My Garmin lost its mind outside Charleston

One possibility is quite convoluted. It could be that in areas which may have substantial targets for terrorists, the error function for accuracy in the GPS satellites is purposefully enlarged.

Ok, enough of the paranoia. Would you believe that no one cares where Goose Creek actually is???

Fred

My 765T did the same thing in downtown Milwaukee. It worked perfectly until we got into Milawaukee where I needed it to navigate me to a hotel. All of the sudden it couldn't find streets, told me to get off on a non-existing exit, and the car icon was driving off the streets on the screen. Once we got out of Milwaukee, it worked fine again. Strange.

It sounds like there might be something going on near Goose Creek since it is stated that others have experienced similar problems with other GPSr models in that area. We could speculate about the proximity to Charleston AFB and the Charleston Naval Complex might expose your nuvi to stronger than normal radio or radar interference, but if that is the cause, hopefully all this stray RF is within limits deemed harmless to humans.

There has been some discussion on how sunspots and solar flares might disrupt GPS accuracy as we are entering an active cycle. http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/showArticle.jht...

As for Milwaukee, was the area in question populated with any nearby large high rise buildings? If conditions are right, some satellite signals are not received directly, but are bounced off buildings. This multipath distortion introduces latency in some of the data the GPSr uses to calculate it's location. When that occurs, location and sometimes direction of travel will be skewed temporarily.

The GPS satellites are in orbits that are approximately 12,500 miles above the Earth's surface. That little box on your dash is tasked with receiving data streams from a minimum of 4 of those satellites, decoding the data packets and calculating timing differences in nanoseconds for the most accurate GPSr devices.

It could also be something as simple at the maps for a particular location are incorrect or out of date due to new construction.

To be able to even try to figure out why something like this happens, it helps to know if the problem is repeatable and consistent, e.g. does the phantom exit always appear when you travel that route?

Sometimes there are no good answers readily available as to why something happened. Intermittent issues can come from any combination of external sources or a flaw in the device itself. Things like this are the nemesis of those who maintain complex electronic equipment and can make one wonder if gremlins really exist.

chances are it was just interference from the many radars and radio communications.

HEY! My wife has a cousin who lives in Goose Creek. Somebody cares.

Ok, I apologize. I was sipping a glass of wine at the time!

Fred

Then, in 2007, two University of South Florida students from my home town of Tampa, FL, were arrested outside Goose Creek and charged with terrorism.

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2007/aug/05/possible_bomb...

One agreed to plead guilty:

http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2008/06/13/ahmed-...

The other plead not guilty and went to trial. He was found innocent, but rearrested by the Feds who tried to deport him. A judge threw that case out:

http://i3.democracynow.org/2009/8/24/youssef_megahed_freed_a...

So, for somebody who has never been there, I have become more familiar with Goose Creek than I ever hoped or wanted to become.

I was there in Huntsville in February and there were no problems for me and I was in the middle of the base working for NASA.

Must have been an error of some kind.

I would speculate electronic jammers.

I had a similar thing happen by Schenectady NY with my old Street Pilot III several years ago. It kept wanting me to get off the Interstate and head for downtown Schenectady, it showed the car way off the Interstate, and at one point the display switched and showed the going across the screen instead of heading up. It did this for several miles and as soon as I got on I-80 everything went back to normal. I posted the story to a GPS forum when I got home and one or two other guys said they had the same problem in the same area. My theory is it had nothing to do with the sats or the GPS, I think it was bad map data.

Maybe the map data around the Navy base has been reported incorrectly on purpose for security reasons? In the earlier days of Google Earth, many of the government buildings in DC were deliberately fuzzed out for security reasons.

My Nuvi has no map data for the business complex below. At one time, it was a military reservation. It has been a business complex for quite a few years now. bp Petroleum has a large headquarters there and one of the other buildings is an extension university. Google shows everything but still labels it "US Military Reservation". My Nuvi maps end at the perimiter.

41.810668, -88.150971

My son is in the Air force, we went to visit him on base and the Garmin had all the streets needed to reach his house and drive though the base. It did try to route me down some streets that parts did not exists do the changes so it was not completely up to date.

I have recently driven through Charleston Air Force Base with no problems with my Garmin 360. What is interesting from the comments is that the Charleston Naval Base has been closed for quite some time so there probably won't be a lot of security there.

The BRAC report indicates that beginning in 2005, the Naval Weapons Station at Goose Creek was to be jointly managed by the Air Force... There seems to be a lot of info about it and nothing about it being deactivated or closed. Not being familiar with the area, is it possible that there were two Naval facilities in Charleston?

That may be the reason for some confusion. It appears that Goose Creek is a little further north than Charleston Naval Base which closed most of its military facilities in the mid 90's.

I like the idea of electronic jammers the best. You never know exactly what may be going on at the base, are they housing or guarding anything of military or goverment importance - worth protecting by jamming satalite signals near the facility.

If you drove to Goose Creek without much obstruction to the sky(like skyscrapers in the city) that would cause signal bounce, I am all for electronic jammers idea.

It is an active base, they even have two nuclear submarines there. No tall buildings but a lot of radar and communication towers. Must be electronic interference. Thanks everyone.