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I misplace my Minn Kota owners manual for my Terrova iPilot. Today at the lake it wouldn't lock on to a sattelite. So I had no Auto Pilot, Anchor funtion, or MPH readout. It was like this all day. I know that book is arount here somewhere; actually thought it was stored in the boat. Can anyone point me in the right direction on fixing this. :o
Have had it happen a couple of times myself. If you stow it and lock it down, the power to gps is killed. When u deploy, it powers back up and attempts a require on the satellites. I've noticed that if you have a sky obstruction to the west it seems to give mine some trouble occassionally
Wannabe...
Thanks for the reply WB. I was all over Sardis yesterday for over 9 hours and it never locked on to a satellite. I did find my owners manual; but it only mentions a sporadic problem like you said. I only had it a couple of weeks, but it's worked perfectly until yesterday. I guess I'm going to find a number for Minn Kota to call for help.
We've had problems locking in on Satellites with our $50,000 unit at work the last 2 days. Must have had some bad Solar flares the past few days.
I spoke with tech support at Minn Kota this morning. Their conclusion was there were no satellites available or a bad sumfin sumfin in the head. Asked me to try it again tomorrow. If it still doesn't work he will overnight me the sumfin sumfin that I can change out with 4 screws and a plug. Actually hope the sumfin is broke. I can deal alot better with a broken part than I can a $1300 trolling motor that can spend 9 hours on the water without finding a satellite.
Did you buy it new or used? If new, you have a 2 year warranty that takes care of anything except abuse. If you bought it used, you screwed.
I bought it new. But, I would rather fix it myself instead of shipping it off or taking it somewhere and leaving it. I deployed it on the trailer today and still no satellite lock. I'm going to order the parts in the morning.Quote:
Originally Posted by crappiholic
The sumpn sumpn might in fact be bad, but as I understand it....when you have an obstruction, or like DD said solar flares or the like, the unit will only search for so long and will not then try to re-acquire until it's powered off and then back on. Like you, on one trip, I plopped it down and it never locked, but I did not attempt to stow and redeploy...fished the whole day and it never did. The next trip out it locked flawlessly. A couple months later, I was fishing a bluff bank blocking the West and South and it failed to lock. Fished out away from the bluff, stowed and redeployed and it reacquired and never lost it even when I went back in close on the bluff. I think total now, with about a year of ownership, it's failed to lock on me about 3 or 4 times, but only that first time did it happen for the whole day.
Dunno.....maybe I'm all wrong on the time out of the acquisition routine / stow / redploy thing, but it does stand to reason.
If you attempted on the trailer....were you under cover like a carport? Need full sky usually, else it'll give you fits. Neither my 12 satelitte or 16 satelite receiver GPSs will acquire under my boat shed and I don't thing the Terrova can lock near that many.
Wannabe...
Our surveying unit was MUCH better today so go figure
That ant good no satellite.
WB you are right about it being under a leanto when I deployed it today. The bow of the boat sticks out of the east end of the cover, but the view of the western sky is blocked by the cover. I didn't think of that. It was stowed and deployed several times yesterday; with the result being the same.
I'm going to Sardis in the morning. I'm going to hold off on ordering the part until I see what happens.
Hope it works out for ya and let us know the outcome....sounds like an easy fix since MK is willing to work with you on it even if it turns out to be a bad thingy.
Wannabe...