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Wildly erratic altimeter

WillD
over 3 years ago

The VA4 altimeter is just as bad as the VA3's. The readings are so far out as to be laughable. Right now my VA4 says I'm at -6m (in reality it's 14m), and sometimes it goes as low as -35m and as high as 75m when I'm here at home (14m). Unlike a real altimeter there is no option to adjust for barometric pressure changes (QNH/QFE) as you would do in an aeroplane. It is therefore effectively useless.

I don't know why Garmin includes a feature that can never be accurate without the ability to adjust for pressure changes.

  • +1 over 3 years ago

    I think the idea is to use GPS for calibration of the barometric altimeter. This is done by selecting an outdoors activity, acquire GPS, and then wait more than 30 seconds more before pressing start. On earlier versions, this feature has not been working well, but Garmin says they have fixed it now, and it seems to work well on my VA4S.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to ovekvam

    I didn't know that Garmin said they had fixed it. Anyway, I did as you suggested, and it worked. First time it has been even remotely close to the real elevation. Many thanks.