Garmin 430W GPS antenna problem.

[cliffy]

Anechoic chambers, WOW, haven't been in one of those since the Viet Nam days when I worked for an ECM company. We had one about 50X50X60 feet. 

All "dark" projects then. 

Going back to VOR or ADF can be as much a struggle as needle-ball-airspeed is when one only uses TV screens. Going from steam gauges and levers in a 727 to the first glass of a 757 was a giant step for many airline guys back when. 

 

Did Garmin give any s/n info on what antennas are being replaced? I have one on a Twinkie that I will need to check now. 

[Mooneymite]

 

 

Did Garmin give any s/n info on what antennas are being replaced? I have one on a Twinkie that I will need to check now. 

 

Even though the Garmin rep I spoke to seemed to be well informed about the failure mode, he acted like it was some mysterious secret.  It seems to be something that "just happens" in certain antennas regardless of age.  (That's scary!)

 

Is Garmin worried about an AD?

 

I later called the antenna manufacturer to get some info.  The rep there was obviously uncomfortable throwing Garmin under the bus since sales of Garmin products are good for his antenna company, but he said no one really understands what's going on and that Garmin is telling everyone it's an antenna problem, but there are "other factors" involved.

 

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the new antenna I have to buy.

[Alan Fox]

Dont know why but the Kings and Narcos are just better com radios than the Garmins , Every plane I have ever had with both , when I am on the fringes , the king gets picked up 5 to 10 miles earlier than the Garmins....  The Garmins probably have better MTBF times than the older radios , but I personally have never had a Radio fail on me..... 

[MB65E]

The New GTN I think Garmin pulled one over on the Feds. They "meet" the TSO and were approved under similar TSO's as the GNS series. Paperwork during the approval process mirrored the GNS. However, once the system was installed with the 14 other items you can enable to the GTN the system started showing minor issues. One example in an helicopter, The GTN systems had never been approved in this before. The testing was never done on the actual aircraft let alone integrated with SAS, HTAWS, radar, GDL88s, ADSB, Garmin 800 traffic, XM, and many other units. I have 2 Helicopter examples where the AML was finished by Garmin with No flight testing provided. I have over 60hrs of burning JetA to try and sell the systems to the FAA. First of the year, the Feds finally saw enough data to issue the full STC. Long winded story, but Garmin and the FAA need to work better together. I just think Garmins sales team and their Tech team need to at least be on the same chapter, let alone PAGE! The G500/600 was another example where the sales team said oh ya it will work with autopilots... "Oh that autopilot... Ya it won't work with that one"...

Love their products when they work, even have a 530w in the mooney!

-Matt

[M016576]

Yesterday, about 3 minutes after takeoff, my 430W completely lost lock.  The satellite acquisition page popped up and showed no satellites.  No amount of cycling on/off would get it to work.  I got out my trusty hand-held GPS and....it took a long time to lock on and periodically lost satellites!  I told ATC and continued home in clear skies.

 

Today, I called Garmin and was told that the early version of the WAAS up-grade antenna was "probably the problem".  Apparently Garmin knows all about this.  According to Garmin, in certain failure modes it blocks GPS signals in the immediate vicinity.  Not only do you lose your 430W, but it prevents other GPS from working reliably!

 

Anyone else come across this?

 

Strangely, my 430 acquired and locked on after landing.

This happened to me recently as well. Let me know if you find the problem, or find a fix for it...

[TrekLawler]

Hello everyone,

   Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Trek Lawler and for some of you that may frequent some of the other forums I may have spoke with you there or at the tradeshows. I am the Supervisor of Garmin's Aviation Field Service Engineering department. I and my team work directly with end customers such as yourself as well as our worldwide dealer network when they may be having problems with installs.

   With that being said I do quite a bit of lurking on forums and I felt it was necessary to try and address this as there has unfortunately been some misinformation posted that I wanted to try and clear up.

