GO 910 - Strange thing happened.

ReubenZ · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:30 pm Post subject: GO 910 - Strange thing happened.

I'm back from a holiday in Spain where I visited Valencia, Zaragoza and Barcelona.

On collecting the hire car from the airport I (as I usually do) attached the GO 910 mount to the windscreen, drove out of the garage and waited for my GO to get a satellite connection............and waited.............and waited. After about 3-4 minutes (very unusual) still no satellite lock.

I changed to the satellite reception view and saw that there were 6-8 satellites showing on the screen with varying strengths, although all had grey bars not blue ones.

I thought it was the car windscreen, so I unhooked the GO from the mount and carried it our of the car. After a couple of minutes still the same. I switched on and off. Still the same. So I tried my trusty paper clip and reset the GO.........once.........twice. Still the same result. 6+ satellites with grey bars. So I decided to drive on...........and on.........and on. Still the same.

I finally gave up, drove to the centre of Valencia and using my inbuilt GPS navigated to my hotel with no map, in the dark and two kids shouting their head off in the back in about 20 minutes. Phew.

When in the hotel room (on the window ledge) and also in the vast open area in front of it I again tried my luck with the same result. After giving up for the 2nd time I tried to go to sleep thinking of the trips on Spanish roads I had awaiting me.

I 'woke' up earlier than the rest of the pack and tried switching on our beloved Tommy again before giving up (for the 3rd time). I immediately switched to the satellite reception view. The satellite reception bars started appearing, 1, 2, 3 then 4 in grey then wonder of wonders immediately in blue..............strange I though, but they kept on increasing in number and in size....in blue. And this was from my hotel bed and not from near the window. I was not convinced. I switched off and on and again everything worked fine.

What could have happened ? Did anyone experience this anywhere ? Can this happen again ?

P.S. I switched Tommy on again on the flight back home when above the African coast and it immediately locked onto 8-10 satellites......from the aeroplane window.

Sorry for writing in length but I felt I had to share my experience with you all.

Robin2 · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:38 pm Post subject:

When you move several hundred miles, the first fix can sometimes take as long as 10 minutes. Perhaps you didn't wait long enough
Robin
_________________
TomTom One v3 Europe, Navcore 7.903, Western Europe 835.2420
TomTom Go 720 Europe, Navcore 8.351, Western Europe 855.2884
Satmap Active 10
Plus a lot of other PDA GPS kit, seldom used

ReubenZ · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:51 pm Post subject:

I forget to mention that I downloaded the latest GPS fix more than once when the GO did not lock on. I also drove around with the GPS on and it still did not get a fix. As I mentioned it got the fix immediately on the plane back home.

Andy_P · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 4:26 pm Post subject:

Did you go to Valencia for Las Fallas, ReubenZ? Fantastic times!

I was there last week and took my TomTom for the first time (was going to try using it walking).
I actually didn't bother to take it out (I'm getting to know the place quite well now), but did switch it on at the airport, because I wanted to try the trick of holding it near the window during the flight, and had heard it may have trouble getting it's first lock at 500MPH!

Sure enough, I found it sat there for ages with loads of signal strength but all the bars greyed out.
A reset didn't help either, but eventually it crept back to normal.

No idea why, unless there was so much smoke in the air from the "burning" that it obscured the satellites! Laughing

Flinx · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:53 pm Post subject:

you mention a satellite reception view. i also have a 910 and have not been able to find this. where in the menu is it?

mikealder · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 6:00 pm Post subject:

Just tap the sat strength meter in the lower right corner of the screen, followed by the small sat strength meter on the next page (its on the right about one third of the way down the screen - Mike

Andy_P · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 6:07 pm Post subject:

It used to have it's own menu item ("Configure GPS") but it got removed in v7 software.

ReubenZ · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 6:19 pm Post subject:

ReubenZ · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 6:30 pm Post subject:

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