Old Garmin Unit

[Painter1]

I have a Garmin 295 that has not ben used or updated in 9 years. The data card is missing though. The unit powers up but is stuck on "acquiring satellites"

I would love to get this unit functional, as I have flew a lot of miles with it mounted on the yoke and remember being very comfortable with it.

Can this thing be successfully updated?

 

[FastEddieB]

I sold a 295 on eBay a couple years ago, and it was still fully functional.

Check the Garmin website to see if you have the latest system software version.

No reason it should not work and be updatable.

Did you try telling the unit where it was to aid satellite acquisition?

As an aside, I had kept it as a backup to my 496. With iPhones as capable as they are now, running WingXPro7 or Foreflight or whatever, it seemed unnecessary weight.

 

[CT4ME]

Is it connected to an antenna?, internal or external???

 

[airdale]

The unit powers up but is stuck on "acquiring satellites"

How long did you wait? If it has to start from scratch, a GPS can take 10-15 minutes to get itself oriented.

 

[Painter1]

I hooked it up to the antenna and placed that on the windowsill. Ran it for an hour and it could not find more than one satellite. I will look into telling it where I am. Software has not been updated for 9 years though.

 

[frfly172]

I think the 295 needs a data cable to update the unit.a lot of avionics shops have the cable and can do the update ,or lend you the cable. Try shutting down the unit completely remove the battery,then start over,also give the unit time to acquire the sats.

 

[TMetzinger]

I don't know if a unit with really old software may have an issue downloading the almanac, but I can tell you from experience that it can take several hours for an older GPS to receive all the database data it needs to use to correlate the signals it will be seeing, and this can result in a very long time-to-first-fix.

If you can put brand new batteries or external power to the unit, I'd suggest leaving it on overnight.