Geocaching in Poland

[+Glen Falcon Terrors]

Shortly before leaving UK, I loaded a number of caches on to my etrex10 GPS device, with the intention of finding caches in Poland whilst on holiday.

 

But now that I'm here whilst the caches are visible on GPS, they appear as though I am still in UK - i.e. show distance over 1000 miles away. Worse still, the Compass feature is not working.

 

Note sure what to do apart from scream!

 

Any help / hints to resolve would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

[+cheech gang]

When you go a great distance with the GPSr turned off it will take some time for it to sync with the satellites at the new location. Take the gps outside, turn it on, and leave it alone until it stops seeking the satellites. Then you will be good to go. It may take 5 or 10 minutes.

[+Lineman101]

I had the same issue while in Tahiti. We are from California and it took the etrex 20 a good 10 minutes to lock on.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

When you go a great distance with the GPSr turned off it will take some time for it to sync with the satellites at the new location. Take the gps outside, turn it on, and leave it alone until it stops seeking the satellites. Then you will be good to go. It may take 5 or 10 minutes.

 

I have experienced this in quite a few countries. A GPS will use it's last known location to obtain a satellite lock. If that location is far from where you're currently located it can take awhile. I have on a few occasions had the GPS tell me that it can't find satellites and asked to "keep trying". It'll eventually get a lock, and once it does, the GPS will behave just as it does at home.

 

A couple of things I will do: I'll turn on my GPS as soon as I land or get out of the airport and will usually have a lock before I get to wherever I'll be staying in country.

 

If you've got a window seat you can sometimes get a satellite lock while inflight. It's kind of cool to watch the map fly by and see exactly where you are during the trip. It's also cool to see that you're average speed is over 500 mph. If you turn on the GPS a few times during the flight it will sync fairly quickly once you get to your destination.

 

 

[+Viajero Perdido]

Some GPS units have a "new location" feature hidden away somewhere. Activate that, give it a general location (select on map, choose waypoint, etc.), and it'll tell the GPS chip roughly where on earth you are.

 

This'll speed things up, because it'll only search for satellites that should be overhead at the moment, rather than all of them.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Some GPS units have a "new location" feature hidden away somewhere. Activate that, give it a general location (select on map, choose waypoint, etc.), and it'll tell the GPS chip roughly where on earth you are.

 

This'll speed things up, because it'll only search for satellites that should be overhead at the moment, rather than all of them.

 

It's probably worth mentioning that one of the advantages of using a cell phone is that, with aGPS, it uses cellular tower signals to obtain an approximate location which can significantly decrease the amount of time to get a satellite lock. Note that the the use of cellular signals does not improve accuracy one a satellite lock as been obtained as cell tower triangulation, by itself, doesn't even come close to the accuracy of a GPS with satellite signals. Some sites indicate that cell tower triangulation, even under optional conditions, may only accurate to 1/4 of a mile.

 

 

[+SeattleWayne]

How's Poland? I want to visit Poland but just don't know when.