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Garmin Monterra Compass Mis-calibrated


yogazoo

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Mine is still in my possesion it still as of yet hase correct compass orientation. But I did find out if you are driving down the road above 40 mph the compass will be correct. But if you go slower it will bounce back and forth and if you stop it gies to about 60 degrees off. I still use it to find caches. But yes I DO want them to fix it

It should require a lot lower speed than that. On my eTrex 30,it switches from mag compass to GPS compass at walking speeds. On my phone app (CacheSense) the developer specifies that he switches from mag to GPS at 3 mph. I'm pretty sure the '30 switches at a little lower speed, like maybe 2 mph. It's not that easy to hit a steady 3 mph in the brush. I can tell when it's time to calibrate the mag compass by noting the heading while walking and then stopping. If the heading changed when stopped, the mag compass needed to be calibrated. That was something I had to do several times per day when I first got it a couple years ago but they fixed it within a few months with firmware updates. I hardly ever have to calibrate the compass now.

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Thanks for that important addition JohnCNA. At driving speeds and speeds over a certain, lowish threshold. I'm not sure what that low number is on the Monterra.

 

It's like the movie Speed with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. As long as you search for your cache and maintain a speed above 3 miles an hour your fine. Below that and your compass BLOWS UP! :bad:

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Thanks for that important addition JohnCNA. At driving speeds and speeds over a certain, lowish threshold. I'm not sure what that low number is on the Monterra.

 

It's like the movie Speed with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. As long as you search for your cache and maintain a speed above 3 miles an hour your fine. Below that and your compass BLOWS UP! :bad:

Odd coincidence that you have mentioned a movie at this point in the thread, as I am just beginning to wonder, based on the compass becoming correct at 40mph, if Garmin has tied into a video camera frame timer and skewed their projected compass point distance by a factor of 1/29.97 ??

 

Edit: But first it seemed that the 59 foot/sec track point spacing at 40mph might be tied into the old sticky compass pointer issues in plain old ground zero geocaching.

Edited by 39_Steps
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On the compass issue if you download the Geocache app from the play store you can use the compass in that app pretty good. It is not perfect maybe 2 degrees off but usable. And if you use your phone as a hot spot you can Geocache any where you want pretty easily.

 

That's just weird that a third party application works. Does it drift like the stock application does? Which Compass app?

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Not ever any Email reply (if replied at all ) from Garmin did help, not ever did they listen and they must have hand 100.000 of Emails the last couple of years.

It's the bast maker of Gps hardware, it's the worst company for software and helpdesk ever.

The fact they swap a new defective units for another doesn't make it better, because the unit should be working from the beginning.

 

But the CEO, you really expect a reasonable answer? LoL

Edited by splashy
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My experience with the beta email addresses (e.g. oregonbeta@garmin.com, montanabeta@garmin.com) has been great. I've offered detailed issue reports over the years and Garmin software engineers have usually been very responsive. They might not always write back but many times the bug reported in an email has shown up as fixed in subsequent firmware releases.

 

It's all in how you write the email. Get to the heart of the issue with as much detail and specifics about the issue as you can. Simply stating you have a problem might be helpful but it would be more helpful to send them a specific gpx file that causes the issue, or describe what screens or menus are being accessed or what your settings are. Newer unit's have a "system.xml" on the internal garmin folder. It logs the details of system exceptions and crashes. It's always helpful to attach that file if reporting a seemingly random crash or boot failure.

 

To my understanding Garmin does test their products before release but it's impossible to test them with every file and configuration users across the globe will employ. On the other hand, it's perplexing why this compass issue that was apparently discovered before release persists months afterward. We can speculate all day long but we should get an answer before the month is out, so hang in there.

Edited by yogazoo
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No, I don't expect to hear from the CEO, but it certainly didn't cost me anything but time to send it off. The beta email got returned as undeliverable so not sure if they have it set up at all or I don't have access to that address. Only issue I've had is the pointer issue. No crashes, no other failures - just the pointer. I'm not sure why their new top of the line unit isn't receiving updates as quick and fast as the Montana did unless they have NO idea on how to approach this problem. That's a bit disheartening if that's truly the case. Looking forward to ANYTHING that might address the problem.

