Etrex not working in Thailand?

[+Rainwater]

A friend of mine was going tp visit Thailand and bought an Etrex here in the the US. He just wanted to plot his points and not use the maps but it would never lock onto any sats over there the entire week. Anyone know why it might not have worked? I thought it should have at least been able to lock onto the sats and give him UTM locations and store waypoints. Any info? he is going back in a few months and would really like to plot his travels.

 

Does he need to turn WAAS off for it to be able to lock onto sats first or any other settings that need to be off?

Edited March 20, 2011 by Rainwater

[+webscouter.]

Sometimes when travelling long distances it can take 45 minutes or more to lock on. Just put it outside on a patio until it locks. They used to have a setting in the menu to reset the location using the basemap.

 

Also make sure it has locked recently before you go overseas. That makes sure you have a current almanac

[+Chrysalides]

When I turned on my eTrex Venture HC in Tokyo, after last using it in California, it couldn't lock on initially. This is partly because it didn't expect to be suddenly moved so far, and partly because reception was poor due to tall buildings.

 

I can't remember the exact steps, but I clicked on the base map to an approximate location of where I was, told the eTrex to assume I was there, and it locked on shortly after that.

 

I can't seem to find the same function on the Oregon, and I can't seem to find any reference to that function online. Give it a try to see if it works for you. I hope I didn't imagine it If all else fails, just leave it somewhere with a good view of the sky for up to 1/2 hour.

 

Edit : oh WAAS won't make any difference. There won't be any WAAS correction data in Thailand, but having it on won't slow down the time to lock.

Edited March 20, 2011 by Chrysalides

[+GrateBear]

I have a hard time buying into the idea that a GPS unit takes a long time to lock onto satellites after being moved a long distance. I've gone from Chicago to HI and it picked up sats very quickly. Same thing going from coast to coast and long distances from north to south (and back). I'd like to know what the required distance is for it to take 45 minutes to pick sats up.

[+kwcahart]

I flew from Houston to Manchester, UK and my Oregon 450 locked on very quickly.

[+Chrysalides]

I flew from California to Singapore and it took a few minutes for my Oregon 300 to figure out where it is. Traveling within California, it normally takes seconds.

 

Flying from Tokyo to Singapore it took almost no time at all to lock on.

 

It might have something to do with the chipset. My eTrex is fairly old (2008 vintage) and this happened in 2009. I'm sorry GrateBear has a hard time believing it. Without any insight into how Garmin's firmware works I can only tell you what I observed, and the same observation has been made by others. Perhaps it only affects some eTrex units. Perhaps a firmware update might fix it.

Edited March 20, 2011 by Chrysalides

[guggie]

I flew from California to Singapore and it took a few minutes for my Oregon 300 to figure out where it is. Traveling within California, it normally takes seconds.

 

Flying from Tokyo to Singapore it took almost no time at all to lock on.

 

It might have something to do with the chipset. My eTrex is fairly old (2008 vintage) and this happened in 2009. I'm sorry GrateBear has a hard time believing it. Without any insight into how Garmin's firmware works I can only tell you what I observed, and the same observation has been made by others. Perhaps it only affects some eTrex units. Perhaps a firmware update might fix it.

 

It has to do with downloading the ephemeris needed by the GPS so that it knows what satellites are visible in your area. If you've moved far enough from your last location, then satellites showing on your screen are likely not visible and the GPS has to find the signal from any other random satellite, download the full table of data needed to find other satellites, then find them one by one. That is what the delay is.

[+GrateBear]

I flew from California to Singapore and it took a few minutes for my Oregon 300 to figure out where it is. Traveling within California, it normally takes seconds.

 

Flying from Tokyo to Singapore it took almost no time at all to lock on.

 

It might have something to do with the chipset. My eTrex is fairly old (2008 vintage) and this happened in 2009. I'm sorry GrateBear has a hard time believing it. Without any insight into how Garmin's firmware works I can only tell you what I observed, and the same observation has been made by others. Perhaps it only affects some eTrex units. Perhaps a firmware update might fix it.

Well, you did say it took "minutes" as opposed to the 45 minutes some have stated. A few minutes I can understand, but beyond that, hmmm. Maybe it has something to do with the brand?

If the geocaching community would like to take up a collection to fly me to the other side of the world, I would be very glad to run a test on the two different units I have

[jholly]

I flew from California to Singapore and it took a few minutes for my Oregon 300 to figure out where it is. Traveling within California, it normally takes seconds.

 

Flying from Tokyo to Singapore it took almost no time at all to lock on.

 

It might have something to do with the chipset. My eTrex is fairly old (2008 vintage) and this happened in 2009. I'm sorry GrateBear has a hard time believing it. Without any insight into how Garmin's firmware works I can only tell you what I observed, and the same observation has been made by others. Perhaps it only affects some eTrex units. Perhaps a firmware update might fix it.

Well, you did say it took "minutes" as opposed to the 45 minutes some have stated. A few minutes I can understand, but beyond that, hmmm. Maybe it has something to do with the brand?

If the geocaching community would like to take up a collection to fly me to the other side of the world, I would be very glad to run a test on the two different units I have

After moving my 76CSx nearly 1000 miles it took a while (15-20 minutes?) for it to again lock on. The Stored ephemeris was completely wrong. It needs to find and identify a satellite, redown load the ephemeris almanac data to again lock on the satellites. Without the correct ephemeris information the receiver has no way of knowing what satellites are in view. I do recall the first time I fired it up and after the long moves it gave me the option of just letting it search or I could select an approximate location. Apparently an approximate location helps it lock on quicker. If it or my Nuvi have been off for over a week it takes longer for it to lock on than if it was only off a day. I attribute this to out of date ephemeris data.

Edited March 25, 2011 by jholly

[+Chrysalides]

Well, you did say it took "minutes" as opposed to the 45 minutes some have stated. A few minutes I can understand, but beyond that, hmmm. Maybe it has something to do with the brand?

If the geocaching community would like to take up a collection to fly me to the other side of the world, I would be very glad to run a test on the two different units I have

The Oregon took around 5 to 10 minutes to acquire lock when moving from California to Singapore.

 

The eTrex Venture HC took 15 minutes and still did not get a lock. Looking at the satellite page, it doesn't look like it is about to do so any time soon. At that point I gave up, went to the base map and told it to assume it is at another location, and it acquired lock within 2 minutes.

[+splashy]

After a long distance travel, lay the gps on a quiet place without ANY moving objects or interference between the gps and to the sky, remember you might be seen by potential thieves and you might be an easy target, since you're not the only one doing this, we 'all' need a gpsfix before driving away.

Maybe the car in Singapore had window tinting foil, thus blocking out all signals.

[+Red90]

The older style units do not deal as well with a big move as the newer ones. If it is a basic etrex it will take longer than the newer units. If that still does not work, give it a master reset.

 

Go to the satellite page and find the option for auto-locate position. It will then scan through all satellites quickly looking for signals. You must have a good view of the sky as these are not very sensitive units.