Position Recorders, Accuracy, and Badge altitude gains

On May 29, 6:45*am, Tony wrote:
On Monday, May 28, 2012 1:59:19 PM UTC-5, uros wrote:
I have checked both flights and for the first flight it seems to me
that the flight recorder was turned on too late. Every GPS needs some
time to find correct position and when the GPS is moving this time is
even longer. The correct procedure is to turn on the GPS few minutes
before the flight so that GPS could correctly find first position and
will start recording correctly. These jumps could be easily detected
and the recording would be cut off.

Sure I know that you should turn it on on the ground but I forgot. *And with turning it on in flight of course it will take a little time to "find itself". *However why on earth doesn't it wait until it has found itself to start recording fixes? *And even then, why was it recording fixes over 2000 ft too high if it had found itself?

The bottom line is probably "it shouldn't". That it isn't reporting a
non-valid 3D fix is troublesome...
My GPS knowledge is quite dated, but doesn't it take something like 12
minutes to get an ephemeris (or was it almanac?) download? Fifteen+
years ago, we would not launch a unit until we confirmed a 3D fix, and
that OFTEN took 12 minutes.