GPS slow to fix today ?

PeterM · 29 May 2009, 21:10

After some advice on what could be causing my Garmin 276 to be very very slow to get an initial fix today . First time was about 10 minutes , second time was the same ( and I had covered about 5 miles in that time) .

I've read & re-read the manual and no mention, not compared it to my other GPS but usually it shows satellites in 20-30 seconds & picks up a fix in 2 minutes .

Maybe its just me ???

willk · 29 May 2009, 22:27

Anything new (lekkie) in the boat?

Bigmuz7 · 30 May 2009, 07:30

My Tom Tom & Road Angel are very variable at the moment sometimes getting a fix in less than a minute after powering up, other times as much as 4 to 6 minutes but seldom 10 ..... I've always put this down to atmospherics since the signal is quite weak, and it doesnt take much sheilding round the receiver (what or wherever that might be)to blank an input

geoffs · 30 May 2009, 08:51

Does the unit remember where you last were? If not then it may have a flat memory battery. Usually if the battery has gone then they go back to a common position, sometimes 0,0 sometimes the factory where they are made.

chewy · 30 May 2009, 10:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by geoffs

Does the unit remember where you last were? If not then it may have a flat memory battery. Usually if the battery has gone then they go back to a common position, sometimes 0,0 sometimes the factory where they are made.

I've had that with my tomtom, if unused for ages or turned on in a different location to where it was turned off it can take a while to get a fix.

JSP · 30 May 2009, 10:47

The Garmin 120 GPS I have normally takes 10-15min. But it's very old now.

geoffs · 30 May 2009, 16:05

The other acid tet of a flat battery is the unit not remembering your waypoints when switched off.

Chris · 30 May 2009, 16:30

Perhaps the satellite was switched off to save money

PeterM · 01 June 2009, 15:35

Spoke to Garmin who advised there is no internal battery on the unit ( it all runs off the main battery) , but that the unit can get 'confused' if it has picked up some corrupt data from the satellites. ( possible if it has tried to initialise indoors etc - it could be this as I saw a satellite number with a red dot under it on the screen which must mean something I dont know about ! ( maybe like its broken )).

Its not moved anywhere while its off & is otherwise all is good, so I think that excludes the other options. I have never had this on any other GPS before but will try the advice from Garmon of a 'reset'

So a reset is needed - by pressing the 'quit' & 'power' buttons at the same time. This will erase any saved data ( waypoints etc) but thats not a great problem for me and I can back these up if I want anyway .

I'll give it a go tonight ! Fingers crossed - otherwise I can see me 'dropping it' by accident & having to claim for a new one on the insurance.