Garmin H2O won't Acquire - HELP!

[RiverChuckNorris]

My H2O is probably 8 years old and it suddenly will not acquire any satellites. I stood on my driveway and pinpointed my location with the cursor attempting to help the process but that was fruitless. I've left it on several times for an hour at a time hoping it would suddenly acquire to no avail.

Anyone had this happen? I'm guessing the software got so out of date that the sat location info became too erroneous?

Thanks in advance

[kfk]

If it were me, I'd call Garmin support. You'll get your best answer from them.

800-800-1020

[leech~~]

My H2O is probably 8 years old and it suddenly will not acquire any satellites. I stood on my driveway and pinpointed my location with the cursor attempting to help the process but that was fruitless. I've left it on several times for an hour at a time hoping it would suddenly acquire to no avail.

Anyone had this happen? I'm guessing the software got so out of date that the sat location info became too erroneous?

Thanks in advance

They all seem to do that after a few years. I have had 3 of them over time and two of them did it. There is one setting I know on mine that if I turned it off it helped. I can remember it. It may have been the Require NMEA setting if you turn it off it may help?

[MN Mike]

GARMIN H20 ???????

[leech~~]

GARMIN H20 ???????

I had seen that too Mike, but just didn't want to say anything!

[southender]

If this is a LOWRANCE H20, that is a very common problem. Lowrance does not fix them anymore. See if you can download the waypoints to a SD card and buy a new unit

[RiverChuckNorris]

If this is a LOWRANCE H20, that is a very common problem. Lowrance does not fix them anymore. See if you can download the waypoints to a SD card and buy a new unit

yep, Lowrance. Care to elaborate on "downloading to a SD card" please?

[WalleyeChaser]

He's talking about transferring the waypoints to an SD card. And then loading them onto a new unit. Your H20 is probably shot. Its common ailment with these units. They all of a sudden quit picking up signal. I don't know if anyone has tried an external antenna at all but it may be worth a try. I think most people have just upgraded to new units. Good luck!

[hcs]

If this is a LOWRANCE H20, that is a very common problem. Lowrance does not fix them anymore. See if you can download the waypoints to a SD card and buy a new unit

+1 Same thing happened to ours, Lowrance won't work on them. Get what info you can from it, and get a new one. Great units when they work, but they only last a few years.

[MN Mike]

yep, Lowrance. Care to elaborate on "downloading to a SD card" please?

Found these instructions on the H2O manual online, I did this also when I use to have Lowrance products, it's pretty easy.

One thing to remember, with the age of these units, a 1, 2 or 4 GB SD card will probably not work, I'm not 100% sure where the cut off was but if you have a 256 or 512 MB SD Card around, you should be fine.

Ignore the reference to the MMC card, it's the same as the SD card today.

Once you get the waypoints out of the handheld, you can easily transfer them into another device, you'll just want to convert them from either a .low or .usr file to a .gpx which is the standard most use today. That can be done with a few different free programs out there like EasyGPS, GPSTrackmaker and such, just install a program on your computer, get the data file in from the H2O and you can convert.

You shouldn't have to go any further than the part I highlighted in red.

Good luck!

Mike

[RiverChuckNorris]

Thanks MN Mike, guess I'll give this a shot. Now I gotta go buy a new unit I guess since then navionics smartphone app is only accurate some of the time