   All of the Garmin Field Service team is aware of this issue; it was first noted in 2010, after some serious investigation we did at that time notify the FAA regarding the problem and also what we have done with the antenna manufacturer. With the FAA's approval we did send out a communiqué to our dealer network identifying the issue and some troubleshooting steps to try and isolate this. Once they can verify if this is in fact the oscillating issue we will cover the replacement antenna at no charge. We do have to be extremely careful with these instructions as we simply cannot issue a blank check for these and with this troubleshooting we have to make sure this is the problem and simply not a failed antenna. Unfortunately there is no serial number break for this issue as we’re still working with the antenna manufacturer on this and from my last communication there is a re-design of the unit coming in the near future.

   There is very little I can provide on the problem as we do know what is happening however don't have a complete fix as this is not affecting all antenna's (please keep in mind there are over 100,000 of these in the field). But without going into great detail the internal board in the antenna is causing an oscillation issue which is re-radiating at 1.575 GHz which as you know is the GPS receive signal, with the GPS level of milliwatts it doesn’t take much interference at this level to cause the GPS’s problems.

   So please rest assured we have communicated this with both the FAA and our dealer network. If there is any thought of this possible issue on your planes please get with your Garmin dealer and have them contact us for assistance.

[TrekLawler]

The New GTN I think Garmin pulled one over on the Feds. They "meet" the TSO and were approved under similar TSO's as the GNS series. Paperwork during the approval process mirrored the GNS. However once the system was installed with the 14 other items you can enable to the GTN the system started showing minor issues. The GTN systems have never been approved in any aircraft before. The testing was never done on an actual aircraft let alone integrated with SAS, HTAWS, radar, GDL88s, ADSB, Garmin 800 traffic, XM, and many other units. I have 2 Helicopter examples where the AML was finished by Garmin with No flight testing provided. I have over 60hrs of burning JetA to try and sell the systems to the FAA. First of the year, the Feds finally saw enough data to issue the full STC. Long winded story, but Garmin and the FAA need to work better together. I just think Garmins sales team and their Tech team need to at least be on the same chapter, let alone PAGE! The G500/600 was another example where the sales team said oh ya it will work with autopilots... "Oh that autopilot... Ya it won't work with that one"...

Love their products when they work, even have a 530w in the mooney!

-Matt

Hello Matt,

   Thank you for the comments, this may not be the correct thread to address this however since it was posted here I wanted to respond to clear up any questions. Fortunately most of the comments are incorrect and I wanted to address some of your concerns. Not really sure where this data may have came from however rest assured all of our systems are tested on airframes, this is a requirement for the STC process. Now with that being said we obviously cannot test every airframe that is listed on the approved model list, doing so would drive the cost of these systems to a point no one could afford them. Luckily the FAA understands this and has put together a group called the aircraft evaluation group (AEG) which has some pilots that come out and test fly with us, once they have their report they take it back to the rest of the AEG group who then approves the STC for the airframes listed on the AML. If there is any doubt we get challenged for more data and at that time if necessary will look for test airframes to perform the tests they need to approve them for the STC. The FAA has always been willing to work with us on these processes which we greatly appreciate.

   This example also holds true for the rotorcraft systems we have, they’re a little more trying as the Rotorcraft Directorate requires much more field testing and will not allow an approved model list in most applications so individual STC’s need to be completed. We recently just completed our part 27 HTAWS enabled GTN STC in which we were able to get approval for 11 different models so this is a step in the right direction.

   As for the comments on the testing for each interface, you’re correct on the SAS systems as we have not completed this, however there has been on hands installation and testing of all of our interfaces otherwise we would not have data to provide to the FAA when the STC is amended.

   I do sincerely apologize if you had received incorrect information. However should you or anyone else have any questions regarding the installs or certification please feel free to contact me.

[carusoam]

Trek,

Thank you for joining us at MooneySpace.

It is nice to have the manufacturer's presence here.

