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-- Magellan Problems (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=11578)

I bought my Magellan GPS yesterday, and it worked perfectly on the way home from the store. I inserted the batteries and plugged in the module while in the parking lot at Comp-USA. Within 3 minutes I had a fix. It gave me a 3d reading all the way home and even worked when I was in the house. I installed the map companion and nav companion software along with a map of my hometown but no longer had a fix while in the house. I stood outside with clear view of the sky for 10 minutes freezing to death like a moron and still no fix. I then drove around with the unit on the passenger seat for a hour before it found a fix. At that point it worked well all of the way home. Again, this morning I took it with me and did not get a fix untill the end of a 30 minute drive. So far, I cannot see how this thing could be useful at all, it is not reliable enough. On this morning's trip I had weak signals from six satellites, but no fix. I was running GPS companion from the module at the time. I only found a fix when I switched to map companion. This could be a coincidence, or maby map companion is not a "picky" about signal strength. Who knows. Does anyone have advice? Is my unit defective?

If it seems like its taking too long to get a fix (more than 3 minutes) go to the initialize function of the nav software. Whenever I did this I got a new fix in 15 seconds as long as I had a clear line of sight to a few satellites. I don't know why but it appears to get 'stuck' in this mode once in a while and you have to do this.

Also you should upgrade the software and firmware from the magellan site.
The new version seems to get a fix much faster and more reliably.
I did it and it works much better.

Sometimes, though, its the environment. You're just not getting a good signal.
Move outside away from buildings, trees, etc.