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how calibrate or initialize elevation at start of a ride

kirthgersen
over 3 years ago

Recently migrated from a model 500 to 530. 

The 500 let me assign known elevations to specific GPS coordinates, for exmpl, my home.  Then, when I'd "start" the activity on 500, it would automatically initialize the elevation to the stored value, regardless of what the barometric sensor would detect.

The 530 seems to lack that capability.  I've assigned known elevations to my home's GPS location, but when I start the activity, the 530 seems to ignore the pre-set elevation.  The 530 will assign whatever the barometer thinks is the elevation. 

Am I overlooking a setting to mimic the 500's behavior?

Or is that just the way the 530 works, and can't change it?

What's the point of 530's manual elevation input, if it's going to ignore known elevation pre-sets?

  • +1 over 3 years ago

    Something must be wrong.

    With my 530, I have my home location saved and the elevation for that point saved for that exact spot. This location is at the corner of my house where I start my ride.

    When I start to ride, I press the start button, and straight away a message pops up saying that it is calibrating elevation.

    I also do this for events away from home, record the start location along with the elevation. I sometimes even add locations along the route with their associated elevations and as I pass over them, it recalibrates again.

    As your procedure is the same, is it possible your not close to the location you have saved or pass close by when you start?

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to leginswal

    "... I press the start button, and straight away a message pops up saying that it is calibrating elevation...."

    Well, I thought I was following same procedure!  I always start in my driveway, +- 10 feet.   I will delete my "home location", re-enter it, and see if it works this time.

    My 530 has software version  9.10.

    >> What is your version  ?

    If mine still doesn't work, I will contact Garmin support directly.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to kirthgersen

    My version is 9.24. But, it also worked with 9.1 and every other version since I bought it.

  • +1 over 3 years ago

    Is this what you do?

    Menu>Navigation>Saved Locations>Save My Location>Edit

    Give it a Name & Elevation

    As others have said when you start a ride (by pressing the Start Button) near this location it will set the elevation to the Location Elevation and give a message to this effect

    PS ensure there is a satellite fix before marking the location and when starting the record

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to L.Rouge

    I deleted my previously saved location.

    Then, after verifying GPS had locked onto satellites,  I re-saved the location, edited to enter the known elevation, and saved the edits.

    Now it works as described.

    I'll call this "careless user error" !  Somewhere, somehow, I was doing something wrong.

    Thank you, all.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to leginswal

    Hi! Does it really recalibrate the elevation during the route of you have stored locations asking the way? I tried it but my edge530 seems to be ignoring them. Thank you!

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to FedeCasanova

    I think it just updates the elevation at the start and doesn't do any adjustments if you go through any other saved locations.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Wongataa

    Yeah, I though so... What is happening to me now is that most of the times it doesn't really adjust to the set elevation, sometimes the messages pops up but the elevation is set to 7m higher o 5m lower that the set value... This is causing me headaches because that's exactly the elevation difference that I'm trying to avoid.

    It seems to behave differently if I press start in movement or still and also how "far" away from the stored point I am. Am I missing something?

    Thanks guys.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    The 530 does recalibrate as you pass through saved locations with accurate elevation data. But, it is a rarity to see it doing it, perhaps you just have to be lucky sometimes to be looking at it when it does as the notification does not last long.

    I have never been able to work out why it does it or does not though.

    I have a feeling it has to meet certain criteria for it to happen, ie, there may be a significant altitude difference from what the 530 is reading and the location as you pass over it, if not, it does not recalibrate, maybe the barometric recalibration at the start has stayed true for the ride and barometric air pressure has not dropped etc to make a big difference for a need to recalibrate it.

    Maybe the location has to be part of the route or course you are riding rather than just stored on the device etc.

    My Garmin 800 was the same, sometimes you would catch it recalibrating on the odd occasion.

    I did make a test course this morning with lots of locations built into it with some big elevation changes etc to see what would happen, but, I realised that I cleaned my device out of all locations apart from my home one yesterday in preparation for an event tomorrow and did not want loads of junk locations on the 530 to have to trawl through looking for the event ones so maybe next week now to do a test.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to leginswal

    Calibration from a saved location is only designed to work if you are within a given distance of  a saved location when the activity is started.

    It does not recalibrate mid-ride if you pass by another saved location.

    If you do see the elevation calibration mid-ride I would to hear. Grab a screen shot if you can if you see it.