Best regards,

-a-

[OR75]

Thanks Trek. That's very helpful and goes a long way into avoiding wrong ideas to propagate.

Please just keep the footprint of the antenna the same ! Thanks in advance for that !

[Mooneymite]

Over the weekend, I had time to explore the antenna problem more thoroughly. My brother, who works for Northrup Grumman, was skeptical that my Garmin 430W could actually prevent other GPS's from working.

We took off with a Foreflight iPad, an android tablet running the Fltplan.com app, a handheld aviation GPS w/external antenna and an eTrex hikers GPS on board. We were ready!

With the 430 turned on, it displyed no satellites. The only GPS that locked on was the eTrex hikers GPS which uses both US and Glonass satellites. None of the other GPS's displayed any satellites in range.

When we turned the 430 off, all other GPS's quickly locked on and navigated properly/accurately. When the 430 was turned back on, all GPS's except the eTrex immediately lost satellite data again.

Lesson: if your Garmin GPS loses lock and you can't get your other GPS's to lock on, do not assume a RAIM problem, just turn off your Garmin. You'll lose the comm function, but you'll start receiving satellite data again.

My brother is now a believer.

[philiplane]

The antenna problem has been known since 2009, in a variety of forms.

 

It is not limited to WAAS antennas. There is a condition where an installed XM receiver can produce the same phenomenon. It will lock out reception of all GPS units within 30 feet of the airplane. Pulling the XM breaker instantly cures the problem. This can happen with the stand alone XM antenna, or with the combo XM/GPS antennas. It is a reradiated signal, which you'd think would be impossible from a receive-only GPS antenna.

 

It also can happen when the XM or GPS coax coupler is not fully seated into the antenna.  

I had this happen with several customer's 2005-2008 Mooneys and 2005-2009 Cirrus with dual 430's and Heads Up XM weather receivers installed.  

[Marauder]

And to think all those years flying steam gauges I missed out on all of this. The worst experience on steam was the occasional "squak altitude" or the one time, many, many years ago I had a problem with a glide slope signal on an ILS. Turns out a C-130 crossed over the ILS hold line by accident.

[fantom]

The silence from our yankee dent is deafening.

[Marauder]

The silence from our yankee dent is deafening.

 

He's off making another batch of Kool-Aid...

[MB65E]

Haha!!

I PM'ed him...not a response yet. That part 27 approval stuff is because of our company making it happen. Still don't have an STC from anyone yet!

-Matt

[TrekLawler]

The antenna problem has been known since 2009, in a variety of forms.

 

It is not limited to WAAS antennas. There is a condition where an installed XM receiver can produce the same phenomenon. It will lock out reception of all GPS units within 30 feet of the airplane. Pulling the XM breaker instantly cures the problem. This can happen with the stand alone XM antenna, or with the combo XM/GPS antennas. It is a reradiated signal, which you'd think would be impossible from a receive-only GPS antenna.

 

It also can happen when the XM or GPS coax coupler is not fully seated into the antenna.  

I had this happen with several customer's 2005-2008 Mooneys and 2005-2009 Cirrus with dual 430's and Heads Up XM weather receivers installed.  

 

Thanks for the feedback on this; fortunately I can comment that this problem has not been reported with the non WAAS GPS GA56 antennas or the WAAS GPS/XM GA 37 antennas. We're assuming that this may have to do with its design being a square and not a tear drop.

   We recently had some antennas that were returned to us which when removed had water drain from them. During the inspection of the units we noticed some very small cracks which we’re investigating. Since this problem did not show up until roughly 3 years after the introduction of the WAAS enabled GNS systems we’ve been investigating the possibility of torque specs with these being mounted and possibly being over torqued and with vibration may be a source of this issue as well. The key at this point is to try and make the antenna robust enough so it does not have these problems should this issue happen.

[TrekLawler]

He's off making another batch of Kool-Aid...

 

The silence from our yankee dent is deafening.

