Meade LX200GPS - GPS Lock On a Wedge Taking Far Too Long

[floyd_2 (Dean)]

Ever since I put my LX200GPS 10" on my wedge I've had a lot of trouble getting a GPS lock with it. From time to time I seem to fluke a lock, but for the most part it seems to go on forever without ever locking on to a decent signal at all.

In Alt/Az mode it's very fast to acquire a lock.

In polar mode, I put the forks in a position such that the GPS receiver is uppermost in an attempt to have the best chance of getting a signal lock to little avail. No doubt the addition of my new guidescope will only make matters worse.

I grabbed a garmin GPS and noted down all of my location data, then input that data via the handset as my default viewing location. I have assumed that I can manually input the date and time when I bypass the never ending GPS seek routine and it will have the same effect as if I had managed to get a lock.

Just wondering if any of the LX200GPS users on wedges have any advice that I could try.

Dean

[marki]

Dean my LX 200 did the same thing. I just went to the set GPS menu and turned it off and back on again. Now it works fine.

Mark

[floyd_2 (Dean)]

Thanks Mark. I decided to go out and set up under the clouds and try it once again. With the forks pointed East I got an almost immediate lock. So I turned the scope off, pointed the scope south as I usually do, and turned it on. It locked almost immediately again. Given all of the trouble I've had since I mounted up on the wedge, I'm thinking of going out and buying a lottery ticket tonight!

No doubt this was an aberration, and I'll follow your advice when it fails to lock next time round.

[citivolus (Ric)]

I recall extensive difficulties getting a GPS lock when wedge mounted, on multiple LX200GPS models. The antenna really needs a clear sky view, which it can't get on a wedge, even when rotated. I ended up going the route of manually entering the date/time/location info.