Garmin tide stations

Rupert Bear · 27 April 2004, 11:13

On the Garmin plotters there is a function for finding local tide stations and getting tides from them. Mine doesn't work, just keeps saying "working" and nothing happens.
It does find the station but can't work out a tide, I do have bluechart for the area
Is this supposed to be on the chart or is it a Nth America only feature? and if so why does it find the Oban tide station?
Anybody got it to work and how?

Bajan · 27 April 2004, 11:35

Hi Rupert!
We have a Garmin 176C and with the memory card inserted the tides are accessible. Not sure why yours aren't coming up. I'll have a play with ours and see if I think of anything.

nugent · 27 April 2004, 12:07

also have garmin 182c all tide stations show up fine ...well they did weekend gone

Bajan · 27 April 2004, 12:57

Just had a play with the GPS. It all comes up fine. Just for clarity, I accessed mine from the main menu went to the TIDE tab and chose the required location. It showed "Finding" for a second or two and then up came the chart. Might be worth calling Garmin Customer Services.

DGR · 27 April 2004, 21:52

Is it a UK/European spec Garmin or a US sourced one? That might make a difference (software or something...)

Dylan...

Rupert Bear · 27 April 2004, 23:37

It is a UK sourced one. I can get it to find the stations but it just keeps working to generate the chart, starting to wonder if the bluechart card is faulty now.
Tried it again tonight but still the same.

Daniel · 27 April 2004, 23:41

Mine does not work either... and i think i discovered from the garmin website this was as good as it gets in the UK. WIll check tommorow.

Ribald · 28 April 2004, 00:06

No probs with my 188C - might be worth a chat to Garmin.

Rupert Bear · 28 April 2004, 22:21

Tried running the tides on simulator and it will find Oban but not generate a table. When on the boat and running with the aerial connected live it will not find any tide stations.
Tried to call Garmin today but never got an answer, will try again tomorrow.

Ribnot · 28 April 2004, 23:26

I also have a UK sourced 176c and cannot get any tide info. Look forward to hearing what Garmin say!

Philip Hodson · 28 April 2004, 23:50

Hi Rupert
Had the same problem when I bought my 176c over 2 years ago
apparently tides then only worked in the States. Any way from last year
they work here, if you have 3:7 software and upgrade your data card.
whether it’s worth the cost of the card upgrade its up to you.

timboli · 29 April 2004, 05:49

I didnt get any tide stations on my Garmin 176c until I purchased the blue chart cartridge(meu001r),I was told it was a feature only available for American ports so am well pleased now.

Rupert Bear · 29 April 2004, 09:44

My GPS is brand new, having been replaced under warranty by Garmin on Monday. The blue chart card is also fairly new, bought last October.

Ribnot · 29 April 2004, 10:00

Got mine at the southhampton boat show last year along with an English Channel chip, no mapsourse disc.

There is a free download for version 3.7 on garmins website which says it corrects european tide problems. I will try it later. See
http://www.garmin.com/support/downlo...ils.jsp?id=431

Ribnot · 29 April 2004, 10:02

http://www.garmin.com/support/downlo...ils.jsp?id=431

Ribnot · 29 April 2004, 10:03

Link not shown properly for some reason...should be "download_details" in middle

John Kennett · 29 April 2004, 11:06

It's OK! The forum software does that to avoid having massively long URLs in the posts -- the link still works correctly though

John

Rupert Bear · 29 April 2004, 14:06

I called Garmin and confirmed the 182 is supposed to show tidal info but the sofware need to be the current 4.40 while mine is 3.02!
Does anybody hae the info for making a serial lead to load the new software or any easy wa of doing it? the plotter manual doesn't show it and I am not buying yet another lead for it when I have all the bits here for free

.

jwalker · 29 April 2004, 14:40

Garmin's site has all the info. Choose 6 in the menu at http://www.garmin.com/support/faqs/

It's a 3 wire connection to your com port, Tx, Rx and ground.

You'll need to download the software too, obviously.

Rupert Bear · 29 April 2004, 22:16

Downloaded the software, made up the cable and uploaded the updated software tonight. What a difference it made. Tides work fine but will need to checjk the accuracy against the paper copies.
What did surprise me was all the additional features that the software provided.
I hadn't realised till now just how old the software installed was, nearly two years. How many folk just buy them and don't check, and mine came straight from Garmin this week so it hadn't been sitting in a shop for ages.
What does surprise me is that it was so old and Garmin are not sending them out up to date?