Garmin Etrex Venture

[+Birdsong-n-Bud]

Hi everyone,

 

We have 3 Garmin GPSr's. One is being naughty.

 

The yellow eTrex is fine

The Rino is fine

 

But my slightly more expensive (and favorite) Venture is causing me trouble. I would be interested in learning if anyone else with a Venture experiences this or if this signifies a need for the warranty repairs to kick in.

 

The arrow points the wrong way most of the time! As a matter of fact, it is usually 180 degrees from what it should be! We have to watch the distance-determining numbers to see if they increase or decrease, and ignore the arrow. And it helps to change to the map screen to know what direction to go in -- and follow the line's direction. We do understand that turning around causes confusion to the GPS until you move forward, but this goes far beyond that. This happens when going long distances in a straight line with no sky obstructions.

 

None of my other GPSr's do this. Does anyone else have this problem with the Venture? Am just wondering if I should mail in for repairs or if this is just par for the course.

 

Thanks for any insight.

 

P.S. Once, the Venture also showed a bunch of horizontal lines on the screen instead of a clear picture, but that seemed to be a one-time phenomenon that seemed to be corrected by changing the batteries. Am also curious if that is normal.

Edited April 4, 2005 by Birdsong-n-Bud

[+the hermit crabs]

Probably the best thing would be to email Garmin tech support.

 

You could try doing a master reset on it. I did that with one of our Vistas when it was having compass-direction problems and issues with acquiring satellites; it helped a lot.

 

The reset is done by shutting the unit off, and then pressing and holding these four buttons simultaneously for at least 5 seconds: Page, Find, Click Stick, and Power.

***Note: on the Vista, when you do this you get a prompt asking you if you are sure you want to erase all of your saved data. I just tried in on our Venture, to see if the reset sequence was the same -- and there was no "are you sure?" prompt. But all my waypoints are now gone . So if you have any waypoints or track logs that you want to keep, you should transfer them to EasyGPS or something similar before doing the reset.

 

Once you do this, you need to treat it like a brand-new unit -- you'll need to set it out in the open for about 20-minutes so it can re-acquire the complete satellite almanac.

 

Regarding the the horizontal bars on the display: I've seen it mentioned here several times, and I've seen it happen on our Venture occasionally too. As you mentioned, changing the batteries can fix it; I've also fixed it just by either rolling the batteries around in the compartment or just whacking the Venture in my hand. If they're persistent, though, I'd send it in for repairs.

[+Norwegian in Malmö]

Have a etrex summit, not a venture. The Venture is the other one with the compas right? If not ignore this listing.

 

Etrex uses the compass when you're not moving fast enough. Any speed above a certain limit and it uses the GPS signal to compute the direction. Have you tried setting the liimit lower? On summit you enter the set up menu > heading. You can adjust the speed limit (bad word, but the one that comes to mind) and time before returning to compass heading. You should also check to see that the north reference isn's way of (should be from a few deg. west to a few deg east)

[WH]

Try calibrating the electronic compass. That usually works for me when my arrow goes coo coo.

[+the hermit crabs]

Have a etrex summit, not a venture. The Venture is the other one with the compas right? If not ignore this listing.

The Venture does not have an electronic compass.

[Keystone]

I am moving this topic to the GPS Units and Software Forum.

[+axetowax]

We have a Venture and ours does the same thing. I just start walking a little bit faster and it seems to turn. In the meantime, I just watch the countdown to see if I am getting closer or not.

[+UKGeoCyclist]

I have a venture and a legend, and find this happens on both units, normally when I'm under tree cover, in any area of poor reception, or moving very slowly.

 

If I've left my normal compass at home, generally walk away at a brisk pace, turn around and come back at a brisk pace until the counter zero's out.

 

As axetowax said, when you pick up speed it generally sorts itself out.

 

Other times, I tend to ignore the arrow, and watch the distance count down, but most often, when I'm about 50-100m away and travelling at normal speed, I transfer the bearing that the GPS is giving to a normal baseplate compass and use that to keep a constant bearing until I reach a likely hiding place.

 

Adrian

[Neo_Geo]

Are y'all usin' the COURSE POINTER on the compass page? If so, switch to the bearing pointer (plain arrow). My Legend behaved the same way when I used the course pointer. I later learned (here in this forum) that the course pointer will do that.

 

[+mork]

Fresh eTrex Vista here with the same problem. We went for our first cache find tonight and boy were we ever confused .. didn't take too long before I had to stop blindly walkng in the direction the arrow pointed. As mentioned, our solution was to keep an eye on the distance and head in the opposite diretion.

 

As has been described here, it essentially pointed eactly opposite frequently. I just cheked and it is using bearing pointer and not the course pointer.

 

Is there a solution to this? I've only had the unit for a day and everything about it has impressed me, but this is a real show-stopper!

[+Birdsong-n-Bud]

Are y'all usin' the COURSE POINTER on the compass page? If so, switch to the bearing pointer (plain arrow).

