Intermittent GPS issue related to "unbroken" antenna

Support & Solutions
1

I have been having no GPS issue since installation about 2 weeks ago (lucky me! Despite having a lot of trees. However, in the last two days, I started experiencing intermittent GPS issues in areas I had no problems before. Sometimes under trees, yes, but sometimes completely in the open, no trees, no clouds, direct sight to the data center. Yarbo seemed fine, antennas not damaged. The diagnostics was showing everything all right except L2=0 (despite about 25-35 satellites). I tried everything from playing with the remote, driving around, reboots, battery disconnects, you know the drill, with seemingly nothing working except having the connection coming back randomly between 2 minutes and 2 hours later… When I was trying to swap the antennas, I either lost both L2 and satellites, but sometimes everything started to work fine… So I did not immediately pick on an antenna problem as it was intermittent. For the first 2 days, I was swapping antennas when it was happening (among a dozen other things), sometimes it helped, sometimes not…

Suddenly I had an idea that will sound simple, but… When I snapped an antenna on day one (Right one one facing the device), I had satellites showing >25, but no L2. This time, when losing connection I either had nothing at all, or no L2 only. At one moment when L2 was the only problem, I replaced the right one (even if it looked unbroken) by a new one (I bought a few spares after snapping the first on day one…). And boom. Immediately, the signal came back normal. I swapped back with the “old” antenna, lost signal… Then it came back after 5 minutes (confirming that it is intermittent). I restarted the Yarbo, lost GPS again 20 minutes later (I had kept the possibly “broken one” as a test. ( replaced the antenna with the new one, normal signal again immediately. Now it has been running for 14 hours straight (except for recharge) with no loss of GPS (except some transient ones under very dense trees that auto recovered or required a slight nudge by me).

This is not a miracle solution, but I think that the antennas can get damaged internally even without showing any physical damage and that the problem can be intermittent (that certainly was the case for me). RTK is still a weak link for this machine as it still sometimes loses transiently signal, but at least it recovers and can continue.

@Yarbo-Forum I know you are looking at sturdier designs, but this antennagate problem is probably the source of a lot of abnormal behaviors. When the signal is good, Yarbo is doing surprisingly good (straight lines, no missed spots, etc).

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2

I would agree. The RTK antennas themselves need to be thicker plastic IMHO so that they can handle impacts better. Ideally for Spring-Fall a more flat and round survey style antenna that would go under things better and not be a catch point when random tree limbs or other low hanging objects are encountered. For the snow blower, you kind of have to stick with the high mount and helix style antennas. But those antennas aren’t really a breaking issue for the snow blower. Just the mower for what I’ve seen (low or high mount).

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But the point here is that the antenna looks new! (My yarbo is less than a month old). No damage at all on the plastic. And yet when I install it, the intermittent GPS issue occurs. It is either DOA, or it was somehow damaged while mowing with a minor shock (or water maybe?) without any visual defect… I wonder if a proportion of those reports of intermittent GPS issues are due to a faulty antenna… I’ll wait a day or two and install back the suspicious antenna for a test…

4

Anything is possible. Could’ve gotten damaged at the factory or some other way. Could just have a cold solder joint and needs to heat up to work. There is also a lot of solar activity which can impact GPS so it could just be coincidence that you swapped antennas on a good day and swapped back on a bad one. Be curious to hear your results.

5

Thank you for sharing your detailed observation and bringing this to our attention. You’re absolutely right — an antenna can be internally damaged even if there are no visible signs of wear. We truly appreciate your insight and will be sure to pass your feedback along to our team.

6

A lot of the issue is the very poor choice they took using the connector as the mounting of the antenna. The antenna it self needs to be mounted and the electrical connection second, not the electrical connection being the only mounting means.

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