Nuvi 200 on airplane

As an infrequent flyer, I had occasion to fly recently and was looking
forward to using my gps onboard to see where I was, how fast, and how high
I was flying. Or at least try to. I checked and the airline (Southwest)
allowed gps onboard above 10000 ft.
I was disappointed when the Nuvi would not contact any satellites while in
flight. I tried several times to no avail.
Have any of you successfully used a gps in-flight?

Steve
southiowa

--
There is no such thing as a silly question;
just silly people asking questions.

Steve.IA wrote:

Because the topic isn't special to Garmin you'll find lots of discussion
about it in sci.geo.satellite-nav. Mostly it's about what airline staff will
or won't allow.

Years ago I asked a stewardess and the answer came back that I wasn't
allowed to play with my GPS but could go and see the pilot playing with his.
You may guess this was long before 9/11.

Some GPSs have difficulty with the restricted signal inside a plane, or with
the unexpected speed or altitude (wrt usual ground SatNav!). In my ancient
Garmin I could enter the altitude as a first approximation for it to work on
and that helped.

Mike.
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On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:05:38 +0000 (UTC), Steve.IA wrote:

Hotfixing helps. Turn it on while waiting to board, and sit near
windows. Get a lock and then shut off GPS just before you board. When
you turn it back on at altitude, it'll have a MUCH better idea of what
satellites it'll be able to lock on to. Also, the odds of getting much
without bascially having the unit no further away from a window than the
edge of the first tray table are very slim. Not enough arc of view
between the aluminum shadows to get enough satellites, generally...

--
56. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who
cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used
for target practice.
        --Peter Anspach's list of things to do as an Evil Overlord

Steve.IA wrote:
On a recent trip I made, I had to have my Garmin within 1 foot of the
window or I would get "No Satellites Found" message. It initially took
about ten minutes to get the first satellite lock.
Charles

Steve.IA wrote on Mar 24, 2010:

Yes I have, but in my experience it only works when the unit is held very
close to a window.

--
Mike Lane
UK North Yorkshire
email: mike_lane at mac dot com