GPS normal?

[MiniForklift]

FWIW I had a marathon this morning, it was in a park that was completely unobstructed from anything and not a cloud in the sky. GPS was awful from the start, although I admit this is unusual as I’ve personally never had any issues with my S9B. Before the race I plugged my watch into my laptop and did a sync, optimised GPS etc

After the first few laps I honestly gave up looking at it; I was running a steady pace however the average pace on the watch was continuously fluctuating between 4.30 /km - 6.00/km. I basically ran the marathon by feel which was not ideal, and it ended up recording 42.65km on what was apparently a very strictly measured course

[TheGuyFromTheSummit]

@dmytro the activity got tracked
But during the race I had no height profile, my POI (aid station) were no working and the overall navigation was totally off…
But after saving the track, it looks normal…

I opened the sports mode 10min before pressing start to get a perfect GPS signal etc…

[TheGuyFromTheSummit]

@miniforklift sounds exactly like my problem.
(But GPS is often not working in my case)

[DMytro]

@theguyfromthesummit ok, this I experienced too, but it he harshest conditions. Was actually happy to have a semi good track for post workout analysis.

[sartoric]

@miniforklift
Out of curiosity, any pond near the track?

[MiniForklift]

@sartoric said in GPS normal?:

@miniforklift
Out of curiosity, any pond near the track?

Yes, I ran by a pond for a couple of hundred metres for each 2.5km loop. Intriguing, so what’s the relevance with the pond?

[DMytro]

@miniforklift Scattering of GPS signal on water surface.

[MiniForklift]

@dmytro said in GPS normal?:

@miniforklift Scattering of GPS signal on water surface.

Yes, but running by the pond would have only been for 200-300m of a 2.5km loop. It was pretty bad and generally all over the place for the whole loop as opposed to just that section

[sartoric]

@MiniForklift
Did you wait some minutes before starting the activity to let the watch have a good fix?

[MiniForklift]

@sartoric said in GPS normal?:

@MiniForklift
Did you wait some minutes before starting the activity to let the watch have a good fix?

Race started 8am, I acquired a GPS fix about 10 minutes prior to that

[MiniForklift]

@dmytro said in GPS normal?:

@miniforklift Scattering of GPS signal on water surface.

Here’s a quick screenshot of one of the sections that is furthest away from the lake. FWIW I hugged the same line for each loop with, but you can see from the recording it’s fairly erratic

It even has me out in the middle of a busy road which I was nowhere near at any point during the race

[TheGuyFromTheSummit]

Just to update this thread.

I sent my watch to Suunto support (GPS, and the buttons got stuck) and they replaced - besides other things - the GPS unit.

Good news first: the watch finds a GPS signal much quicker now

Bad news: the GPS track still looks really nervous and looses signal as often as before.

So I have no clue what causes this problems.

I just have to figure out, if this affects my navigation with preset routes etc.

[Egika]

@theguyfromthesummit I think I suggested this before: have you tried GPS only?
Could there be anything blocking the watch’s view to the sky? Is possibly the antenna obstructed in any way?
Can you try another watch maybe from a friend to check if the issue is an issue of your use case or your watch?

[TheGuyFromTheSummit]

@egika said in GPS normal?:

tch maybe from a friend to check if the issue is an issue of your use case or yo

I tried every GPS setting, and the best was GPS+ Galileo

I tried different locations and sports types

So far I tested:
Garmin FR945 and my phone. Both performed better.
A friend also uses a 9baro and for him it takes 2-5min to get a GPS signal and the track is comparable with mine.

[isazi]

@theguyfromthesummit said in GPS normal?:

I tried every GPS setting, and the best was GPS+ Galileo

With the current firmware I would avoid using Galileo. Should be fixed in next firmware.

[TheGuyFromTheSummit]

@isazi thanks! will switch to something else for now

[Egika]

@theguyfromthesummit still this is very strange.
GPS fix with up to date AGPS data and clear view of the sky should not take more than a couple of seconds…
Even more strange is, that your friend’s watch also takes a long time to get a fix…
But the more interesting question is how his tracks compare to yours an the same route.

Cheers!

[DMytro]

@isazi since when Galileo has issues? I’ve been using it for more than a year now with seemingly mo problems.

[isazi]

@dmytro since 2.18 firmware. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not, but I stopped using because of this. It is an acknowledged bug and should be solved with next update.

[DMytro]

@isazi ok, got you, thanks for the update!