Garmin GPS 55 AVD

[mikehallam]

My ancient though large character readable & trustworthy Garmin 55 AVD required a replacement 2 volt button transient memory store cell.

All done 'to the book' but on firing up again& for hours since, all I get is 'Searching sky' : it's permanently 'lost in space'.

Setting the time seems to function, but it won't accept the year, day, month entries; yet at the change from 1999 to 2000 it gave no trouble. Not sure it that matters.

Is there anyone with an answer please. it's such a nice piece of kit & fit for it's purpose.
I'd find hard to replace with anything more modern that has the simple 'Go-To' button and easy to read display.
Or perhaps some old pilot has one hidden away, just the module - I have power supply, bracket and aerial etc.

mike hallam (Sussex).

[Ian Melville]

I would leave it with a good view of the sky, searching for satellites. With older GPS it can take a very long time to update the almanac.

[mikehallam]

Thanks Ian,

Yesterday I coupled the 55AVD to a 12 volt battery out & placed it in the open, but after a couple of hours 'zilch'.

Then I tried randomly switching off then on with one of the other keys pressed too in the vain hopes of forcing a re-boot. Whatever I did (or did not) after another couple of hours I went back to collect the supposed pile of junk to be amazed that it had finally found itself - Hurrah.

A quick 'Go To' check for EGKK brought up approx. its correct range/heading and a happy mike packed up everything ready for live use during this evening's hmfc FI to Goodwood.

mike.

[Ian Melville]

Great, I have seen the same issue with other old GPS models, so so suspected time would heal it.

Connecting an external battery across the terminals while the fitted battery is removed prevents the loss of the almanac data. Bit fiddly though. The Same trick is used on cars to avoid resetting the cars data and radio data while changing the battery.