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inReach Mini Failures During Cycling?

2133666
over 1 year ago

I have an in-reach mini which I bought for the purpose of keeping my friends and family apprised of my location when I'm out doing rides particularly when I'm out of cell service. Yesterday was my first time doing this in practice. I have the device zip tied the shoulder strap on my Camelbak so it always sees the sky. 

As you can see in the screenshot that I've added a purple highlight for my approximate route, the mini only logged my location in a limited number of locations. Set for every 10 minutes. These successes seem to be clustered. What gives? I was not in a deep canyon send in many cases. Had clear open skies not canopy. Even if the log point fails to send at the time that it is scheduled, should it not be uploaded eventually? 

Updated map will all track

  • +1 over 1 year ago

    Yes, the Mini should record points at the specified interval. If it cannot send them immediately because of lack of Iridium connectivity, it should queue them for later transmission. 

    AFAIK, the only case where the device does not record a point is if it has no fix at the scheduled time. There may be other causes, but that's the only one that I know of. The M1 is somewhat notorious for taking a long time to acquire, and for having problems holding a fix. 

    I do not believe the M1 uses an EPO file to speed up the initial fix. That means that (the very first time you use it) it has to acquire a full almanac from the GPS constellation. Even standing still with a clear view of the sky, this can take as much as 12 or 13 minutes. Conventional wisdom is to "soak" the device for at least 20 minutes (without moving) to get the full almanac. Once you have it on board, the device will keep it up to date. I don't know if this is an issue here. But you sound like this is the first time you've used the device.

    My personal rule is to make sure that I have a fix (before I start moving) at the beginning of every trip.

    All of that said, if this is the first time you used the device, there may a hardware problem. Open a support ticket.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to twolpert

    Echoing the above. I've used the M1 for a number of ultra cycling events. In general, so long as I turn on the M1 20 minutes or so before I set off, things generally work and it's reliable. I tend to try and remember to turn it on the day before if I'd travelled a distance to the start line (eg. different country) to reduce any stress come race day.

    The only time I've struggled is when I've forgotten to do this and start tracking seconds before the start, in which case (twice) it has taken most of the morning to start working.. in reality probably this happening only after my first proper stop - ie. really struggles to get an initial fix while moving.

    Though to be clear: my definition of reliable is that in manages to send 5 or 6 pings out most hours (10 minute intervals), sometimes maybe 3 or 4, and occasionally I'll have to reboot it (maybe once every few days). Works for me, and I like the battery life I can get out of it. M2 seems better in almost every respect, however there's no obvious justification for the replacement cost for my usage.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to SpikySimonW

    The almanac is position-dependent. The almanac says "at this location and this time of day, the following satellites will be overhead." If you move more than a few hundred miles with the unit off, any almanac the unit has on board will no longer be valid at the new location.

    Also, the almanac has a limited lifetime. If you have not used the device for a month or so, any almanac it has on board will be invalid.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to twolpert

    If the cyclist were to set up both LOGGING and SENDING of Track Points every 10 minutes, would the final results help clarify wether this is (only) a problem of successfully sending ‘position reports’ via the Iridium Satellite System or, if logging is also lacking, then GPS reception/processing may be the underlying issue? Bill R.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 1874793

    Interpretation would be tough.

    If you get ALL of the sent points, there is no problem.

    If you get SOME of the sent points, it might be an Iridium or a fix problem. You'd have to try to correlate missing parts of the logged track with missing sent points.

    If you get NONE of the sent points but you do get a logged track (with no gaps), then you have an Iridium problem.

    You also have to know how to interpret what you see. The OP's second image shows the sent points track (at least). I can't tell if it also shows the merged portions of the logged points. You would need to know that to tell if the logged points drop out at the same places as the sent points. I will say that the LONG straight lines are typical of missing sent points.