We stated our facts at bbc...and thankfully they were not deleted before we were able to break the ice...in the bass community..with the HB Donut....

We actually had some good comments from some empathetic bass fishermen......

That is always my main purpose...and the main focus of "Project HB Donut"...

State the facts....prove the "Donut" IS an issue with some people...and prove to HB they are losing customers because of the "Donut"...

We have done that everywhere we have stepped foot...especially here at CC...

Here is an interesting post from a very knowledgeable GPS guru over at the Unofficial HB website....
Unofficial Humminbird Side Image Forums www.sideimageforums.com :: View topic - "Project HB Donut"

posted by fsae99

The donut issue is to combat erratic direction arrow in chart views. The request is really to write algorithms that have the GPS puck sample the data more often and determine if the heading has really changed before changing the direction arrow displayed on the screen. So you would do something like sample the gps signal 100 times a second and if the average position still had you going in the same direction the arrow would remain pointed in the same direction.

This would be to combat what I call the the GPS drift, the real issue. If you look a plot of position of any GPS (most all commercially sold) left in 1 position for any length of time you will see plot points all over the place. You would not want to increase the freq at which the data is sent to the head unit you would end up right back where you started, erratic direction arrow.

Alternately HB could add 3 axis tilt compensated Electronic compass with 3 axis accelerometers and 3 axis rate gyros to the GPS puck. Then use electronic compass for heading arrow and accelerometers + rate gyros to stabilize position updates. AIrmar has one the GH2183 GPS & Heading I think it is $2500 USD for just the GPS puck. I think that is too much and should be able to be done for an additional $400 USD to the cost of existing HB GPS puck. I think now even if you did buy the Airmar gps puck the HB unit would still show the donut under .5 mph due to the SW change.

While it is better now than it used to be, there is room for improvement on this issue without going to the extreme of changing GPS design.

HB has done a lot for us, was a time when removing the water column from the display was never going to happen (done now). The donut, waypoint management, and user created maps (vector) are the 3 things left to make it as close to perfect as you can get for $1K, $2K, and 3K machines.

Thanks for reading.

Jim

He pretty well summed up what we have been saying all along....

The "Donut" is NOT a GPS issue...

It's a software issue...period...that can be addressed...

Rickie (an almost satisfied HB owner)