SafeFly Gps

[Rob Henderson]

I have an early Safe-fly and echo package this is a Rev-A red labeled unit connected to a Sport EX connected as GPS 1 and a G400w connected as GpS 2, The issue I am having is the Safe-Fly GPS it taking a several minutes to come up on screen. The Rev-B documents show GPS backup power is not used on the Rev-A models. What can I do to get the Safe-fly GPS to come up faster?

[GRT_Jeff]

In our experience the Safe-Fly will usually find a GPS position in less than a minute if it has enough of a view of the sky, and that includes reception through our office roof. The best place to check reception is in SET MENU, Display Unit Maintenance, GPS Status (highlight the line and push the knob). Make sure GPS1 is selected in the upper right corner or use the NAV MODE button to select it. The upper left should say Safe-Fly and the circle in the right should start filling in with green satellites. Green means it's receiving a signal from a satellite. Each pair of green numbers shows the satellite number as the top number and the signal level as the bottom number. The Safe-Fly needs to find at least 4 usable satellites to get a position. Usable satellites have a signal level above 30, with good signals above 35, and very good signals above 40. When outside and away from hangars and other buildings, if all of the signal levels are low, or the better signals are limited to specific directions, you may have something interfering with or blocking the signals.

There is no other way to make this faster. All versions of the Safe-Fly have GPS Backup Power inputs but during recent testing I found it does not improve the time to get a position.

[Rob Henderson]

I am using the GPS antenna MCX from the Sport EX will that make a difference? the Sport would come up within seconds of power up. the position of the antenna did not change

[GRT_Jeff]

We've been using the same antenna for both for many years now. There were some different antennas around the 2016-2019 time period. We had some rectangular ones that just said "GPS Antenna" on the bottom and some had connector adapters and those didn't perform as well with the Safe-Fly. The receiver in the EX is allowed to do more to get a position because it doesn't have to meet strict requirements for ADS-B.