Colorado Acquiring Satellites

[+Red Crow]

I have been having some issues with my less than a week old colorado, I am wondering if anyone else has had anything similar.

 

When I start it up it seems unable to acquire any satellites. Initially I thought it was because I was in my truck so I turned it off, stood outside and tried again. Nothing, well actually there would be an occasional blip of signal as shown on the satellite screen but that would quickly fade away. I turned it off and a couple of hours later tried again, still nothing, at all this time.

 

Again I turned it off and tried once more again a couple hours later. I thought I would just let it sit for a while and see if anything eventually turned up. So I waited until I got the couldn't find any satellites message and hit continue to search option after which it managed to acquire 4 very strong signals and a couple weak ones (giving me an accuracy of about 40 feet). This last attempt was in my house while the other two attempts were outside with no cover.

 

what's the deal? Any ideas or am I just doing something stupid over here?

 

thanks

[+webscouter.]

Check the time on the GPS. Some of the Colorados have a drifting clock when they are turned off. That will cause the GPS to take longer to synch up as it thinks the satellites are in different spots than they actually are.

[+bdejong]

I have had no trouble with mine, even in the house I get at least 5 satellites. I do know that when I first got mine it thought it was in texas somewhere. The first lock was the longest but now that it knows where it is it has worked great.

[+Red Crow]

okay, so here is another ridiculous question: where do i find the time on it? I've searched through every menu but can't seem to find it.

 

also a more general question about the satellite screen, what does it mean when the bars are white compared to blue and what does it mean when there is a letter at the bottom of the blue bars (i think it was a "g" if I remember correctly)?

 

thanks so sorry for the newbness

[+QUAD EXPLORER]

okay, so here is another ridiculous question: where do i find the time on it? I've searched through every menu but can't seem to find it.

 

also a more general question about the satellite screen, what does it mean when the bars are white compared to blue and what does it mean when there is a letter at the bottom of the blue bars (i think it was a "g" if I remember correctly)?

 

thanks so sorry for the newbness

 

White the Colorado knows where the satelite is, and blue the Colorado is actually locked into the satelite and using it for your position.

[+minnesotabrad]

I've had a similar situation. I had a Colorado that I had to return that locked into position quickly every time, now the new unit can take an unbelievably long time to acquire satellites.

[+verdugan]

okay, so here is another ridiculous question: where do i find the time on it? I've searched through every menu but can't seem to find it.

 

 

Click the power button. A screen will pop up that shows the back light, the gps signal, and the time.

[+Red Crow]

perfect! thank you. This morning the clock was spot on though.

[Didjerrydo]

Check the time on the GPS. Some of the Colorados have a drifting clock when they are turned off. That will cause the GPS to take longer to synch up as it thinks the satellites are in different spots than they actually are.

Webscouter is exactly right. This is precisely what happens when the clock is losing time- slow aquisition because it is looking at an incorrect almanac due to the time error. The aggrivating thing is (at least in all 3 units I've had this issue with), this erratic clock behavion is totally random. It will work perfectly for days and then take several hours off-time for whatever reason. This also totally screws up the alarm function and pressure plotting (when unit is off). Hopefully Garmin is going to give fixing this problem very high priority with its next update which supposedly just around the corner.

[+SnoWake]

I've had some slightly-related difficulties with my Colorado. The scenario was:

 

Try acquiring satellites somewhere with lots of cover (indoors, a parking garage, etc). Then, move to an area with clear view of sky - and the CO just would not lock. It wasn't until it finally 'errored out', and I told it to resume acquiring - that the bars finally started appearing, and in just a few seconds, I had a lock.

 

I'm interested about the time-drift problem. I turned my CO on here in the house the other day - and noticed the clock was HOURS off. I've never experienced this with any of my 60-series or earlier units. Repeating the experiment just now - it seems the device keeps the time of when it was last powered off - until it re-acquires satellite lock. That's absolutely LAME.

 

I still haven't quite figured out how to determine 'which chipset' I have - nor, which one I would want to have. Sounds like battery life, clock drift, barometric pressure logging - these are all things that vary by chipset - but yet, no easy way to determine which is which? I've got an early unit purchased the first day they were available at REI - serial number starts with:

 

18Z00xxxx

 

Fortunately, my unit doesn't seem to have trouble locking, even when the clock is, for example, 9 hours off - but maybe it will be a different story when I travel. Looking back at a recent trip to FL with the CO, it seemed to behave okay there - but I had only had the unit a couple of days, and was still struggling with its basic operation, data limitations, etc.

[+pasayten_pete]

...I'm interested about the time-drift problem. I turned my CO on here in the house the other day - and noticed the clock was HOURS off. I've never experienced this with any of my 60-series or earlier units. Repeating the experiment just now - it seems the device keeps the time of when it was last powered off - until it re-acquires satellite lock. That's absolutely LAME.

 

I still haven't quite figured out how to determine 'which chipset' I have - nor, which one I would want to have. Sounds like battery life, clock drift, barometric pressure logging - these are all things that vary by chipset - but yet, no easy way to determine which is which? I've got an early unit purchased the first day they were available at REI - serial number starts with:

 

18Z00xxxx

...

 

I have had the exact same problem mentioned above... Turned unit on yesterday and it was 4 hours behind in time and had difficulty acquiring sats... I had to press "keep trying"... Eventually it found the sats and updated the time and I turned it off. I turned it on the next day and it had the time of when I turned it off the previous day! Once again had to go thru the long procedure of acquiring sats... Will check again tomorrow.

 

I got my unit from buy.com around Jan 17th and it has serial 18Z0003xx, so it is an early model. I have it updated to 2.6/2.3... I wonder if this issue can be fixed with a software update or will need to be returned???

[+apersson850]

White the Colorado knows where the satelite is, and blue the Colorado is actually locked into the satelite and using it for your position.

No, that's incorrect.

 

White is when the Colorado has locked on to the pseudo random signal from the satellite, so that it's capable of downloading data from the satellite. It "knows" where the satellite is from the almanac data (coarse orbital data), but not accurately enough to use it for positioning.

Blue is when ephemeris data (high precision orbital data) has been received for the satellite, which means that it can be used for positioning. It doesn't have to, though, but there's no way to see if the satellite in question is actually included in the PVT calculation or not.

The letter "D" in the signal bar means that differential correction data has been received for that particular satellite. Such data usually comes from Egnos (or WAAS). Such data improves the integrity of the position solution and may improve the accuracy.