[time-nuts] Garmin 18x, new firmware Ver 3.60, NOT recommended for Time Nuts!

Kiwi Geoff geoff36 at gmail.com
Thu Feb 17 05:19:17 UTC 2011


Hello fellow Garmin 18x users,

About 2 months ago, I wrote a message on this list - that my Garmin
18x was 1 second slow to UTC.

With the help of a few other kind folk here, we came to the conclusion
that the only firmware version a "Time Nut" should use with the 18x is
3.20

I noticed today that Garmin have a new 18x firmware version,  release date =

                 GPS 18x PC/LVC Ver. 3.60 as of Jan 04, 2011
                 ( "Fixed factory firmware flash capabilities." )

Sadly the NMEA latency of version 3.50 has been "increased" by another
100 milliseconds or so - now MOST sentences finish in the wrong epoch
second!

I ran a two hour test, timing each NMEA sentence (start and end times).

So to save anyone else the trouble of loading their Garmin 18x with
the new firmware - don't bother, Garmin have still not addressed the
NMEA latency issue, that has plagued their firmware from version 3.3
to the present day (3.6).

Garmin must have shipped a lot of 18x units - since firmware version 3.3 !

It is very odd, clearly Garmin are adding more "stuff" for their code
to do, but forgetting that some of us, actually like to know the
correct time !

After the above test, I reloaded my Garmin 18x with version 3.20 (
circa Aug 2009 ) and it is again working perfectly - ALL RMC NMEA
sentences finishing well within the current second.

Regards, Geoff (Christchurch, New Zealand).



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