Garmin GPSTC Datafield - to complement the Motion Simple Logger

Bugger, just bought the fr255, and now it needs windoze to load the data field. What a PITA!!!!!

Garmin express is refusing to load on my ancient W7 thinkpad, I'm doing the 32 updates it says it needs, fingers crossed that will do the trick.

Select to expand quote

tbwonder said..
You can install everything on your phone if you like, using the Garmin Connect app and the Garmin IQ Store app

I tried that, but the IQ store says, "To get the latest version of this app you must update your Forerunner 255 Music in Garmin Express"

and there's no download button.

Partial success, not sure what happened, don't think I did anything different, but it installed from the phone, and I have FIT files from it.
But I can't convince the display to only have 1 field, The screen's divided into 3 which doesn't really show much at all.

editing partitions crashed the ancient laptop, I need to do a boot repair now.
Had windows 11 running in a VM, but something isn't right there either, it crashed installing Garmin express.
I think I need to add the VM drivers for the kernel.
But the watch appears to be working now, hopefully try it tomorrow

Be there tomorrow

If it's any help to you, I am running Garmin Express 7.18.4.0 on two ancient Win7 laptops.

The Garmin Express link shown above does offer a separate download for Win8 and older. It's in system requirements.

I never ever thought I would ever make this post.
Here it is, the latest version of my Datafield fully approved for posting your results into the GPSTC Competition!

apps.garmin.com/apps/b8831776-4a07-4bb7-8f40-2c496ab655ba

At the moment this Datafield can only be loaded onto Garmin 255 and Garmin 255 Music watches. It is quite likely other watches will be added later. But at this stage do not buy other watches expecting they will be added.

In order to post to Team Challenge you must follow the set-up instructions which are here
www.haigh.id.au/GPSTC.htm

Please follow the notes on the GPSTC home page for further conditions regarding posting.

NOTE. None of the other versions of my Datafield can be used for posting. I will continue to support the existing Datafields commonly known as the V4.

Hi tbwonder,

Congrats on this acheivement to have GPSTC approval!! Thanks so much for going to this effort!

I'm probably misunderstanding how things work here. I recently added your datafield to my Garmin. The process seems to be to start a new activity type and then add the datafield as a data page. My understanding was that your data field did the relevant caclulations to display GPSTC paramters live on the watch, but that the core recording of the activity was done by the Garmin activity, and that is what is uploaded to GPSTC. I was just curious how the datafield does anything to change the post processing of the data file to get the parameter that are posted to GPSTC (through KA72 or other).

On a more technical note. I sailed for the first time with the GPSTC V4 activity on my Garmin 965. I set it up exactly as you guide recommends following each and every step. I started it on the beach. It seemed to be doing everything right (displaying data and beeping when I moved faster then previous). Then I started sailing, and it seemed the GPSTC datafield had an issue. On that page I just got a mostly blank screen with "IQ" in the middle and an orange circle with "..." in it at the top right of the "Q". The other datafield with the time and distance continued to work and the map worked. I ended up just adding another data page with max speed and current speed to use to finish my sail. I am not sure what went wrong. Might be something I did wrong. Might be something about the 965 with your data field. If you have any suggestions, much appreciated.

Select to expand quote

tbwonder said..
I see there are some good deals from JB and Rebel at the moment
Fenix 5 is $449 and Fenix 5X is $559
I guess these are soon to be discontinued, but has to be better than paying $1000+

I purchased a Fenix 6 Sapphire Jan 2023 for $699, got to be alot less now.

Select to expand quote

tbwonder said..
My Datafield does not alter the raw data recording. However it does add information to the FIT file that helps the GPSTC Admin team determine if the watch has been set up correctly.

Firstly which version of the GPSTC V4 are you running? Make sure you have the latest.
I will run some tests on the simulator using the 965

Got it.... so the Garmin 255 is capable of returning data at the required accuracy level without the data field, but the data field provides a way to authenticate the watch settings to make sure it is setup optimally.

I used the latest version of GPSTC from last week. Not sure the actual version number, but I assume it is the latest. When I started I had exactly the suggested data pages and had set all the suggested settings (satelite mode, 1s sample rate etc.). I later added an extra data page during the activity to replace the data I missed from the crashed page. I tried it quickly walking a lap of my backyard beforehand and it seemed OK.

My GW60 band is telling its time to fork out $399 for a 255 Music.

Yes Tony that is an alternative way to do it.
With the correct cable perhaps that would even work with an Android phone.

I tested on the water today. Very easy to use and read. Speeds were very close to the mini-motion and DIY-GPS. The only things that I noticed, and could be me getting used to it.

Distance home was some massive number inarge font that I couldn't read.

Last 5x10 seemed to display the 10 seconds as I slowed down rather than the 10 second speed run.

The speed graph at the end of 2 sec, went off the top of the screen so I wasn't sure what it was showing.

Are the green and red bar graphs showing the closeness of the 5x10 runs? (it's probably in the manual)

Navigation map seemed to be in miles, I would have preferred km, but maybe that's just me.

Am correct in thinking I should have the alpha half circle centred at the to of the screen if I'm going to hit the the 50 metre perimeter?

Today's session comparing 4 devices.
Corrected

Yep, corrected. I must have copy pasted in error. The files are all on KA 72. The arm devices were all on left arm, but the motion had sagged under the forearm.