TTFF

Spider-101 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 17, 2004 Posts: 18

What are people's experiences with the 510's TTFF?

It seems to take ages for mine in the car. My wife's car's factory fitted system is much faster, is there a reason for this?

Tim Buxton · Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 12:58 pm Post subject:

What sort of car do you own and where do you have the GPS? The antenna on your wife's car is more than likely roof-mounted, giving it a much better view of the sky than your 510.
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Tim

Spider-101 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 17, 2004 Posts: 18

Tim,

Its a Jaguar XJ with the 510 mounted on the windscreen, bottom centre (no external aerial).

I'm not sure which is cause and which effect but I did notice that when it was trying to get a lock (over at least 10 mins) the signal strength was patchy but a lot better one it locked on. I've just read on this site that it is better to wait for a lock before you start moving, so I will try that. That was in the TTFF test section, which says that the Navman product (not the 510) tested was the worst of the bunch. It also says the problem may be fixed with V3 of SmartST, well I'm not sure it is. If there is more feedback to this post perhaps PocketGPSWorld could give Navman some "constructive feedback"?
Apart from that I'm quite pleased with the unit.

My wife's car does have an external aerial. - I also wonder if its helped by the GPS system being active all the time, even when not in use, not sure if that is in fact the case, but it would make sense. That way it will always start off from a known location. Whereas a "portable" unit gets switched off, moved a long distance, and then switched back on, so it has to "find" itself again?

Dave · Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 10:24 pm Post subject:

You may find you have an athermic coated windscreen. Goto the GPS Status screen and see how many green or yellow status bars you have, and then move the 510 outside the car and see if this increases. If it does by 2 or 3 then you probably have an athermic coated windscreen which will result in longer delays in obtaining a fix and you may benefit from a re-radiating antenna.

larkshall · Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 10:35 am Post subject:

If the Jaguar has full climate control, then it has a coated windscreen. I know weird, but thats the Browns Lane turns them out

regards

David L

Simon1 · Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 8:12 pm Post subject:

I've noticed twice in the past week, my unit has taken nearly ten minutes to find a signal from a cold start. After doing a reset, there has been no difference.

This evening, even after all that, it totally went mad near the end of my trip, decided I wasn't on the A3 at all but was in a nearby field, and then insisted after that, that I was about a mile from where I was, ploughing into houses and across a river!

I drive a Seat Leon with no coating on the windscreen, get a normal signal the rest of the time with no probs. I even had trouble getting a fix after I took it out of the car and stood there in the driveway for a few minutes. Does this sound like a problem with the unit, the software or what?

It's normally so reliable.

Hmm - maybe the Amercans are playing with their satellites.

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