Third ride with the F5 and my P1. To make it short - the F5 is not working. Tons of signal drops. Normalized power is way off when compared to my Edge 1000. Does anybody else have experiences with the F5 ad the P1?
Mine would connect but show no power at all. Tried many things (ANT+, BLE, reconnecting, ect) but had to reset default settings on the F5 to make it suddenly work. Yeah, ANT+ is pretty bad for me too. I hammered up a hill for ~30 sec for a power check expecting to see a sustained XXXX power and it showed nothing, then reconnected right after. Pretty frustrating when an all-out 30 sec sprint wasn't even registered lol. I will try the BLE again, but once it finally started working, I didn't want to mess with it!
ANT+ is transmitted from the left pedal to the watch, which has to get through your foot and your wrist (if palms down). ANT+ seems to have issue with traveling through/around the body and can easily be blocked. You can see this by simply covering an ANT+ chest strap with your hand and it will often lose signal.
I have P1 Powertap pedals and have had occasional drop outs but nothing like you describe. Here are my last few indoor rides.
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1665151825
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1663639904
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1661151193
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1658838548
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1657600181
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1655168483
If you are using 2 Garmin devices to the P1 pedals make sure that cranklength is identical on both. At one point I had my Edge 1000 and Fenix 3 on different crank lengths and had massive drop outs.