16 replies to this topic

[G3oak]

I was wondering if anyone using an LS was finding difficulty in acquiring a GPS signal for alignment? I have had success in the past from my location but have run into difficulties lately.

[MistrBadgr]

In the early days of the LS, there was some difficulty on a few scopes, but I have not heard anything on that issue in a few years.

 

A couple of ideas:  1.  If the problem persists, call Meade Customer support and see if they have any ideas or tricks.  2.  If you are using the same site all the time, I think there is a way to enter that one location and save it, or a way to lock in a location once you have it, and then bypass the GPS location procedure on the scope.

 

If you live in a city setting rather than out in the countryside, you might consider taking the scope to another area that is more in the open and away from anything that could create a radio interference, and see if the GPS works.  That might tell you something.

 

Bill Steen

[G3oak]

Bill,

How accurate is the manual process for entering coordinates? The info for location is very general (i.e Chicago for a fairly large area). Are you saying that if I succeeded in acquiring coordinates via GPS I could enter those in future sessions? How is that done?

[MistrBadgr]

I believe there is a way to save a location and maybe a way to enter one.  I will see if I can look it up.

 

Bill Steen

[jimbob4755]

Hello to you both. I fortunately have not had a problem with GPS on my LS6 (thats' done it!), even though living in light polluted Greenwich, London. My problem is finding alignment stars! anyway I believe that once you have scope GPS setup, rather than Parking scope at end of session, you can sleep the scope and it 'remembers its' settings. You can select option in setting up to enter manually co-ordinates and  may be able to access the web to get a more precise coordinates rather than just picking a location. In no way am I an expert on this and would appreciate in corrections gratefully accepted on my idea.

Best wishes Jim - Clear Sky's to you both.

[jimbob4755]

Hello again, I have referred to the LS manual and it states that if you Park your scope, "it is designed for a telescope that has not moved between observing sessions. Align the scope one time, then use this function to park the scope. Next time it is powered up, no alignment is required. Pressing "Enter" causes the telescope to move to its predetermined -park position". The manual, referring to GPS, says that you can turn GPS off and then presented with with a menu that offers a choice of using previous locations, internal clock time, entering date, time and location manually, taking a GPS fix or starting in demo/ terrestrial mode. Hope this helps you.

Best wishes Jim.

[MistrBadgr]

I did read in the manual, and then forgot to post here.  There does not seem to be a way of entering a lattitude and longitue into the scope.  You have to go by the cities it has on file, or do what Jim says and store a fix from a time that you can get one.  I am going to pass on a suggestion that they put in a way to enter a lattitude and longitude.

 

Bill Steen

[jimbob4755]

Thanks Bill. thats great.

Jim

[G3oak]

Well I fiddled with this quite a bit yesterday. It did automatically save a location - in this case Milwaukee. To be quite candid, this is the first time I saw this option so not sure how it got there.
As for the GPS it's a bit of hit and miss. Sometimes it would go through a whole cycle without getting anything and when I started a new one it would get a signal within seconds. Other times I would cycle multiple times without success. One interesting thing is that after I cycled multiple times with no luck, I picked the Milwaukee location and the first thing it did was it asked me to confirm the time, which was in fact correct. I wonder if it had picked up a signal long enough to get time, but nothing else.

[jimbob4755]

Hello again, Sorry to see you are still having problems with your LS. I hope you don't mind but you may find the link below useful to locate your exact position. It is the BBC 'Sky at Night' website and in the 'Interactive Planetarium' there is a link included in the text to obtain your exact Long/Lat. According to the Meade Manual, it does state you can turn the GPS off and enter location. I link my scope to a laptop to use the Autostar Suite where you can input (virtually) your exact location using Lat and Longitude. I have to be honest I have not needed to turn the GPS off to enter a location probably because the UK is a much smaller land mass for the GPS satellite cover. Hope all goes well.

Jim

http://www.skyatnightmagazine.com

[MistrBadgr]

Hi G3oak,

 

I somehow missed your message.  I guess I have been too busy chasing down many shiny objects, or something like that.  You probably did get the time, just not enough satelites to verify the location somehow.

 

Jim,

 

Thanks for the information!  That is good to know.

 

Bill Steen

[G3oak]

A quick update on my GPS episode. It's now 3 nights in a row that I connect within one minute of starting the process. Did nothing differently than other times and the location has always been the same - even on those nights where there was total futility in getting a signal.
Your idea of providing the user the ability to enter longitude and latitude is probably the best way to deal with these issues since the cities used are far apart and have to believe that it impacts how accurate the alignment and tracking could be.

[Mark Sibole]

GPS as with any other signals that are broadcast or recieves via radio frequency can change from night to night.Ive found when the sun is very active it will mess up gps signals.Even in my OBS it will pick them up sometimes within seconds and other times takes a few tries.Also depending on how long the scope has been turned off will determine how long it takes.If used nightly or every other day it grabs them very fast.If used only once a month it does take longer to get the satellite signals then get the information collected to give your position.Like you said it can be a crap shoot and many things come into play.

 

Mark

[G3oak]

Mark,
Thanks for the feedback. I suspected some of these things could be impacting signal capture and glad to hear I'm not alone suffering this condition.

[fjhdavid]

I confirm that there is no way to enter manually long and lat

 

I live in Paris and I didn't be able to have a fix with the GPS (my Iphone  find coord in a couple of seconds each time...but not the LS6)

 

The problem is that when I select Paris in the database, the tracking is not excellent (Paris is 10kms width and I am living near the suburb), so I can't do AP pictures even for the brighter target...because of the trailing stars

 

it is a pitty that meade didn't provide a way to enter coordinates...

 

do you know if meade is working on a firmware update?

 

Thanks

Francois

[Marco]

.........

do you know if meade is working on a firmware update?

.........

This is jolly good question!

Last firmware update was 1.6A in Nov. 2010.

But I am afraid the answer  will be a no... (

 

Please somebody correct me and state a new release is Imminent!! 

 

Clear skies

Marco

[MistrBadgr]

I have not heard anything about an update coming out for the LS.  However, there is normally no anouncement before one shows up, just an anouncement that one can be downloaded.

 

Bill Steen