Acquiring Satellites

How's the weather? I've noticed that heavy fog or even light rain tends to throw off my satellite acquisition.

In addition, are you moving when acquiring? That definitely increases acquisition time for me dramatically. It takes even longer if I'm moving at varying speeds (i.e. consistent highway speed gives me a lock on signals much sooner than stop-and-go city driving).

We had a similar problem with one of the Nuvi 50's.

I saved the current.gpx from the GPS to a laptop and did a factory reset. Then copied the current.gpx back to the unit.

Problem has not reoccurred and have no idea what caused it.

It couldn't hurt to do a factory reset as suggested by the other user!

Have you tried it outside the car? Some cars have metalized glass which interferes with reception.

If i do a factory reset will that do anything to my POI's or my saved places?

All good suggestions. Try a rest and then standing out side with clear skies and no buildings blocking. One it syncs the first time, it's easier for it to find a satellite.

All good suggestions. Try a rest and then standing out side with clear skies and no buildings blocking. One it syncs the first time, it's easier for it to find a satellite.

A master reset will not do anything to your POI's.
But it will delete your favorites and any tweaked settings you made.

Back up your Favorites before you do the reset, then after reset make your tweaked settings again.

Below are instructions on how to backup and restore favorites.

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/36164

Note: Many of us rename the backed up current.gpx file to temp.gpx when restoring it to the Nuvi. Article suggests naming it current1.gpx.
Either name will work for you.

I use a TomTom, not a Garmin, so the following comment may be completely irrelevant.

With my TomToms, I periodically download a file that contains updated information on the locations of GPS satellites, providing corrections for the drifting away from ideal that occurs. That speeds up the acquisition process, and if it has been a long time since the file has been updated, it may take quite a bit longer to get a fix.

With my GO LIVE 1535 unit that includes a cell phone for traffic info, I get these updated files automatically via broadcast info. However, with my older XXL540, which has no internal cell phone, I have to connect the GPS to my computer periodically and download the updated file, otherwise the XXL540 takes progressively longer to obtain a fix.

Your Garmin may or may not have an equivalent function - I really don't know. However, if it does, you may want to check if its satellite data file is up-to-date.

- Tom -

You did not mention how long your unit is off between uses. If it is beyond just a very few hours the system takes a bit longer, as the some of the position and motion data must be considered to be stale. Longer delays than that hurt more. So does a material change in position since the last time it was on. So does obstructed sky view. Worse yet is a changing sky view obstruction.

So, for an example, running the GPS a week ago, then hopping an airliner today and turning on the GPS while it is driving along a twisty mountain road in canyons a thousand miles away from the most recent fix would be a strong challenge. Depending on model and luck, you could get a quick fix, but you could easily get none for a half hour--even though the self same model could happily track down the same road if it started with a solid lock on the available satellites for long enough to refresh the required satellite information.

While it may be more trouble than the improvement is worth to you, making a habit of taking the unit outside daily to a position with low obstruction, not moving, and turning on the unit, and keeping it on for a few minutes after it got an initial position should give you consistently reasonable acquisition times in most locations with most units. If your surroundings provide unusually bad obstructions or reflections (and hence multipath trouble) even this might not be enough.

I asked Garmin support about this problem with my 1350 and they advised doing a software re-install before doing a reset. That way no info will be lost. It seemed to help.

They also advised not moving for at least several minutes to help get a signal.