I thought people on this site would want to know this. It is from the Livorsi Web Site. Older Livorsi GPS antennas/receivers have a battery that needs to be replaced periodically. This battery holds startup satellite memory. You will know when the antenna battery is dead by viewing the pointer on the speedometer. The pointer will stay at the 9 o’clock position, 6 o’clock position or it will sit at 0 MPH. Please do not attempt to replace the antenna battery yourself as it is very difficult and may lead to permanent damage to your antenna. Livorsi now offers a no-battery antenna, however this antenna may not work on older GPS speedometers. It has been confirmed that these antennas will work on GPS speedometers with 3 stud terminals. However, these no-battery antennas may not work with GPS speedometers that use a Molex plug (a small square plug) to connect to the antenna. The easiest way to test compatibility is to ship both the speedometer gauge and antenna to Livorsi Marine. If the antenna qualifies for refurbishing, we can, at that time, offer you 2 choices at a special rate: * New no-battery antenna (if compatible)- $179.00 with trade in of old antenna. There will be a $30.00 core charge. Upon receiving the old antenna, the $30.00 charge will be credited. or * Refurbished antenna with battery $99.00 with trade in of your old antenna. There will be a $30.00 core charge if the old antenna is not sent back. This option could take up to 3 to 4 weeks to receive your refurbished antenna. There is a very limited quantity of antennas that can be refurbished - and when this quantity has been depleted, this service will no longer be available. Please ship your Livorsi GPS speedometer and antenna to the address below. There is no need to call for RMA #, but make sure to include your full name, phone number, address and method of payment, and state the issue with the product. Livorsi Marine, Inc. ATTN: GPS Returns 715 Center Street Grayslake IL 60030 For warranty questions please call 847.752.2706 or email returns@livorsi.com.
This sounds like a nightmare and makes me really appreciate my Airguides. Greg Hind on this forum can supply you with one. He is in Tasmania, and had the foresight to buy up some because they are superior to ANYTHING out there. I have used gps in airplanes, cars and boats. I know how it works. Please don't try to tell me how it works. Water ski performance is dependent on the speed through the water. GPS is not accurate in a river with any appreciable current, especially at low boat speeds. Many of the national ski events are held in rivers. I tried to tell a friend this at a national tournament and how to compensate for it. He did not believe me and let his daughter sink in a downstream turn during the swivel national event. She was heart broken. I can tell you that modern airplanes do not use gps speed for landing or takeoff. The manufacturers know how inaccurate and unacceptable that would be. They use airspeed. jim
Ahhhhh...the ol' indicated speed vs. ground speed. Very true in a boat too, as Jim mentioned. If you are in a river with a boat, going with the 10 mph current, your GPS speed is 10 mph. In reality though, you are going 0 mph through the water. If you are going against that same 10mph current, you would need to go greater than 10 mph to register any positive speed on the GPS unit, and the speed would be whatever amount over the 10 mph. If you're going 15 mph, for example, your GPS speed is going to be 5 mph, when you're really going 15. How the heck can you accurately measure your speed based on that? You can't...at least not in any water with a current.
Exactly right. If you are pulling a barefooter at 40+ in a river with a 2-3 mph current the problem is not as great as pulling a swivel skier at 16 mph with a 2-3 mph current. The barefooter might notice it. It will mess up the swivel skier big time. jim
Pulling Swivel and many other show ski acts requires adjusting to the conditions and the site. A great show ski driver can tell by watching the skiers if the speed is right or needs adjusting. Laying the blame on the speedometer is real weak. My personal boat has a Livorsi GPS and a 60 mph Air Guide. It is interesting how they compare. When the Livorsi craps out I'm going to the Evinrude I-Command GPS speedometer. Having used them both a bunch I prefer the I-Command although the Livorsi isn't bad. Having the Airguide too is a bonus.
