Possible fix for GPS lock difficulty with Olympus (OM System) TG series cameras

Nature Talk
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I very recently acquired an Olympus TG-6 camera and had been having trouble getting the GPS to lock on to the satellites and be able to geotag my photos. At best, it was taking several minutes to get a lock, if it would get a lock at all, which was very frustrating.

I scoured the internet for possible solutions and actually came across a few forums about the issue, which revealed numerous other people with the TG-6 (or another camera in the TG series) were apparently having the same problem, but which also did not provide any effective solutions. (One was even an iNat forum that closed in 2020 titled “Olympus TG-6: No Location Data Showing in Observations”.)

But I finally figured out the issue on my own. The camera time does not account for the daylight savings time changes!

I happened to notice that a photo I had taken a few minutes earlier was time stamped 8:45 instead of 9:45, when I had actually taken it. When I then went into the time settings, I saw that the camera time was, indeed, running exactly an hour earlier than the actual time. Turns out that when I set the time zone upon first setting up the camera, I simply set it to the one labeled New York, Miami, etc. (I live in Georgia) without paying attention to the associated UTC value, which is UTC-05:00. However, the US eastern seaboard is currently UTC-04:00 (labeled Manaus, La Paz).

Since the camera time needs to be synced with the GPS satellite time, this was apparently the cause of the problem. After adjusting the time zone to UTC-04:00, the camera now gets a GPS lock in about 5 seconds! (I assume this would also explain why the camera’s GPS was working a lot better and geotagged most of my photos when I went to Indiana to see the eclipse, and then all but stopped working when I returned to Georgia.)

While I can’t say for sure that correcting the time zone setting will be a solution for every other TG series camera owner encountering this problem, it seems they are very popular cameras among iNat users for the same reasons I got one (primarily the great macro capability, as well as being waterproof and super rugged); so, I figure (and hope) this could be helpful to at least a few other fellow iNat-ers out there!

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Thanks for sharing that, I hope that’s what was causing my problems. It’s a terrible thing to have to rely on memory. I’ve just been looking through old photos for things suitable to add to iNat and so many marvellous obs are going to waste because I can’t remember where I saw them and I don’t want to be posting obs with uncertainties of 30km or so.

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I really hope that works for you. If not, I hope you find another solution soon!

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When setting the time zone, you can press the “info” button to turn DST on and off, shifting the time by an hour. I assume this must be done manually twice a year.

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Thanks for mentioning that! Maybe I just overlooked that, but I didn’t notice an explanation of that in the camera instructions, or find mention of it anywhere else. But, yes, I just tried that and it shifted the time by an hour and put a little sun icon next to it. Hopefully, by doing that, it actually WILL adjust the time for the daylight savings change automatically, and you won’t have to do that manually twice a year (or ever).

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Just checked the instruction manual again. Yep… I overlooked it. It’s in there. :flushed:

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That instruction manual is voluminous. No wonder you missed it.