Montana 650 - Loss Satellite Reception

Hi There,

I recently purchased the City Navigator and loaded it into my Montana 650 for use on my motorcycle.
The problem I am encountering is that I commonly get the "Lost Satellite Reception" message from the unit. There is a wide open view of the sky. The error seems to mainly occur after making a turn and accelerating whereby the pointer heads off at an angle kind of bisected by the road turned onto and the original direction, then the error message shows up. It takes a km or two before re-establishing the satellites and showing proper progression on the unit. I have never encountered this problem before while using the unit for hiking, kayaking or on my ATV, although these uses would be at lower speeds.

Anyone else experience a similar fault?
Any suggestions?

Thanking You In Avance,
Glenn

I'm guessing here, but it sounds like you might have a loose receiver in the unit. I seem to remember someone earlier have this issue & repair it, but I think they were maybe in a remote location.

I'd call Garmin Support in Canada 1-866-429-9296 it's usually fast connecting & log your problem.

I've never had that kind of problem but my wife's 650 lost its antenna connection internally once, and we needed to send it in under warranty for replacement. The antenna problem we had was not intermittent. It was no longer receiving a signal unless we connected an external antenna.

Is your Montana getting interference from other electronics on your bike, or do you have multiple maps enabled, causing a slowdown?

If you use a XM radio or radar detector, these devices can sometimes cause interference if they are next to the GPS.

Wouldn't be a radar detector, that's for sure. Ontario has strict laws against their use.

Check this post........it might help: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=798472

Mine is just intermittent as described.
Only have the City Navigator enabled when used on the motorcycle.
?

No XM radio.
No radar detector. OPP (Ontario Police) take them and ticket you for having those.
I do have a Scala Rider with Bluetooth connection to my cell phone. Could this be causing any interference?

Thanks for this link. Very well done "hardening" description!
I will keep this in mind.

FWIW - BTW I get out to SK occassionally, as my daughter lives there. Close to Edam.

Where on the bike do you have the gps mounted?

AMPS rugged mount on the handlebar center between riser clamps

Then you should be getting decent signal most all of the time.

I'd suggest calling Garmin for a tech consult and likely a warranty claim. Without any obstructions, you shouldn't be losing signal like that.

Just an update.
I did contact Garmin with regards to this issue, but they didn't have any suggestions. Just said if it continues to happen, that I may have to send the unit in to be looked at.
As mentioned previously, I do have a Scala intercomm system. Yesterday while riding, I encountered the frequent loss of satellite reception messages and odd tracking lines on the GPS (Montana 650t) over a 2 hour stent, as described earlier.
I turned the Scala Rider off while riding and behold, perfect tracking and no loss of of reception with the GPS performing beautifully for 1-1/2 hours. It seems the ScalaRider is in some way causing the interference problem.
I do have the Scala Rider "bluetoothed" to my Samsung Android phone.
I may try to remove the BT connection and test it again to see if the BT is causing the problem by itself. I am not optimistic with this, though as other Garmin products run BT successfully.
Any one else running a Scala Rider G9 with a Montana 6XX successfully?

My wife and I use our Scala G4 intercoms with no problem at all on the Montanas.

Update:

I did a 2 hour ride and experimented with the Scala Rider G9 turned off and the Montana functioned perfectly. As soon as I turned the Scala Rider on, the Montana GPS acted up with poor tracking, incorrect navigation and Loss of satellite reception. I also gave a go at (i) having the Bluetooth function on my phone turned off and (ii) the phone itself turned off with the Scala Rider left on in the previous two scenarios, but the GPS still acted up in these circumstances.

Unfortunately, I have to assume the Scala Rider G9 and Montana 650t are incompatible in my setup?

Did you try a different G9 in your setup to see if yours is wonky?

Have you contacted Scala? Hope you don't mind, I posted your observation to the Scala Facebook page to see if others have heard of or experienced it.

I can easily try the other G9 that came in the set I purchased. I will plan on doing that to see if there is any difference.

Thanks for posting my dilema on the Facebook page. I don't use Facebook, so if you get any noteworthy feedback, letting me know would be great.

I did a couple google searches on the isuue, but came up empty.

I have sent an e-mail to Cardo systems and will post the results when received.

Appreciate the Interest,
Glenn

I'll let you know if I hear back from them, or anyone else, through FB.

Update #2 from OP:

I obtained another Montana 650t and tried it, with no difference in the performance.

I switched the Scala Rider G9 for another unit (my wife's paired G9) and no difference.

I contacted Cardo Systems via e-mail and I doubt they read my message as they replied with regards to Bluetooth functionality in their message, so I'm not impressed that they didn't bother to properly read my message and respond appropriately.

Contacted Cardo via telephone and explained my problem, but the only thing he could offer was to make sure the "click to link" was turned off. When I checked on this it was "off".

So for me, in my experience, the Scala Rider G9 is not compatible with the Garmin Montana 650t because of some type of interference with the Montana GPS satellite signal causing poor tracking and eventual loss of satellite reception with prolonged intervals before any sort of satellite reception is re-established. As such, I cannot recommend the Scala Rider G9 to be used with the Garmin Montana 6xx series GPS

Anyone using a Sena SMH10 successfully with a Garmin Montana 6xx series?

Interesting that Scala cares so much about it. For the record, our pair of G4s work just fine.

Never did hear back on Facebook, except for a generic "Contact Help" message from Scala.

Maybe you'll get more feedback if you post in the main Montana thread?