 

Hello everyone,

   Being new to the forum, not really sure if these comments were meant for me. It took a great deal of discussions and direction to convince our corporate communications and management team that it was much easier to address the masses then each individual e-mail, so I was given approval to work with the forums as long as it is constructive. Along with responding to 5 different forums and questions we (the Field Service team in Olathe KS.) also address over 300 calls and direct e-mails a day from our dealer network. So if it takes me a few days to get back with anyone on questions posted my apologies, I try and rotate as quickly as possible.

[TrekLawler]

Trek,

In your post you say Garmin has known of the issue since 2010? It's early in the year, but it is 2014 if you get my drift?

While owners understand Garmin cannot write a blank check for over 100,000 antennas, owners may not understand Garmin knowing about a problem for four years, after their significant investment in dual Garmin GPSs and other Garmin equipment - when Garmin equipment leaves them without their primary navigation ability in IMC.

There is a redesign of the (antenna) unit coming in the near future? You don't say?

Waiting for more antennas to fail and asking your dealer network to indentify the issue may be your only cost-effective recourse, but unfortunately, that comes with the exposure to risk those who are using the 100,000 plus units you mentioned - pilots who place themselves and their families safety in your hands each and every IFR flight.

Seems to me the FAA has issued ADs for much less, but of course those ADs came as a result of accidents/incidents ... Let's all hope Garmin takes a little bit more ASSERTIVE APPROACH to communicating this to the actual user, not just their dealer network, and to solving this problem before we have an accident or loss of life due to this issue!

It would have been nice if instead of "lurking" on forums you posted the information in a forthright manner to aircraft owners and users who could then be at least somewhat informed and mentally prepared for this scenario should they experience a failure in flight.

 

Thanks for the response,

   I do understand your concern, and trust me we have been working with the antenna vendor on this daily to try and first determine what is causing the issue and then trying to resolve it. Hopefully this will give a little assurance that we’re simply not waiting for more antennas to fail. We do understand the concern which is why Garmin addressed this with the FAA and didn’t await for this to get to the point of being a major problem. Luckily with the GNS 430/530 units if you do lose the GPS from a failure such as this there is a NAV unit which can be utilized so there was redundancy built in. However we do understand the concern as this affects us as well when flying our planes.

   As I indicated in my previous post I lurked due to not getting approval to represent Garmin until just recently. This has worked out very well on the Beechtalk forum where I have been a member of for over three years and spoke at some of their conventions. Thus I’ve been given approval to participate here. My apologies for not being involved sooner, unfortunately there is some red tape that needs to be handled to do this. If there is ever something that someone would like to get in touch with me please don’t hesitate to PM me as I get a notification for this.

   Just as an FYI, Mooneymite did contact me in this fashion and we hopefully will have his antenna replaced through his dealer very soon.

[carusoam]

Come on out to the fly ins...

Post some additional info next to your profile picture/avatar...

Get ready for the launch of competitor products... (KSN770)

Keep working with management to allow direct communication with the customer base and potential customers.

Keep delivering helpful information. Communication is what makes MooneySpace work.

Thanks and best regards,

-a-

[TrekLawler]

Haha!!

I PM'ed him...not a response yet. That part 27 approval stuff is because of our company making it happen. Still don't have an STC from anyone yet!

-Matt

 

Hello Matt,

   Thank you for the PM, I’ll get with you on it and some of your concerns.

Just as an FYI, Garmin just recently last October released our part 27 STC for the GTN product line for these rotorcrafts.

Bell         206B, 206L, 206L-1, 206L-3, 206L-4, 407

Eurocopter France           AS350B2, AS350B3, EC130B4, EC130T2

MDHI    369E, 369F, 369FF

Let me know if there are any questions on these.

