I've had my Etrex for almost a year and have had no issues. It's been a great little unit. In the off season (summer) I mostly use mine for navigation from point to point in my car.

Yesterday when I landed in Tampa I turned the unit on so I could get to my three destinations asap. Well, after 10 minutes it still only locked on to two satellites, and it needs at least 3 to navigate. PANICK! I them remembered that I had printed out a mapquest route to all my destinations and started to follow those directions. About 15 minutes laters it finally locked on to about 9 satellites and started navigating.

No matter what angle I held the unit at it wouldn't lock on. I'm concerned. Anyone else have this issue? Could it be a sign of future problems with the gps?

Tony

When you move a GPS to a new location you have to tell it a city nearby or it will be looking for the wrong satellites. If you don't then it's not uncommon to take a long time for first fix.

Probably took a long time to work the first time you got home as well.

I don't think anything is wrong with it.

You know what. You may be on to something there. The night before my trip I put a different card in and loaded topo maps for my Alaska trip next month, and I manually selected Anchorage as my new location. I'll keep that in mind from now on.

I never had that problem when going from the East coast to the West coast or anywhere in between, but the massive distance change from Alaska to Tampa took awhile for it to adjust to.

Thanks.

Tony

That happens to me from time to time, and usually when I start it up for the first time in a new location. Once it acquires that first time, it usually goes much more quickly the next time.