Nuvi 260 (satellite page)

I would have him try to recalibrate the touchscreen and see if he can access the satellite window then.

The Nuvi 260 can not access the Satelite screen.
All you have is the bar scale.

Somebody now's why it is possible on some model and not on other's???

Because that's the way they did it, I guess.

I don't see any particular usefulness for it anyway. Why do you care which satellites your unit is receiving at any one time. All I care is that I have a good signal, and I can see that with the satellite strength indicator on the main screen. I don't need to know the exact number of satellites, only the quality of the signal. When I have 4 or 5 bars, I know I have good reception.

I don't think the Satellite page is available on any of the nüvi 2x0s. Please note that the wide screen models have a different firmware version.

You have on that page more then receiving # of satelite.
You have the altitude, your speed and your position,
And some peaple use it....

I've used it on my 660 to give me my current lat/lon position. It came in handy when I wanted to notify the POI file author of store locations for a new Target store and a new Starbuck's store in my neighborhood. I was able to give him the street addresses and the lat/lon information right at the front doors of both stores.

No satellite page, but from the map just tap on the current location and a window will pop up with the latitude, longitude and altitude.

Personally I prefer the satellite page my Nuvi 350 has over the taping the current location since you must constantly tap for an update while that satellite page is continuously updated with new lat,lat and altitude.

Even my 8 year old, basic yellow eTrex has the Sat page. Why Garmin neglected to display it on some of the nüvis is baffling to me.

I guess they figured that you don't need to be screwing around with that while driving. You don't generally drive while using your eTrex, so it didn't matter there. It just seems like such a silly thing to gripe about.

I guess you shouldn't disagree with this guy. Seemed like a reasonable question to me, but...

I'm assuming that ACCURACY is what you really want in a GPSR. You can have a great signal from one sattelite, that little indicator will show you all the bars it can, but have a lousy signal from four other sats. and you're not going to get the preformance you expect. These things (GPSr) are showing your position by triangulating off of sattelites that are in a known position.

The more sattelites you are receiving from and the beeter the signal from each, the more accurate you distances and location will be. The sat screen not only shows the strength of signal from each sattelite, but also the level of accuracy (accurate to within x feet.

As I said before my 260 uses a bar graph for strenght. Due to lack of knowledge on the models that have the other screen can you adjust your GPS to use differant satellites or is it just for seeing how many satellites you are receiving and telling you how strong your signal is? On my 260 when I turn it on, the bars are red when looking for satellites, when it has found them they turn green.

I don't know that the satelite screen is all that useful. However, it is fun to see what kind of accuracy, how many and which satelites the gps is locked into.

I couldn't of said it better my self.
the 260 is a budgeted firmware. it can still show you lat & lon I use it all the time it just does it differently than the 600,700, & 800 series.

The sat. screen just shows how man satellites you are receiving signal from, how strong each is on a bar graph, where each is and where you are on a "compass" display and the level of accuracy. Maybe not that usefull for most, but what most people think is "lag" in map updating is usually more of position variance / margin of error. If you only have signal from 4 sats and weak from all, your device won't be as accurate as you want and this screen will show you that.

There is no way to change which satellites your device uses. It doesn't "lock on" to one or two either. If it can get a signal, it will use it.

Here's a link for some screen shots from my nuvi 750. You can see where the more sats you have signal from, typically, the better the accuracy over stronger signals from fewer.
http://s204.photobucket.com/albums/bb242/fletch895/SatScreen...

The sat page is there on the Nuvi 200W.. just touch the signal bars, count seven chimpanzees and release. It's interesting to see exactly how differing locations affect signal strength. If only my cell phone had a similar screen!

When I have 4 or 5 bars, my 260 is dead on. since I can't do anything about the signal strength anyway, knowing more than that is unnecessary to me. I guess some of you just want all the stuff on a GPS you can find.

All I wanted when I bought it was a good GPS that gets me from here to there, not playing music, not making phone calls, or anything else to distract me from the road. My 260 does that, does it well, and all without a satellite screen. Different strokes and all that....

I liked that screen over the simple signal strength bars. When I have signal lock problems, I can easily see where the satellites are and tell if they are currently too low, or in a direction blocked by some obstacle.

Since the 2x0w have that feature, I see no reason why it shouldn't easily be added to the 2x0.

You see, I have it in my 250W and once in a while I use it.
The question was only Why the 250W and not the 260.

I too, just got what was needed. The rest of what came with the 750 is just extra that's fun to play with once in a while. Some of it's even pointless (MP3 player / pict. viewer) and will never be used. Have other "toys" for those purposes!

As freysman said above, just press on the satellite bars on the Go To - View Map page. The satellite page pops right up. At least it does on my 260W...

It isn't on the Nuvi 260, only on the 260W. The wide versions have different GPS chip, different firmware and software. You can hold your finger on the indicator 'til the cows come home and it won't get you a thing.

Didn't realize there was that much of a difference between 260 and 260W. So much for the Garmin spec page. It shows only difference between the two is with the display. Thanks for the correction!

I also assumed they had the same chip & software.
Anyone care to provide specs for both?

Until I got an eTrex I used my nuvi 350 for Geocaching where you need to know your exact position to find the cache so the satellite display was very useful.

I don't have a spec sheet, but the widescreen 2xx have a Sirf GPS chip, while my 260 has the MTK. I imagine that the operating software has to be different for different resolution needed for the wider screen. I don't know why Garmin made them with different GPS chips, but they did.

Thanks Claude for the seven second bars tip . . . I probably don't need it driving down the road, but for geocaching, it might come in handy.

I wish the manual was better . . . just a "quick start" guide. Anyone know of a more complete version? .pdf download?

The manual that comes with the 260 is horrendous.

Somebody stateed to go garmin website and download a detailed manual. Unfortunately it was bad information.
It is the same crappy manual..........