[rbridges]

Thanks for the response,

   I do understand your concern, and trust me we have been working with the antenna vendor on this daily to try and first determine what is causing the issue and then trying to resolve it. Hopefully this will give a little assurance that we’re simply not waiting for more antennas to fail. We do understand the concern which is why Garmin addressed this with the FAA and didn’t await for this to get to the point of being a major problem. Luckily with the GNS 430/530 units if you do lose the GPS from a failure such as this there is a NAV unit which can be utilized so there was redundancy built in. However we do understand the concern as this affects us as well when flying our planes.

   As I indicated in my previous post I lurked due to not getting approval to represent Garmin until just recently. This has worked out very well on the Beechtalk forum where I have been a member of for over three years and spoke at some of their conventions. Thus I’ve been given approval to participate here. My apologies for not being involved sooner, unfortunately there is some red tape that needs to be handled to do this. If there is ever something that someone would like to get in touch with me please don’t hesitate to PM me as I get a notification for this.

   Just as an FYI, Mooneymite did contact me in this fashion and we hopefully will have his antenna replaced through his dealer very soon.

 

I never heard of this problem.  Does Garmin have a rough guess of what % of the units have been affected?

[MB65E]

Thanks Trek for all your responses! This is exactly the support we are all after! I'm glad yourself and Garmin are fully engaged. I'm confident that Garmin will make it right! You make the best product and the users will now make it better. This discussion has been a great. I corrected the part regarding the flight testing. What I met to say was the flight testing, until now, had not been done on that airframe I was working with.

Thanks again for your time and interest!

-Matt

[Mooneymite]

I'm still trying to get my local Garmin guy on the same page with Trek. My GPS is still down for now.

I really appreciate Garmin via Trek stepping in with some answers/solutions. Thank you!

However, as a pilot consummer, registered owner, I would have really appreciated a heads up letter from Garmin before this happened so that I could have dealt with the problem in a knowlegeable fashion when my 430W quit without warning. It makes me wonder if there are other known, but undisclosed problems lurking.

I hate being a test pilot.

[Marauder]

Hello everyone,

Being new to the forum, not really sure if these comments were meant for me. It took a great deal of discussions and direction to convince our corporate communications and management team that it was much easier to address the masses then each individual e-mail, so I was given approval to work with the forums as long as it is constructive. Along with responding to 5 different forums and questions we (the Field Service team in Olathe KS.) also address over 300 calls and direct e-mails a day from our dealer network. So if it takes me a few days to get back with anyone on questions posted my apologies, I try and rotate as quickly as possible.

LOL! The comments were not directed towards you, just towards one of your biggest fans. I understand the challenges you faced with your management regarding your responding on the forums. My company went through the same decision and we are participating with social media because if we don't protect our interests, only the dentists will (inside joke).

Many of us are long time Garmin product owners. I also own, have owned and will probably continue to own Garmin products (GPS-55, GPS-95XL, 295, GDL-39, Pilot app, GTN650, Nuvi 680, StreetPilot, StreetPilot Color, 7200, GPS12, a couple of Nuvis that I gave away as gifts, Edge 305, 705 and 510 - and probably a few others that I forgot about).

As a long time Garmin owner and a former stock holder (thank you for the IPO), I do have a comment about open hierachy. I understand the competitiveness in the avionics market. I get protecting your turf. We did it in my specialized industry and all we manage to do was drive customers to others manufacturers because of it. We now collaborate and allow others to interface with our hardware. As a result, our hardware sales are up.

Although I am currently a GTN650 owner, I am looking at the Bendix King 770 to replace my second radio. Why not a 750 or another 650? Because I believe Bendix King and Aspen Avionics are collaborating to integrate beyond just Nav signals (feeding of ADS-B to both the 770 and MFD & the potential to download flight plans from ForeFlight). I expect the continued collaboration they have with each other, as well as other manufacturers, will heavily influence my future decisions to select avionics manufacturers that can be integrated -- just a constructive datapoint.

[TrekLawler]

I never heard of this problem.  Does Garmin have a rough guess of what % of the units have been affected?

 

It has affected less then 1% of the GA 35's that Garmin has shipped.