WAAS upgrade woes

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mhoran
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Re: WAAS upgrade woes

Post by mhoran »

Just wanted to follow up to say that SouthTec has agreed to make things right.
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mhoran
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Re: WAAS upgrade woes

Post by mhoran »

I got my plane back from SouthTec on Friday with an exciting new avionics issue: GIA #2 doesn't always immediately come up when I flip the avionics master switch. #2 was an exchange unit I had installed back in February so fortunately it has a six month warranty (parts and labor.)

It's really quite odd -- it's as if the unit doesn't boot up (though I can hear a "click" when I cycle the breaker). No combination of flipping switches or pulling breakers seems to bring it back. Eventually it will come online. Yesterday shortly after takeoff it fired up as I was climbing up to altitude.

Lancaster Avionics has ordered a replacement. Hopefully that'll take care of it.
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mhoran
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Re: WAAS upgrade woes

Post by mhoran »

Well that replacement GIA did solve my last issue. Seems there was a bad power supply in a unit. But not a year later and my issues persist. Now I'm having issues with one of my GPS antennas. I get severely degraded signal on GIA #1, and it takes a long time to acquire satellites. GIA #2 acquires satellites in a timely manner (and neither seems to affect the other). Based on Mark's thread (viewtopic.php?t=8252) I determined that the left antenna was connected to GIA #2 and the right antenna was connected to GIA #1. It's easy to get at the connections by removing the overhead lights, so I swapped the connections. The problem moved from GIA #1 to GIA #2! So it seems I now have a bad antenna, which I'll replace at annual next month.

GIA #1:
PXL_20230324_183548365.jpg
GIA #2:
PXL_20230324_183555596.jpg
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MarkA
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Re: WAAS upgrade woes

Post by MarkA »

I have had no more issues since my failing antenna was replaced.

It's interesting to note also that the mechanic that works on my plane (and a lot of others) apparently keeps one of these antenna in stocks now. He indicated that he's seen a number of these antenna fail in other planes as well. It's not however common to see what happened in my case where the intermittently failing antenna caused enough RF interference to prevent the other good antenna from connecting to the satellites. This may be a "feature" that is somewhat unique to the DA40 since the two antenna are physically right next to each other.
2010 DA40 XLS, N123MZ, KHIO
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mhoran
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Re: WAAS upgrade woes

Post by mhoran »

To close the loop here, 15 hours on a new antenna and all seems well. Shot my first LPV approach in actual conditions on Sunday and it was a huge improvement over the last time I shot the same approach LNAV only. While the upgrade was a bit frustrating at times I'm glad I have WAAS now.
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Charles K
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Re: WAAS upgrade woes

Post by Charles K »

Very happy for your good news - it can be a trying experience to upgrade - but it is worth it!

I had issues too. But Diamond stepped up and really helped.

Charles
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N5WU - 2004 G1000 DA40 40.400, GTX345R ADS-B, WAAS Upgraded in 2021 via Diamond Upgrade Program
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Re: WAAS upgrade woes

Post by Charles »

Oh man, I just read this entire thread, what an ordeal. I admire your perseverance and your positive attitude through it all. I'm glad it's all behind you now.
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