theotherside

Please clarify what HappyTrvlr has mentioned. When in the USA , you can switch to europe, but won't pic up any maps/signal, and vice versa, when in Paris , you will not pick up maps/signal for the USA. Have you switched to the European maps???

lostingps

Thanks. We did switch to France, we've done the start-up several times away from buildings and while moving. We also 2 red bars when trying to start up. It worked fine in the US with green bars.

UTour

Hi lostingps,

What model of Garmin are you using? I've found with my 750s that sometimes it can take up to 20 minutes to get a solid lock and that for whatever reason, these occasions happen later in the day (even with a clear, cloudless view of the sky). Try going to the main screen (where you see the battery level et al) and the press & hold the battery level and you should get a diagnostic display that will show you which satellites are in view and at what strength

HTH
u

UTour

As a follow-up, you haven't accidentally switched it to GPS simulator mode have you? Check Tools-Settings-System which should be set to "Off"

u

john183

In 2011 when we went to France, we started out in Paris and I remember turning our 1370T on and it took so long to acquire the satellites that I thought it was broken. But it eventually did and it worked normally after that. It never would work in our apartment so one day I just turned it on, programmed in our route to Rouen and put it in my pocket as we went out for the day. I think we were near the Orangerie Museum a few hours later when it finally acquired the satellite, calculated the route and started talking to me.

It also took a really long time to acquire the satellites in Italy this past May - but just like in France, once it did it worked normally for the rest of the trip.

I just tried doing what Utour suggests (except on the 1370T you hold the down on the signal strenght bars on the top left) and it did display several satellites. I would say to let it continue to try to acquire satellites - mine eventually did both times we used it in Europe.

UTour

John's right: that was a duh on my part. Shows you the trouble posting from memory can create.

u

UTour

Just as a follow-up, John, I'm surprised at the lag time to lock-up on your 1370T. We were last in Europe in '07 and I was using a Garmin iQueM4. We had navigation challenges in Paris and I'd chalked it up to signal reflections off the local architecture challenging the model of GPS, an issue which I thought newer models had accounted for.

u

john183

It surprised the heck out of me too. We had used it in the USA for a few months before our trip to France and it worked fine. I tried it several times during the first week in our Paris apartment and on the apartment's balcony but it just never acquired them. To be honest, I may not have given it enough time but I seem to remember leaving it on for quite a while. But like I said, once it did find them the first time, it found them right away whenever I turned it on after that.

And to be more clear about exactly what happened in Italy last May, it actually acquired the satellites and showed our position on the map, it just would not calculate the route. We turned it on when we left Piazzale Roma in Venice and it found the satellites right away, showed us on the map but never went above 33% in calculating the route until about 3 or 4 hours later near Bellagio when it just started talking. I'm not sure what caused that problem but just like in France, once it started working it worked fine for the rest of our trip.

And it works great now that we are back home. I hope lostingps checks back in and lets us know what happened.

MonicaRichards

Our Garmin Nuvi worked like a dream in France on our trip this month. No hiccups. The card was only $38.00 on Amazon too!

MonicaRichards

Oh yeah, but ours also took quite a while the very first time to locate the sattelite in France. It does that here too, if we use it, then turn it off, and drive a long while without it. Gets confused.