This is pretty normal behaviour for a modern GNSS receiver and is a result of position “jitter” caused by multi-path signals and scintillation. Traditionally, older GPS systems used to apply a low pass filter (damping) to the calculated positions and this reduced the SOG and COG fluctuations when stationary.

With the GPS160 and its highly accurate Tri-Data technology, we decided to not apply any damping so that the readings were as accurate and with as little lag as possible. The only down side of this approach is this 0.1 Knot indication when stationary, but as soon as you start moving you get the most accurate and lowest latency output.

The default GPS160 operating mode has been optimized to work well with the maximum number of installations. It is operating in “Tri-Nav” mode and will give the same level of accuracy as any of the other “Tri-Nav” modes. In “Tri-Nav” mode, satellites from all three constellations; GPS/GLONASS/GALILEO are used to work out the most accurate possible position.

In over 90% of pleasure boat installations, the default mode is the best one to use and unless you know that your system can accept a faster update rate or can make use of the additional sentences, then we would not recommend that you change mode.

Typical applications where you might wish to change the Operating Mode, are when you are using Yacht Racing Software on a PC, where the higher 10Hz or even 18Hz “Turbo” mode might make the difference between 1st and 2nd place or if you want the system to display the satellite signal strength information.

If the GPS160 is being installed on a commercial vessel, then the “Professional” mode outputs a lot of additional information about the quality of signals, validity of the position, datum, etc. that larger commercial ship systems must have to be sure they are navigating safely. Most pleasure boat systems would not even recognize or know what to do with these extra sentences.

Finally, for specialist applications, where a customer only wishes to receive data from one satellite system, then the GPS160 can be configured to just use GPS, GLONASS or Galileo satellites.

Find out how to wire our GPS160 to an NMEA 0183 equipment (GPS, Chart plotter, Fish Finder, AIS, etc.) with this page.