NGT-9000 weirdness

chemgeek

chemgeek

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chemgeek
OK, this has me stumped. I've contacted my installer and dealer to figure out what's up.

Briefly, the FIS-B display on the NGT-9000 has become intermittent for some products. (Worked flawlessly prior to this spring.) That is AIRMET, SIGMET, and Turbulence boundaries appear and disappear every few seconds minutes, and METARS and TAFS display momentarily (or not at all) and then become "unavailable." Winds aloft don't display at all any more. But NEXRAD displays OK, and the traffic displays are unaffected.

What's really weird is that all the FIS-B products I can display on my tablet EFB through the wifi adapter work just fine, including NEXRAD, METARS, and PIREPs. So the NGT-9000 must be receiving this information OK, at least intermittently enough to broadcast to the tablet. The transponder is working OK, ADS-B traffic displays OK, and the FAA reports of ADS-B performance are A-OK.

I wonder if a bad antenna or data connection would be consistent with these symptoms. Or maybe corrupted software. (There is a ver 3.2 update from the 3.0 I'm running). Either that or it's time for warranty repair/exchange. If I have to pull it, I'm pretty much AOG until it comes back. Arg.
 
OK, folks. According to my installer/dealer, these exact symptoms are due to the April 6 GPS rollover event. Software fix under development. Oops. I didn't think the rollover was such a big secret. The manufacturer should a seen that coming. At least I know I wasn't hallucinating. The Mooney board also reported this as well.

So if your NGT-9000 is blinking at you, you are not going crazy. It still works as a transponder, but METAR, winds aloft and safety notices (SiGMETs etc.) Are affected on the device display only (not your external device). I guess the device itself gets confused about the data being "19 years old."
 
We are having trouble too. Of all places, I read about it on Avidyne’s web site. I email Lynx and did not hear from them. Did your dealer have any idea when the software update is going to be ready?

The Avidyne units also need an update. Avidyne has FAA approval and i was hoping to get the updates at the same time. I am also miffed that these units were installed in early January an the manufactures did not have a fix in place. It is a pain in the neck to get the plane to the avionics dealer.
 
Apparently the update is available now, according to their website. Version 3.2.1. Another version in June will be able to address additional minor issues. Check with your nearest dealer. I'm hoping to do mine soon.
 
My dealer has an update now that is supposed to fix the weather but not the traffic. Expects the traffic update in a couple of weeks. I received an email from lynx about the problem, but not the solution. My partner somehow heard about the update. I took one plane to the shop today for an iFR cert and planned to take the 310 (with the night-9000) tomorrow to swap planes and get the lynx updated. Had a transponder problem and won’t switch planes till next week. I will try to update.
 
Topper said:
My dealer has an update now that is supposed to fix the weather but not the traffic.
Click to expand...
What part of the traffic display is not working? I did not notice any degradation on traffic, only on some weather products (e.g. winds aloft display), which the current update should have fixed.
Their service bulletin says this software is good until the next GPS rollover (in 20 years or so), and a more permanent fix is coming sometime which will play through the rollovers.

If there's anything wrong with traffic today, I haven't noticed it yet.
 
Apparently, some units are displaying "Traffic not Available" at inopportune times, "especially in NJ" for some reason. I haven't seen that error, but definitely noticed the wonky weather products on the internal screen. Version 3.2.2, due in June, should fix the traffic issue. Version 3.2.1 should fix the weather display issue due to the GPS rollover.
 
My partner is noticed. I really don’t know, I think the traffic still displays on the 530 (we have adsb and active) I use xm weather and back it up with adsb displaying on the iPad. I think from the email I received that the output to the iPad was unaffected. Still waiting on an altimeter to come back for the other plane so I can swap out.
 
Topper said:
My partner is noticed. I really don’t know, I think the traffic still displays on the 530 (we have adsb and active) I use xm weather and back it up with adsb displaying on the iPad. I think from the email I received that the output to the iPad was unaffected. Still waiting on an altimeter to come back for the other plane so I can swap out.
Click to expand...

External display works OK for available weather products. Only the internal display is affected by the software glitch. Very weird, but apparently correct.
 
chemgeek said:
OK, this has me stumped. I've contacted my installer and dealer to figure out what's up.

Briefly, the FIS-B display on the NGT-9000 has become intermittent for some products. (Worked flawlessly prior to this spring.) That is AIRMET, SIGMET, and Turbulence boundaries appear and disappear every few seconds minutes, and METARS and TAFS display momentarily (or not at all) and then become "unavailable." Winds aloft don't display at all any more. But NEXRAD displays OK, and the traffic displays are unaffected.

What's really weird is that all the FIS-B products I can display on my tablet EFB through the wifi adapter work just fine, including NEXRAD, METARS, anod PIREPs. So the NGT-9000 must be receiving this information OK, at least intermittently enough to broadcast to the tablet. The transponder is working OK, ADS-B traffic displays OK, and the FAA reports of ADS-B performance are A-OK.

I wonder if a bad antenna or data connection would be consistent with these symptoms. Or maybe corrupted software. (There is a ver 3.2 update from the 3.0 I'm running). Either that or it's time for warranty repair/exchange. If I have to pull it, I'm pretty much AOG until it comes back. Arg.
Click to expand...

I just noticed my transponder doing exactly the same thing you mentioned above. The whole time in the air I was thinking it was something wrong with faa broadcasting towers not transmitting the data correctly. Hopefully they will get a fix for this so we won't have to go through this again. Sucks that I just had the transponder put in just 3 months ago and Lynx didn't have a fix before the install. One would think that they knew this was coming and they would have a fix before the start of the year.
 
Just updated my NGT-9000 to v.3.2.1 this morning, and all is well again. No blinking AIRMETS and transitory METARs and TAFs. Hooray. I didn't need an underlying database update for the new software to take, as my unit was only a year old. I'll probably pop in to get v.3.2.2 in June just to be up to date, but I haven't had any missing traffic warnings yet.
 
Thanks for the update, I haven’t had time to get mine in. I am leaving on a 900 mile trip Sunday, since I mostly use xm weather and the stormscope, and the traffic displays on the 530, I doubt I will care. Still plan to update it next time I am in.
 
chemgeek said:
Just updated my NGT-9000 to v.3.2.1 this morning, and all is well again. No blinking AIRMETS and transitory METARs and TAFs. Hooray. I didn't need an underlying database update for the new software to take, as my unit was only a year old. I'll probably pop in to get v.3.2.2 in June just to be up to date, but I haven't had any missing traffic warnings yet.
Click to expand...
That is great news to hear! Did the avionics shop charge you for the update?
 
Thanks. We just had ours updated. I was out of town so I have not flown with it yet. I also had the AVIDYNE 440 updated to 10.3.2.1. I’m hoping to get in the air this weekend.
 
ricsha91 said:
That is great news to hear! Did the avionics shop charge you for the update?
Click to expand...

No charge. My installer was very nice to me. If he had charge me, I would understand. It takes quite a few minutes to upload the data. He has installed a bunch of these, and has been updating a bunch of these as well! I had lunch at the cafe while he did his thing.
 
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