Beware Garmin GPS 72

[tartansailor]

I'm with Joe on the redundancy regimen, in fact I'm old school.
Sextant-hack watch- charts, DR plot, lead line, pelorus, etc. ONLY then do I verify with my gps.

After Mr. Vigor's post, I broke out the old 72, and lo and behold it worked fine, except I lost all of my way points!!! and "Go To" does not work??

I got lazy and did my reductions on a HP 48SX.
Big Mistake. Am going back to logs.

Now I need an auto pilot.

Dick

[John Vigor]

Curt Hamblin of West Marine was good enough to contact Garmin about the Garmin GPS 72 problem of crashing when it contacts a WAAS-enabled satellite.

Here's what he e-mailed me:

"The WAAS broadcast was changed over a series of months. The packets are structured differently, which causes the GPS to crash if WAAS is turned on. All software updates will be available from garmin.com.

"WAAS actually has some disadvantages: slower response time, shorter battery life. Accuracy without WAAS is around 10', with WAAS is about 8'.

"eTrex line has been upgraded, along with higher end 76 models.

"72 and 76 have limited memory and therefore the solution is more challenging, but a fix should be on the Garmin website shortly.

"Best regards,

"Curt"

[Dean Abramson]

I share John's dismay about companies selling products that they know to be flawed. This makes me really cranky.

But interestingly, it seems that a lot of folks just accept it.

I use young photographers as freelance assistants on my photo shoots. We are constantly talking about digital hardware and software. I will be fuming because an item I just bought does not work right, and the young assistant will just shrug and say "hey, there is software you can buy to work around that." Or, "you can download firmware." Or "I know a good trick for getting around that problem." The fact that this all costs more time and aggravation and usually money does not seem to bother them, even though they all are making less money than I am. I really don't get it.

I am using software called Adobe Lightroom now for my digital workflow. Check out this forum:
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bc2cf0a/
Some of the threads have hundreds of posts, and there are almost 9000 threads to date. This is all about making sense of something which I and many others bought because it was the new workflow tool that was going to simplify our lives. Some of this is about learning, but a lot of it is about dealing (or not) with known defects.

My take is that the high tech industry has found that new features and gimmicks sell much better than reliability and user-friendliness. Young people are used to this, it seems. The attitude seems to be: "Why sweat it? You will be replacing it next year anyway."

I used the same film cameras for fifteen years or more. I am now on my fourth digi camera in four years. I know I sound like a hopeless old fart, but is it really too much to expect this stuff to do what it says in the manual?

Yeah, I know, it's me. I am having these troubles because I did not also buy X, Y, Z...

John V, I am with you!

Dean

[Sea Hunt]

Dean:

Your frustration is exactly why I got out of the underwater video business. I just could not get my old brain around all of the new (and frequently flawed) digital editing software and I did not have any young videographers to help with "issues".

Linear editing was time consuming and sometimes painful, but simple and straightforward - cut and splice, cut and splice, cut and splice. Digital editing was worse than tooth extraction, counter intuitive (at least to me), and plagued with constant issues requiring "work arounds". Finally, I devised my own work around - retirement.

Good luck with the digital world. I'll stick with charts, pencils, erasers and plotters for as long as I can.

For a company as big as Garmin (and with what I had thought was a good reputation) not to stand behind their product and put the customer first, especially when the customer is 100% blameless, is shameful behavior.

Someone should let Garmin know the reaction that their conduct is having on this board. I am confident all the other "boating" boards feel the same.

[bottomscraper]

Not to make excuses but just like the end users companies like Garmin must deal with changing specifications and just plain old bad specifications. Many products get rushed to market to meet some deadline be it boat shows or the NAB show for video editing hardware and software. In this case Garmin was shipping a product that worked fine for years. For whatever reason the Government decided to change the data delivered. It is impossible for Garmin to predict every possible change that might happen in the future.

Both Melissa and I have worked in the hardware/software world for years. It sounds like Garmin is doing the best they can with the problem but these things take time. I'm sure they would love to just press an "easy" button and make the problem go away but the reality is it takes time to develop new software and even more time to test and make sure they fixed the problem and didn't break something else.

A GPS receiver like the 72 is a very complex device. There are at least an 2 orders of magnitude more logic gates in it than the original IBM PCs! The original IBM PC had many more logic gates than the computers that were used to put a man on the moon.

The reality is that there are so many bits and pieces that it is almost mathematically impossible to test every possible condition that might show up.

When we had a problem with our chart plotter from Garmin that could not be fixed with software Garmin was very responsive and sent us a replacement very quickly. I was very happy with their customer support. In this case I'm not sure what they can realistically do considering the thousands of units they already have in the field that have been working fine for years.

I will be making sure that I update the software in my 3 Garmin GPS's! Oh and then there are the two we have for our cars....

[John Vigor]

Rich, I don't expect miracles from Garmin, but I do expect plain honesty. Why are they still selling GPS 72s when they know, and have known for months, that they are flawed and potentially dangerous? Why don't they stop sales? Why don't they recall the units that have gone out? It's the cynicism that gets me.

John Vigor

[Dean Abramson]

I was afraid that my good buddy Rich might beg to differ, as we have already had this discussion in person.

I was not so much much talking about Garmin as about the general frustration we non-techie consumers feel. However...

I did remove the AA batteries in my Garmin 48 during the off-season, as IT TOLD ME TO in the manual (it said the lithium battery would keep it current over the winter.) I lost over 125 hard-earned been-there-created-that waypoints. True, Garmin replaced the lithium battery, and were very pleasant about it. But they also told me to put fresh AAs in for the off-season! ( I have no way of knowing if the new lithium battery is any better, since I am vigilant about my AAs now.)