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Oh well I just opened a new forum discussion on the Garmin website asking the question once agian

Since there is no Garmin Forum Thread for the Monterra, you won't get much in the way of Garmin eyes on your query. I'd suggest sending a complaint email to Product Support.

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As far as I know, Garmin eyes are more likely to view this forum than the Garmin forum.

 

I know Garmin's silence on the Monterra is getting a bit frustrating.

 

+1

 

It feels like they've abandoned the unit, which I know they haven't. With all the fast and furious updates the Montana received, this is a bit of a letdown.

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This is a bit off-topic, but I've never been able to find an area in the Garmin forums dedicated to handheld GPS units. Is there such a thing, and if so, where is it?

 

Nope which is really odd because they have dedicated forums to other types of GPS units like the Edge. Maybe they use this as their defacto forum for GPSr's?????

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I cannot confirm that the Monterra works correctly with 3rd party compass apps. I did try a few (only free ones though), but dropped those immediately which included adware. Of the few that remained, and included some sort of bearing indicator, none did work. You _may_ be able to calibrate the compass, and then it _may_ point to north, but at least after some time or some sharp turns of the unit, it begins to slowly deviate from true north and is off again for as much as 45 degrees. I finally sent it to Garmin to have it replaced by a Montana, as explained in the http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=317606 (Garmin Monterra - Not so good first impressions) thread. It's been nearly a week since they have my unit, and I did not see nor hear anything. So be warned, there seems to be no fix, no replacement, no money back.

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In the Us some sellers take the gps back up to 12 month, in the rest of the world Garmin is ALWAYS taken the unit back (or swap) if the hardwareproblem is their fault.

 

What is happening on the moment only Garmin knows, some possibilities;

They are testing new software before releasing

They have new hardware and are testing and waiting to swap to be sure this 'new' unit works as it should. (with the Montana some owners needed to swap 4 times)

They have no clue how to fix it this time

 

The fact nothing seems to happen is very not Garmin, normally with new models there was a row of software updates and if the series was faulty they where swapping for a better good working unit.

 

Fact is, the unit seems works more or less as long as you don't geocache or use the compass. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

They has a bad experience with Android before, the so called Nuviphone, this thing vanished after a few month on the market.

Edited by splashy
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Are you referring to the approximately 60 degrees difference between the arrow and your destination? If so, appears to work for me after a couple hours this morning. The map still has a tendency to spin when not moving (or moving slowly in the car) but not nearly at the rate it used to.

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Mine is as well but there are some minor annoying issues that are either bugs or me not being able to figure it out. On my Montana, I can navigate to a set of coordinates or a waypoint I manually enter and have the distance to destination set and counting down. Can't on the Monterra right now or haven't figured out how to do it. It works great with the geocaching compass profile, but only with the original coordinates associated with the cache. Same thing with a stage of a multi. Only way I can see it is to have the stages dropped down from their entry screen. The geocaching compass only counts down from the original coord posting and the small dashboard (4 displays with the compass underneath) has no numbers in distance to destination that ever display (do think that one's a known issue).

 

Arrows and distance still hold true now. Routing has been great and battery life has been solid but less than the Montana. Nice to not NEED the mount to hear spoken directions.

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Have not touched my GPS in a few days any New updates in the last 2 Weeks

There is a GOA 1.19 update which you might want to install. They are also working on another but I have no idea when it will be released.

Edited by DRTBYK
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I've had my Monterra for about two weeks now, right after the 1.18 update came out. It has been working pretty well, especially since the compass was resolved. However, in the last two days, I can't get it to point "up" on the map when I'm navigating to a cache except when I'm driving. If I'm walking, the compass is pointed either 90 degrees left or right or even worse, today it was pointed 180 degrees so basically the map was backwards - as I'm walking towards the cache. I have the latest 1.19 update so I'm not sure what the heck is going on with this thing. I tried calibrating the compass while I was in the field but that was an effort in futility. I just calibrated it now so I'll see how it performs tomorrow...

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The driving feature on my gps does not work. Anyone else having this issue? I bought the Topo 100k version, and its saying maps do not have routable roads in this area. Does that mean I need city Navigator?

That, 24K maps from Garmin, or OSM maps. 100K topo maps are NOT routable.

 

Thanks, I am still learning a lot about this system :).

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