garmin vista drifts, odometer increases

[gitarmac]

 

I just got a factory refurbished one yesterday. At first I thought it was really neat, then I noticed the backlight only worked so far. I remember reading about that so I checked for updates. The factory refurbished unit was not updated apparently. It seemed to fix the problem.

 

Then I noticed the drifting and wandering while still. It may have done this all along, I don't know. I vaguely remember reading something about that as well.

 

I upgraded the chipset, whatever that means, and it seemed ok. Today I notice it is doing it again! It got worse with the compass off. I had it hooked to the computer but I unhooked it to get my phone to call garmin.

 

Now it seems to be OK. I plugged it back in, still seems ok.

 

OPPs, spoke too soon, it thinks I'm moving again!!

 

WTH!!!! I am on hold and the hold time is long but I'm going to hold out! Makes the odometer, or the track log for that matter, pretty useless.

 

Come to think about it, it makes it pretty useless for anything!!

 

What kind of bug is this!

[+TotemLake]

Drift is inevitable in any GPS unit. The odometer reads this as distance travelled because it doesn't know any better. What you need to do, is to edit the track on your map program to gain the near correct odometer reading by editing out the drift data points.

 

Btw, the drift is due to the ever changing geometry of the satellites and the calculation of the timing of the signal is not going to remain constant.

Edited September 18, 2009 by TotemLake

[gitarmac]

It is sitting beside my venture, my venture says I have gone 21 feet, I walked from outside to inside.

 

The vista says I have gone .14 miles!!!11 Over one 10th of a mile!!! It says I have been moving for over 3 minutes!

 

It's much worse when plugged into the computer. At first I thought it was because the cord was interfering with the electric compass but then it started just setting there.

 

 

Just got off the horn with garmin. They had me do a master reset, it seems ok so far. I will try it out over the weekend and compare it with my venture hc.

Edited September 18, 2009 by gitarmac

[+hogrod]

It's much worse when plugged into the computer. At first I thought it was because the cord was interfering with the electric compass but then it started just setting there.

 

Thats because your Indoors, you will get allot more wandering around. after you did the master reset you should have took the unit outside and let it sit in an open area for 20-30mintues sometimes new units can act a bit flaky if you just start trying to use them inside your house.

[+Searching_ut]

Let it sit outside with a clear view of the sky for a bit to collect good almanac data. It might help, but all GPS units drift as others have mentioned. The different companies seem to change the filtering of the units from time to time which changes behavior somewhat, but there always seems to be trade offs. Too much filtering, the unit doesn't record movement at slow speeds. Too little filtering, the unit shows movement when none took place.

 

As an interesting side note, program your unit to record track points at set intervals say 10 seconds or so, put it down and come back and look at your track several hours later. You'll see the unit wandered all over the place without you.