iFly GPS Forum

Yesterday I flew from Reading, PA to Clinton, IA for the annual Cessna 150-152 Club International Fly-In, using my iFly 700 and a borrowed Garmin 396 using a dual plug splitter.

My iFly lost satelite signal, shut itself down, and rebooted very frequently. I pulled the splitter and used just the iFly in the cigar plug and it worked better, but still shut down at annoyingly frequent intervals.

Point of information: I recently had obsolete (& heavy) avionics removed to make room for the iFly and had a custom panel mount built. The iFly is supported on an aluminum rail with the back velcroed to a aluminum crossplate right in the panel.

I don't want to suggest an answer but could it be a cooling problem for the unit? I had the Garmin (with WM weather) suction cup mounted to the bottom-left windshield. So cooling was not an issue there.

Don't get me wrong, I love the iFly, but on a long cross county in the mid-West in late July, I don't need the added distraction of equipment problems!

Robert Cressman

I experienced two losses of GPS signal flying from Livermore CA to Gillespie KSEE today. The first was over Bakersfield at 9500' and lasted fifteen minutes. I rebooted twice to see if that would solve the problem with negative results. I again lost the GPS signal going through Bravo airspace @3000' just north of Gillespie. It never came back before I landed. My backup Garmin 196 never lost the signal. I thought maybe the testing in Nevada was the cause but????? The unit worked flawlessly during my flights earlier from San Diego up to Idaho and the return trip to Boise and Livermore. The IFly is mounted on the yoke in a C210 so it sees plenty of sky. It may be that I need to get a remote antenna but that seems unlikely due to the sensitive antenna built into the GPS. Any thoughts?

Electrical power problems aside, this has to do with GPS signal loss. As an FYI, I have an older #2 nav/com which emits so much RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) on certain discreet COM frequencies that it blocks the GPS receiver frequencies and NONE of my GPS's will lock and navigate while that COM is tuned to certain frequencies. The COM unit does not have to be transmitting - it blocks the GPS whenever it is tuned to an interfering frequency. I simply cannot use that particular COM on those specific frequencies without blocking the GPS receiver because that COM radio is not shielded adequately. I share this because at first I thought the problem was in the GPS, however, it is not in the GPS, it is caused by a poorly shielded COM radio. So someone with a poorly shielded radio could be flying along just fine, navigating with their GPS, then tune a radio to another frequency that hammers the GPS signals, loose GPS nav lock, and think it is the GPS's problem. By the way, it is affected by the proximity of the GPS to that COM unit, so one GPS located at some distance from the radio will still operate fine, but the other GPS is affected because it is mounted right above the emitting unit. Just thought I would pass this on, FWIW.

Ralph Gutowski, PA-22, A&P