Ron Magnus

There was a comment about some operation issues with the '305 and a
suspicion of an update.

There has been a number of posts on the http:/www.motionbased forums about
battery life and ways to extend it as well as talk about firmware updates.
Right now the current firmware for the 305 is 2.9 dated sometime in
December. The 26th comes to mind. The latest chipset load is from
November and I don't recall the number.

You can detrimine the version when you first turn on the unit and look at
the page prior to it starting to aquire satelites. The firmware and
chipset loads are avialable from Garmin. I believe they have notes to
tell you what was rewritten for each revision. If you are geekish you may
find it interesting to see what needed to be improved that you had not
noticed.

As for altitude determination, yes the owner's manual states the the
information is barometric. Based on altitude errors noted at turn on and
start of the ride as compared to the elevation at the end of the ride at
the start point which is usually pretty close, I am inclined to think that
there is more than barometric data being crunched. In most altimeters one
has to set in the barometric pressure correction to indicate the local
correct elevation above sea level. There is no human intervention on the
305 so I conclude that it probably gets some data from above but I doubt
it's devine.

Ron