 

We're using the big dark arrow with the solid line. Are we doing it wrong? Can you elaborate on the difference between the two? I know one mentions the way you should be going, and how far off course you are. But do we have something set wrong?

 

Thank you for all the insight. There is some sense of validation that ours is not the only one doing this.

[+UKGeoCyclist]

Guys,

As earlier states, this is a problem caused by moving very slowly when you get almost on top of the cache.

 

As you get closer to the cache there is natural tendency to slow down ... after all, the slower you go, the more accurate everything will be, yes?  Well, in fact, no.  Most GPS receivers (GPSr) relay on the GPS being in motion to work out the right direction to go in (it uses the GPS signal as a compass - although some GPSr do have a in-built compass).  Slowing down as you get nearer to the cache is not normally going to help you!

 

Take a look at This Link

 

Because the GPS uses your direction of motion to give a bearing to a waypoint, when you slow down to a near standstill, the GPS struggles to give a reliable bearing due to your movement being so little.

 

Try marking a waypoint at a landmark on your street, going to one end and telling the GPS to go to the waypoint just marked.

 

Try it when walking fast, cycling, and walking very slowly.

 

You should see a difference between the walking fast and walking very slowly, but it should be accurate when you cycle past.

 

Add into the equation tree cover, which degrades the GPS signal further due to the scattering effect of the tree canopy, and you see why the GPS is having difficulty.

 

Try taking a normal compass out, and transferring the bearing that the arrow is pointing to and transferring it to the compass, and estimate how far you need to walk by taking the distance reading from the GPS.

 

Even if the arrow is pointing the wrong way, the distance counter will still correctly count up as you move further around, and count down as you get closer.

 

Adrian

[+the hermit crabs]

Are y'all usin' the COURSE POINTER on the compass page? If so, switch to the bearing pointer (plain arrow).

 

We're using the big dark arrow with the solid line. Are we doing it wrong? Can you elaborate on the difference between the two? I know one mentions the way you should be going, and how far off course you are. But do we have something set wrong?

 

Thank you for all the insight. There is some sense of validation that ours is not the only one doing this.

Go to the Navigation page, and look at the options menu. The second item in that menu toggles between "Course Pointer" and "Bearing Pointer" -- make sure you're using "Bearing Pointer". (See page 17 of the manual for the Venture.)

[+mork]

as I noted earlier, I had this same problem in my first outing with the eTrex vista.

 

It seemd that the compass was acting up, but the distance measurements were updated with every step I took. also had good reception.

 

Being me, I hadn't read the manual. After flipping through it (and still having not read it) I have realized a few things which may be the culprit. This is all specific to the eTrex Vista, but I'm sure it shares things in common with the other eTrex models.

 

1) Compass must be callibrated!! I didn't realize this was needed with every battery changeout as the manual states. As a result, I have no reason to believe my internal compass was accurate.

 

2) When moving, the eTrex will use the change of your co-oridinates to determine the direction you are moving in. How fast does one need to go to be in this seemingly more reliable mode? It's optional and can be set under Setup -> Heading there is a "Auto-compass switch speed", mine is set at 16km/h by default. I think I will reduce this quite a bit. I don't expect I walk trails at more than 5km/h.

 

3) In the same option dialog there is the time it takes to switch to 'compass heading' when your speed falls under the above speed setting. Mine is at 90 seconds by default. I plan to lower this a lot. This means when I stop moving, it will wait 90 seconds before switching to the internal compass.

 

This weekend when I go out with the eTrex vista again I will do the obvious fix to #1 and tinker a bit with #2 and #3 and see if the problem persists.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions for these values?

[+mork]

2) When moving, the eTrex will use the change of your co-oridinates to determine the direction you are moving in. How fast does one need to go to be in this seemingly more reliable mode? It's optional and can be set under Setup -> Heading there is a "Auto-compass switch speed", mine is set at 16km/h by default. I think I will reduce this quite a bit. I don't expect I walk trails at more than 5km/h.

On second thought, I'll probably leave this value alone and tinker more with the time to switch to the internal compass.

 

Perhaps the problem was that it was still interpolating my orientation from position measurements when I was slowly walking and it would be preferable to use the internal compass when slowly walking. (?)

 

It is odd however that the compass did seem to be responsive and 'correct' but with a shift of 180 degrees. Why always in the exact opposite direction?

[+Birdsong-n-Bud]

As earlier states, this is a problem caused by moving very slowly when you get almost on top of the cache.

 

Actually, this is different than that. I am very aware of that phenomenon, but this is a different situation. It can happen when I am driving in the car (speed of the vehicle doesn't seem to make any difference), and it happens when I walk straight ahead with good speed under clear skies and no trees.

 

This is something hooie with the arrow that has nothing to do with turning around and confusing the compass like in a normal situation. My cheap yellow eTrex actually has a much more dependable arrow, strangely enough.