Garmin eTrex Vista - USA/Europe

I have a Garmin eTrex Vista - made around 2006. It has the European
(Atlantic?) maps on it and works with no problems wherever I've been in
Europe.

I took it with me to California last week and it wouldn't even find any
satellites, let alone get a fix, even in clear open spaces, even with new
batteries etc. It's now working normally back in the UK.

Can anyone explain why? - or what I was doing wrong? Is there some in-built
licensing restriction that stops it working outside Europe? I thought a
'GPS' would at least find a 'Global Position' (ie co-ordinates) anywhere on
the globe.

Since returning to the UK I have downloaded IbycusUSA2.0 to my PC, and have
succeeded in transferring a couple of US way-points onto the eTrex, so it at
least accepts there is a world outside Europe!

I am wary of trying to change the base map as I have heard that the original
would be irrecoverable. Can anyone offer any guidance on this - eg can I
make a securitycopy of the current map to reload later?

On Sat, 21 Feb 2009 12:10:11 +0000, Ed Kolmogorov wrote:



How long did you leave it to 'find itself'? If it's not been used for a
very long time, or has been moved a long distance, all its 'shortcuts'
for knowing where it is are useless, and it has to start from scratch to
collect basic information from the satellites. This apparently can take
up to 1/2 hour, depending on the device, and whereabouts it breaks into
the sats' sequence of data transmission.

Did you open up the screen that gives information about acquiring
satellites? This will tell whether it has found any to listen to, and
providing there are some 'seen', it should eventually locate itself.

Keith

On Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:09:10 +0000, keith wrote

This happened with the last Garmin unit I bought. The first time I switched
it on it took so long to acquire a position that I thought it was faulty -
apparently its previous fix was somewhere in Taiwan (presumably where it had
been assembled).

--
Mike Lane
UK North Yorkshire

Thanks to all for the helpful replies and links.


I left it for at least an hour on each of two different days. The second
time I tried changing the time zone to Pacific in the hope that it might
look in a different section of the almanac for likely satellites - no
different. And when I tested it back here in UK it was still on Pacific and
found 5/6 sats quickly.



Yes, I opened that page, but got only hollow satellite bars - no solid ones
as I usually get.

I will have another opportunity to visit US again later this year so will
try the suggestions there.

Thanks again

EK

On Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:07:38 +0000, Ed Kolmogorov wrote:


One other possibility is to try a reset. We had a visitor with a Tom Tom
which didn't seem to want to know that it had arrived here - some 300
miles from 'home' (they'd used another on the way, so this one hadn't
kept itself 'current'). A reset and leaving for 1/4 hour outside made it
wake up!

Only other thing I can think of - was the area where you left it closed
in with buildings? Can get strange interference from 'bounces' if there
are too many high obstructions around.

Keith