Thanks Jim! The Livorsi units are apparently not reliable. Lots of people call me for an alternative solution to them. In my boat I have ICommand GPS speed, a Faria paddlewheel and Perfect Pass. The Icommand GPS is not good for waterskiing. It only updates once per second and when I turn my engine off it forgets where we are. If you start moving quickly after starting the engine, it never locks back on no matter how long you keep going. Of course I stop the engine every time a skier gets in the boat and we start it again just as another jumps in. Waiting 30 seconds or more before you start moving is painful. That is probably fixed in a later software update. But 1hz GPS is useless for serious skiing anyway as it is just too far behind what is really happening. So we don't even look at the Icommand speed and simply use that gauge for other funcations. I also have Perfect Pass 5hz (5 updates per second) GPS which is great. Of course it has the river current issue that Jim mentions and is a lot more expensive but otherwise it is great. The paddlewheel speedo I intend to remove to install an Airguide. I don't think a lot of the paddlewheel speedo.When I built the boat, I didn't install an airguide due to the top speed of my boat being too fast but now have a solution to that problem. 30psi = 80kph and a simple air pressure limiter set at 28psi will stop the speedo at about 75kph. It is an automatic solution and protects the speedo. A few customers have done this and been very happy. If you do this, make sure you use a stopper not a blowoff type system as a bypass type pressure limiter will allow water into places it should not get and there will be problems. It simply needs to limit or stop air pressure once input pressure hits about 28psi. We rarely ski in a current but went to a different river last weekend and the current was quite strong, maybe 5mph. The driver stuck with the GPS speed. I was barefooting and had a great time but you wouldn't want to be trying to be serious! My wife who didn't want me to fall at high speed she ignored my calls and stuck to 66kph. In one direction we were actually doing about 55-58kph water speed and the other 72-75kph. To this day I've yet to find a comparable speedo for skiing than an Airguide. When I found the last remaining stocks, I bought them all so maybe I'm biased now but I do love the product. I've sold nearly 200 units so far and don't have many left any more. www.airguide.com.au Greg
I've run a lot of I-Command GPS Speedometers. The early ones did not work as well as the later ones do. I'm not sure why the change I noticed from just simple observation of the units that have been on my demo boats. The very early I-Command stuff is trouble prone. The newer stuff seems trouble free. Does anyone run the Airguide off the built in speedometer pickup? If so how does yours work?
Hi Pete My ICommand is mid 2007 built and came with my 2008 model but 2007 built engine. The outboard leg pickups are the absolute best airguide pickups. The only drawback is that you need to disable the speedo if you are going to go over 80kph. With a seperate pickup, you can just flick it up so it stops working. Greg
I have three pickups on the boat with a selector valve. The primary Airguide runs off the pickup on the motor. This is by far the best way to go. A simple shut off valve would prevent the speedometer from being over pressured. I have my boat propped for skiing and it will hit the limiter before 50 mph which is plenty for my use. This gives me plenty of rpm at swivel speed for those 1/4 mph adjustments that are required for a pro level skier. Any one that says he can feel that is fooling himself. I have owned a boat that would go well over 100 mph and I have no need to see how much speed I can get out of any ski boat. The other Airguide can be selected off, or either of the transom mounted pickups. The hull mounted pickups are prone to clogging if run in water with floating debris. This is not a problem for me anymore since my lake here in FL is clean. I have also installed these with the second speedometer hooked to both pickups which works too. The ideal set up in my mind would be either one or two (if you like) Airguides hooked to the motor pickup. No hull mounted pickups would be required. As a side note, one of the hull mounted pickups uses the brass tube equalizer and one does not. The one without the equalizer is by far the better of the two. It has way less lag. The lag is a problem when I am trying to get to and nail speed within 50 feet of the dock start. I have been in tournaments where the current was so strong that I could barely hold the boat at the dock during the dance. If I had a gps, I would turn it off in that case. It would just be a distraction. I built up my first ski boat in 1953, so what do I know? jim
