Garmin Etrex Vista

In message <[email hidden]>, CJA
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

I did a walk last weekend and recorded the track using my Etrex Vista.
A friend doing the same walk used another Garmin GPS (not sure of the
model) At the end of the walk mine said 11.2 miles whereas his said
10.6 miles. I assumed that mine was correct as it was the newer model
and I had recently been getting pretty good accuracy. (I had recently
done a hard reset and then allowed it re-collect the almanac.) When I
downloaded the track onto Memory Map there were 2/3, what I can only
describe as "spikes" where I appeared to have jumped in one direct than
jumped back. In fact at one point it looks as though I jumped over a
row of houses and then back again. Has anyone an explanation for this?
Were these simply gaps where I had lost the signal?

Have a look at:

http://www.cmtinc.com/gpsbook/index.htm

Chapter 10.

Regards
--
Neil Pugh

Neil Pugh said:

Have a look at:

http://www.cmtinc.com/gpsbook/index.htm

Excellent info, Neil - thanks!

Jim Ford

In message <[email hidden]>, Jim Ford
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Neil Pugh said:

Have a look at:
http://www.cmtinc.com/gpsbook/index.htm

Excellent info, Neil - thanks!

Jim Ford

For more general info see also:

http://gpsinformation.net/

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/gps/information/index.html

http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/wgarmin.htm

Regards
--
Neil Pugh

The message <[email hidden]>
from "CJA" <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

I did a walk last weekend and recorded the track using my Etrex Vista.
A friend doing the same walk used another Garmin GPS (not sure of the
model) At the end of the walk mine said 11.2 miles whereas his said
10.6 miles. I assumed that mine was correct as it was the newer model
and I had recently been getting pretty good accuracy. (I had recently
done a hard reset and then allowed it re-collect the almanac.) When I
downloaded the track onto Memory Map there were 2/3, what I can only
describe as "spikes" where I appeared to have jumped in one direct than
jumped back. In fact at one point it looks as though I jumped over a
row of houses and then back again. Has anyone an explanation for this?
Were these simply gaps where I had lost the signal?

I quite often get a veritable bomb blast! Last time, on Tuesday on An
Teallach between the two Munros - I think it goes with "Weak GPS
signals". One think I am sure of is that it is NOT a Memory Map bug.

I've written, with print-outs, to Garmin three times, and they won't answer.

Richard

CJA schreef:

Quoted message said:

I did a walk last weekend and recorded the track using my Etrex Vista.
A friend doing the same walk used another Garmin GPS (not sure of the
model) At the end of the walk mine said 11.2 miles whereas his said
10.6 miles. I assumed that mine was correct as it was the newer model
and I had recently been getting pretty good accuracy. (I had recently
done a hard reset and then allowed it re-collect the almanac.) When I
downloaded the track onto Memory Map there were 2/3, what I can only
describe as "spikes" where I appeared to have jumped in one direct than
jumped back. In fact at one point it looks as though I jumped over a
row of houses and then back again. Has anyone an explanation for this?
Were these simply gaps where I had lost the signal?

Two years ago I was hiking on my snow shoes in the Black Forest,
Germany. After a hike I checked the trail we had walked. According to
the trail I made a quick jump all the way to Nice. And back.

Etrex Venture. Now I regret I did not keep the track.

Have more people had such an experience?

gerard said:

CJA schreef:

Quoted message said:

I did a walk last weekend and recorded the track using my Etrex
Vista. A friend doing the same walk used another Garmin GPS (not
sure of the model) At the end of the walk mine said 11.2 miles
whereas his said
10.6 miles. I assumed that mine was correct as it was the newer
model and I had recently been getting pretty good accuracy. (I had
recently done a hard reset and then allowed it re-collect the
almanac.) When I downloaded the track onto Memory Map there were
2/3, what I can only describe as "spikes" where I appeared to have
jumped in one direct than jumped back. In fact at one point it looks
as though I jumped over a row of houses and then back again. Has
anyone an explanation for this? Were these simply gaps where I had
lost the signal?

Two years ago I was hiking on my snow shoes in the Black Forest,
Germany. After a hike I checked the trail we had walked. According to
the trail I made a quick jump all the way to Nice. And back.

Etrex Venture. Now I regret I did not keep the track.

Have more people had such an experience?

Its normal to get jumps in location when the satellite reception is weak
(eg. under trees). 100yard jumps are not uncommon.
A jump to Nice and back suggests a different error.

You need to look at tracks from any GPS and decide if they are sensible,
just blindly following the technology leads to mistakes (such as driving up
mountain track short cuts, off the end of piers, etc...).

--
Nigel Cliffe,
Webmaster at http://www.2mm.org.uk/

The message <[email hidden]>
from "Nigel Cliffe" <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

Its normal to get jumps in location when the satellite reception is weak
(eg. under trees). 100yard jumps are not uncommon.

The first time I used my Summit in the hills I got a track that
zigzagged all over the place but that was due to hanging the gps from
the chest strap of my rucksack where it did not get a good view of the
sky.

Rather odder was the behaviour of my newer gps (Vista C) which was a
good deal worse on its first outing (Brotherswater Expedition) where it
not only produced a spiders web track despite being flat on my shoulder
but also produced some impossible statistics on speed with (IIRC) the
average being above the maximum and me walking at over the speed limit
for single carriageways. I eventually put that down to having WAAS
enabled. The several other GPSs in the party had no problems.

--
Roger Chapman