Garmin Montana 600 GPS/Plotter - Problem with position

Matt341

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Hi All,

I bought a Garmin Montana 600 last week to use at the helm or as a backup for the main plotter. It came with the UK Garmin charts on a memory card which i've loaded on to the plotter. Tried it out at home last week and it loaded up with an accurate satellite fix within seconds and all seemed fine.

Tried it out on the boat today and switched it on while leaving the marina, it got an accurate position again within seconds. After approx 10 mins I had a glance at it and the screen wasn't showing any chart data - I zoomed out and it was showing my position as just South of Ghana, Africa. . . . . . .

I tried all the usual stuff, switching it on and off, removed the battery, re loaded the charts from the card but nothing did the trick. It permanently showed my position as being off Ghana. The GPS Status page was showing full signal. I switched it off on the way back to the marina and then switched it back on once we were back on the berth and it gave a fully accurate position once more. I took it with me off the boat up to the car park and every few seconds it was jumping position between the correct position and Ghana. I spoke to Force 4 about it (where I purchased it from) and they will exchange with a replacement next week but i'm just wondering if anyone has experienced similar and had any ideas about a setting that may simply need changing? I have had a look through the settings page and restored it to default settings but it hasn't made any improvement. I'll try it out on the boat again tomorrow to see if it behaves in the same way. Don't know whether it's relevant but the main plotter on the boat had a good satellite fix all afternoon with the correct position.

Thanks!
 
...i'm just wondering if anyone has experienced similar and had any ideas about a setting that may simply need changing?...
Nope, imho it's broken. You sometimes need to change settings to convert from the GPS numerical representation of position to a chart position but that should never apply between the GPS and its own charts. My guess is the GPSR is broken. Garmin make great GPS units and have first class service in my personal experience so you should be happy with the replacement you get from F4.

Boo2
 
Definitely faulty......

The only time ours went crazy was when I installed a solar panel over the top of it!

Found it very difficult to see the satellites!
 
Thanks for the replies,

I had another look through the various settings on the weekend and tried various options to see if any made a difference and came across a setting under the "system" option which was set to Normal, I changed this to the only other option on the list (which I can't remember and the plotter is on the boat now so I can't check) and it seemed to solve the issue completely. Used it onboard on Sunday, Monday and yesterday throughout the day and it was faultless. Hopefully this will help if anyone else experiences a similar problem in the future.

On another note the battery life seems a bit low, 4.5 hours seems the maximum I can get out of it. I will get a 12 volt charger so that it can charge when we are at anchor but I might also try using 3xAA batteries instead of the rechargeable battery that came with it to see if this extends the use time.
 
Thanks for the replies,

I had another look through the various settings on the weekend and tried various options to see if any made a difference and came across a setting under the "system" option which was set to Normal, I changed this to the only other option on the list (which I can't remember and the plotter is on the boat now so I can't check) and it seemed to solve the issue completely. Used it onboard on Sunday, Monday and yesterday throughout the day and it was faultless. Hopefully this will help if anyone else experiences a similar problem in the future.

On another note the battery life seems a bit low, 4.5 hours seems the maximum I can get out of it. I will get a 12 volt charger so that it can charge when we are at anchor but I might also try using 3xAA batteries instead of the rechargeable battery that came with it to see if this extends the use time.


For maximum battery life change the settings to both reduce the display brightness and for it to go to sleep quickly . Touch screen to wake up.
 
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