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It's always struck me as odd that my GPSr can tell me "exactly" where I am, but I have to set the time zone in the setup menus. Can anybody explain that? It knows where all the state lines are. It knows based on location when sunset and sunrise are so it can switch to night mode or day mode on the display. Why do I have to tell it I'm in the Central or the Eastern time zone?

The Garmin 785T changes the time zone. I don't know about other models.

Scott

Some newer Garmin GPS have an additional (non-viewable) map that has Time Zone information and can automatically determine Local Time.

In general, the GPS seems to work with UTC (GMT) rather than local time. If you look in a GPX tracklog you see the time as "2006-04-02T13:44:52Z" - the Z indicating UTC. When you look at the tracklog times on the GPS or in Mapsource, it shows Local Time based on how you set the Time Zone.

Bob

I can see track logs as GMT, but if the device has a display for time of day, as most do, why does it have to be told which zone it's in? And it would be nice if the estimated arrival time of a trip that crosses time zones were correct for the locale. I'm in Central time, and I was halfway to Miami before I realized my ETA was an hour short.

I can see arguments for both automatic correction and for user specified "local time" - either way someone will complain .

At least, knowing how it works allows you to decide how to use it.

The last GPS I bought (but returned) was a Nuvi 550 and it had a built-in Time Zone map and set local time autmatically.

Bob