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OnX screwed up????

Allegheny Tom

Well-Known Member
SH Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2018
Messages
6,026
Location
Western Pennsylvania
3 of us are having the same issue...location dot moving around when we are stationary. Sometimes its pretty bad. It moves in places where we haven't even walked. 2 Android phones and 1 Iphone...so it aint the phones.
And sometimes my entire map is moving slightly. I'm sitting still and things are moving.
Anyone else's OnX acting goofy?
 
3 of us are having the same issue...location dot moving around when we are stationary. Sometimes its pretty bad. It moves in places where we haven't even walked. 2 Android phones and 1 Iphone...so it aint the phones.
And sometimes my entire map is moving slightly. I'm sitting still and things are moving.
Anyone else's OnX acting goofy?

i saw that once. I chalked it up to poor satellite signal. is it constant or once all at the same time?
 
I have seen that as well. If you stand in place for a bit it seems to quickly correct itself. Pretty annoying though.
 
Its not like its trying to "catch up" to the current location, and then it stabilizes. We are in one spot, not moving at all, and the dot floats around...sometime it moves 50 yards, and does so faster that I could run.

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It's just the accuracy of phone GPS in general. It's pretty common for your phone to have an accuracy of plus or minus 20 ft in ideal scenarios. Add in tree cover and that could easily jump to 50 yds. I can sit at my house and watch my location on several different apps and my location jumps all over my 2 acre yard.

My survey grade GPS cost over $40k and when under tree cover the accuracy goes from centimeters to feet to even 10's of feet at times.

Most people way overestimate the accuracy their phone is capable of.
 
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I have noticed property lines being off about 25 yard. I was standing next the fence and the map showed the fence about 25 yards away. Onx is a great mapping resource, but I wouldn't use it for pen point accuracy, like surveying. It will get you close to the buck beds, but you still have to remember exactly where they are.
 
It's just the accuracy of phone GPS in general. It's pretty common for your phone to have an accuracy of plus or minus 20 ft in ideal scenarios. Add in tree cover and that could easily jump to 50 yds. I can sit at my house and watch my location on several different apps and my location jumps all over my 2 acre yard.

My survey grade GPS cost over $40k and when under tree cover the accuracy goes from centimeters to feet to even 10's of feet at times.

Most people way overestimate the accuracy their phone is capable of.
It didn't act this way when I first subscribed 2 years ago.

I can understand GPS being inaccurate on phones, but why does the location dot float all around when the phone is stationary for minutes at a time?

I'm not feeling the love for OnX.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
 
It didn't act this way when I first subscribed 2 years ago.

I can understand GPS being inaccurate on phones, but why does the location dot float all around when the phone is stationary for minutes at a time?

I'm not feeling the love for OnX.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
I have had this issue with phone apps since I replaced a stand-alone GOS with a smartphone 6-7 years ago.

I have had the exact same issue with
OnX
Huntstand
MotionX-GPS
MeasureMap
Gaia
Google Earth Pro
And a couple more I can’t remember.

I think it has to do with the above stated smartphone inaccuracies than it does with a specific app.
Also, if you close out your screen and open it every time you need a coordinate, your phone has to re-acquire and lock onto the sat signal every time. Unless you are running a tracker in the background, most modern apps will NOT maintain signal lock in the background. This is because that drains batteries faster than consumers are willing to do. I get much better accuracy and consistency when I leave OnX running in my hand as I am walking around. Just carry a nice battery bank to charge back up.
 
Smartphone GPS connection with the satellite. As stated above, it can't be counted on for pin point accuracy. I have the same issue with google maps.

Our property in NC doesn't even have the correct owner information or border. It has been updated with the County GIS map for over a year. Hopefully ONX will update it. ONX only updates GIS data every 1-2 years though.
 
It didn't act this way when I first subscribed 2 years ago.

I can understand GPS being inaccurate on phones, but why does the location dot float all around when the phone is stationary for minutes at a time?

I'm not feeling the love for OnX.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

Your phone determines it's position every few seconds. That position will be slightly different each time. How much different will be determined by the quality of the signal your phone is getting at that time (number of satellites, position of satellites, tree cover, etc.).

I'm not sure why it didn't do it before. I know my phone has different location settings. Maybe different settings cause it to determine it's position more or less frequently.
 
I've noticed with onx that you'll mark a location and come back a week later and itll be off by sometimes as much as 50 yards. Not to mention how many times I've walked a fire trail and my dot is 20 yards away from the trail. It's a great app when you dont forget that it's just a cellphone GPS.
 
I aint buying that. There are 3 of us with 3 different phones...all acting goofy.

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I use the maps feature on my phone, and I drive 6 hours a day, sometimes I will be stopped at a red light and my truch will show to be moving. High accuracy gps devices actually use a remote antenna to create a differential for location. They actually triangulate. Some high end personal gps units use waas or glonas technology. An I phone that has 6 million other features does not have a high accuracy gps antenna. If you want to see for yourself try the find my phone app and you will see the lack of precision
 
I don’t use onX. I use hunt stand this does happen on hunt stand time to time but it usually fixes itself.


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A few months back the DOD issued alerts for Florida and some other arts of the SE that they were tweeking GPS signals during specific times of the day for a few days and not to rely on it for precise positioning. Also as others have stated, phone GPSs are subject to errors of up to 50 yards during some bad weather, tree canopy or just poor satellite coverage, although they are usually within 10 yards.
 
My hunt stand app was all over the place today. When scouting new ground I turn on the Trace function and its almost always dead accurate with landmarks and terrain features but today it was going crazy and sometimes was 1/4 mile off from my location. Today the fog was thick and cloud cover probably denser than normal it finally improved around noon and worked great. I wouldn't blame it on anything but GPS signal strength and Aliens.
 
So, Ive been messing around with it and suddenly, a notice for an update appeared. I figured it may solve the issue so I updated.
The dot still floated all over the place.
I wondered what would happen if I went to the offline map of my location which I've already had loaded for a year now (also a bunch of other locations, too). OnX said none of my maps were loaded but it showed them all being ready to download. I downloaded them and now the dot is behaving much better...on and off line.
The focus is funky now...seems to be fickle. I have to (sometimes) switch from on line to off line (or vice versa) and then it focuses.
My device is haunted.

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I've noticed with onx that you'll mark a location and come back a week later and itll be off by sometimes as much as 50 yards. Not to mention how many times I've walked a fire trail and my dot is 20 yards away from the trail. It's a great app when you dont forget that it's just a cellphone GPS.
I think this is common with any GPS. I have Helix 10's on my boat and and learned those waypoints might not be so accurate.
 
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