Once they realized the lithium battery was bad, I wish they had sent a notice out and saved folks a lot of trouble. But more so, I wish that they had properly tested the battery before they ever sold the GPS. This was no new wrinkle, this was just an item which was not ready for the market.

Having said that, I think certain individuals in the high tech industry are some of our greatest Americans. I know of a couple in Gorham, Maine who will share premium Belgian beer and pecan pie if you behave yourself.

Dean

[Joe CD MS 300]

Dean,

I mentioned this to John already but using the Garmin Mapsource software really makes the management of wayponts and routes much, much easier. I hope that if you get a new GPS you aren't going to manually enter all the old waypoints into the new GPS. If you have more than one GPS you can also easily get consistency between the waypoints and routes on each unit. If I lost the 500+ waypoints and 50 routes that I entered over the years (many in the early days taking the lat and lon off of charts) I might need to slit my wrists.

As far as Garmin, I'm with Rich on this. They might not be perfect but they are pretty good. The real cause of the problem wasn't their fault. They don't sell the units directly so at the time the problem developed there had to be tons of units all over the country. Recalling the units doesn't make sense to me. No need to be needlessly trucking units all over the country if you can just fix the issue by plugging it into the computer. They make the process of updating their software about as easy as possible. Safety? You get a warning each time you turn a GPS on. We all know that you should not solely rely on a GPS for navigation. We all have paper charts and should be keeping some type of DR position in addition to using the GPS. The problem is that they are actually so consistently good that we get lazy. I know I do (but I will have two GPS units up and running in a fog).

One thing that I don't like about Garmin is their system of unlock codes for maps and charts. They limit you to use on two units and the process could be a little easier. I'll bash them on that issue.

Joe

[mahalocd36]

I
I did remove the AA batteries in my Garmin 48 during the off-season, as IT TOLD ME TO in the manual (it said the lithium battery would keep it current over the winter.)

Dean...Dean...Dean...haven't we taught you anything??
Your first problem was you read the user manual!
LOL.

Anyways we are available for beers this weekend if you guys are available.

Melissa

[Dean Abramson]

I appreciate the suggestion, Joe.

It's a moot point now, sort of. That was quite a few years back, and I did actually go back to most of those places over time and make new waypoints. The rest I re-created from the coordinates. I was also using Loran at the time, and had most of those same approximate locations in the Loran; so it was not a wrist-slitting disaster, just a large pain in the butt.

Now we have a Raymarine chartplotter, and I find I do not care that much about saving waypoints. I just use temporary ones most of the time. The Garmin is my backup, and is always loaded with fresh batteries. Sometimes I will use it if we have not been motoring for a while, and I'm concerned about power draw from the chartplotter. The Garmin a great little unit.

I am a chart guy. Whichever unit I am using, I am still always checking the paper charts constantly. I like the regular government charts, and enjoy using them.

I agree that in the case in point, Garmin made the right move, but like John V says... Anyway, I don't have it in for Garmin in particular. My issues with that were child's play compared to my constant battles with digital photo technology. When I am sailing, time ain't money. But on the job, I am sick of battling to keep my tools happy, as opposed to them working for me.

I hope to see you out there. Come to the Snow Island float-in!

Dean

[Joe CD MS 300]

Dean,

As I live and work in the Philly area, with work contraints, I don't always get to pick and chosse exactly when I'll be up in Maine. Although for about two weeks starting just before the weekend of the float-in I'm keading up but will have some guest at the house till Sunday. I'm trying to get up to Boothbay Harbor a little earler in the week so I can catch some of the Windjammer Days activities, 6/24-6/25. I was thinking of maybe getting a mooring in the harbor for a day or two to hang out with the Windjammers. The night before the parade of Windjammers a lot of the Windjammers will often anchor in Linekin Bay close to where Quest is moored. If you are in the BBH area look for Quest.

Joe

[sgbernd]

The timing on this thread could not have been better. I have relied on my 72 for a couple of years with never any trouble. I glanced thru this thread the other day and thought to myself, "I'm glad I never had that happen to me". i last used it last month and it was fine.

Yesterday I was out sailing and the GPS crashed, with the vertical line. I couldn't even turn it off, and had to remove the battery. It has never done that before. 15 minutes or so later, it did it again. Then I remembered this thread, disabled the WAAS, and it worked. Thanks for sharing your findings.

-Steve Bernd

[John Vigor]

Glad to have been of help, Steve.

Incidentally, readers may be interested to know that Good Old Boat magazine, which has been advertising Garmin GPS 72 units for sale on its website, has now decided to post a warning, saying they do not recommend that anyone buys one until Garmin has the problem sorted out.

Plaudits to Good Old Boat for putting ethics before profits. It's an example Garmin would do well to follow. How they can continue to sell them with a clear conscience is beyond me.

Cheers,

John Vigor

[tartansailor]

Took my 72 out on a 24 mile cruise and it performed normally with WAAS Enabled. No problem. All Go-To and all other pages worked great. I guess that my mental cob webs in operating it resulted in confusion before my last post.

Now I plug the 72 into my computer and look for a way of transferring data to and from computer and 72.

Garmin states that they do NOT SUPPORT that program. That is a red flag.

So now I look up Garmin updates and downloads for the 72. The last update was in 2005. My 72 is at least 7 years old.

Now with the latest problem with newer units suggests either:

1) the software update is in error,
or
2) A recent cost cutting scheme backfired.

My dilema is: suppose I download the transfer program, and my unit goes kaput,
or I down load the update and then have a problem?

I do not know what to do.

BTW if anyone wishes to borrow my connector (72 to computer)
to correct their problem, it is available for the cost of shipping.

Dick

[Joe CD MS 300]

Dick,

What program were you trying to use? You should be using Garmin's MapSource program.

Joe