+Serial Cachers Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 (edited) Hi. I hope someone can help me. I traveled to Portugal (from California) on vacation and was eager to try geocaching there. I had downloaded several caches but when I got there I could not pull up any satellites. I messed around with the settings but never did get it right. I tried several different days - all clear weather and good visibility. Does anyone know what I did wrong? Worse, now back home when I turn on my unit, all I get is a bunch of vertical black lines. Have I ruined it? New batteries makes no difference. Edited June 2, 2006 by Serial Cachers Quote Link to comment
+SUp3rFM & Cruella Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 (edited) Too bad you just posted your problem now. We're sure some of portuguese geocachers would meet you and helped ya out. We have a Magellan, and we already made some trips abroad. Usually, the first time we turn it on, on a different country (usa, e.g.) it takes several minutes to grab some sats. We also make a restart to the unit. Hope you can come back. Edited June 2, 2006 by SUp3rFM & Cruella Quote Link to comment
+Indotguy Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 To your first problem, once you arrived in Portugal your GPS probably needed to be re-initialized. In other words, it would have needed some help locating the satellite array. You can read how to do this in the Operations manual. To the second problem, I don't have a clue. Good luck! Quote Link to comment
+Team Cotati Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 Hi. I hope someone can help me. I traveled to Portugal (from California) on vacation and was eager to try geocaching there. I had downloaded several caches but when I got there I could not pull up any satellites. I messed around with the settings but never did get it right. I tried several different days - all clear weather and good visibility. Does anyone know what I did wrong? Worse, now back home when I turn on my unit, all I get is a bunch of vertical black lines. Have I ruined it? New batteries makes no difference. A bunch of vertical black lines is not a good thing. You might want to contact tech support. Is there a 'factory' reset for your unit? If there is , try that. If that doesn't get you going the manufacturer's support might be your only possible action. Do you think that the unit could have gotten damaged in transit? As others have said, there should have been no issue at all in getting fixes once the unit learned the new satellite configuration. The same thing would have been true if you had only traveled from the west coast to the east coast of the usa with the unit off. Good luck. Quote Link to comment
Neo_Geo Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 1. When you power them on, GPS receivers assume they are in the same location they were at when they were last turned off. Since it assumes it's in the same position as before, it assumes a certain array of satellites will be in the sky when powered on. Moving the unit 200 miles or more can confuse the unit and require it to be re-initialized as Indotguy mentioned above. 2. The black lines are a known problem with the eTrex units. It's a data ribbon cable attaching the display to the circuit board that has come loose. I'm not advising that you do this, but some people give the unit a good whack to get it going again. Garmin has been known to fix this problem on other units even when they were out of warranty (your mileage may vary). If they won't fix it for you, there are instructions posted here in the forum on how to open up your unit and re-attach the cable (sorry, but I don't have the time to search for it now). Quote Link to comment
+Serial Cachers Posted June 3, 2006 Author Share Posted June 3, 2006 (edited) Wow I want to thank everyone for their ideas. I am going to try the whack fix first then try tech help Monday if I don't have success. We did keep the unit on for over 30 minutes trying to find satellites - it only found one in all that time. Maybe an hour or more would have done it. Anyway, thanks to all! I'll keep you posted Edited June 3, 2006 by Serial Cachers Quote Link to comment
-Oz- Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 Time wouldn't do much, you just needed to tell it it was ina new location so it would actually search for different satellites rather than the same ones. Quote Link to comment
+drbugs Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 Time wouldn't do much, you just needed to tell it it was ina new location so it would actually search for different satellites rather than the same ones. I've done this on my 60cx. On the sattelite screen, select menu->new location. You can then choose auto (which takes a bit) or select loctation which will pop up a map and you move the cursor to the general location of where you are. Quote Link to comment
+Serial Cachers Posted June 7, 2006 Author Share Posted June 7, 2006 Wow. It worked!! One strong THWACK and the thing works. I did not know about telling it a new location either, thanks for that info too you guys. I am allergic to reading manuals Quote Link to comment
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