to find any satellites, or is it just failing to find your position?

If it's no birds at all, then your unit may be dead. But, if you're getting only one or two, then maybe the US army is denying service to the Afghani Taliban, and you're being hit with the navigational fallout.
posted by Netzapper at 12:54 AM on July 1

Mine did that a while ago too.

I let it charge overnight and it seemed to come back to life.

And incidentally, Netzapper, I'm in New Zealand (Auckland) to be exact and we have full coverage. I have three types of GPS and my handheld unit usually finds 6 or 7 decent fixes.
posted by chairish at 1:42 AM on July 1

Well this started 3 days ago, I was driving home this afternoon and 30 minutes into the journey it came to life. So, its magic, innit?

I have no idea whether it was getting satellites or not before, never thought to check.

Anyway its back to working. I'm humbled by the extent to which I outsource my sense of direction to that little device.
posted by Admira at 3:47 AM on July 1

I have a 4th generation, and when the power is low, it has lots of trouble finding its location. When fully charged it usually all goes fine. And sometimes it really helps to completely power it down and boot up again.
posted by IAr at 9:16 AM on July 1