Garmin GPS 38 Owner's Manual

Also see for GPS 38: Declaration of conformity

Initializing Your GPS for First Time UseThe GPS 38 calculates your position and movement bytracking signals sent from GPS satellites. Each of the 24GPS satellites circle the earth twice a day in a very preciseorbit, and transmit information back to earth. In order todetermine a position fix, your GPS receiver needs to contin-uously “see” at least three satellites.Because a GPS receiver can only see satellites above thehorizon, it needs to know what satellites to look for at anygiven time. By using an almanac (a timetable of satellitenumbers and their orbits) stored in the receiver’s memory,the GPS 38 can determine the distance and position of anyGPS satellite.To use this almanac data, your GPS needs to knowwhere you are, or be given the opportunity to “find itself”.Once you initialize the unit to this position, the GPS 38will usually compute a fix within a few minutes.Remember, this process is only necessary under thefollowing conditions:• First time use from the factory.• The receiver has been moved over 500 miles fromthe last calculated position with power off.• The receiver’s memory has been cleared and allstored data has been lost.GETTINGSTARTEDInitialization5