Satellite settings for Garmin

[Martin Wiles]

I got a lovely Garmin Edge 500 from Santa and have been really pleased with it on my regular commute from Croydon to Leatherhead. Today I made my weekly commute into Kings Cross and I lost satellite reception around Brixton. When I did the set up, I changed the satellite position format to "British Grid", was this a schoolboy error? Does anyone else have problems getting a signal in the city or know what the correct satellite position format should be?

Many thanks for your help,

Martin.

[Ant]

Never had any issues picking up satellites in the city but then again I have never altered the default setting for postion. Sometimes it can take a couple of mins to acquire all satellites when you switch the Garmin on outside of the office but can't recall it ever dropping out mid ride. How do you know it dropped out - did you receive an error on the screen or something? Speed went to zero (if no dedicated speed/cadence sensor)?

[Martin Wiles]

Yes, it came up with a message saying the satellite signal was lost. It eventually recovered right at the end of my ride, but recorded only 3 miles of the 10 and as the crow flies (maybe I was on one of Boris' bike lanes in the sky!).

Any idea what the default setting is?

[Martin Wiles]

I have contacted Garmin support and their response is:

"There are many position formats to select. They are different for different purposes, but non of them is wrong.

Please find how to change position format on page 42 of owner's manual - http://static.garmincdn.com/pumac/Edge_500_OM_EN.pdf
The default setting should be hddd.mm.ss.s, but it is just one of the options."

So I will try that on the way home!

[Ant]

Weird - hopefully the setting change will sort it.

[Martin Wiles]

Worked perfectly, lesson learnt!

[Elliot M]

I am sure the position setting shouldn't affect satellite reception in any way, as it's just the format in which position coordinates are shown.

e. g. "British Grid" allows you to cross-reference your position again the Eastings/Northings coordinate system on a paper OS map.