Quote Originally Posted by cano View Post
It doesn't. Period.
lol. It does. Re-acquisition using the software is based on your GPSr "remembering" your last fix when it was last turned on. While the satellites don't care and most likely rarely vary what they transmit your Garmin records its last "fix" so it can, in theory, pick up the same satellites it used the last time it was on. Garmin actually markets that software called "Hotfix". I agree that the satellites and GPSr don't work because of time zones but the software is using the time zones so it can "predict" which satellites to expect in the sky overhead. No matter what, line of sight still rules and if a satellite is on the other side of the planet it is still transmitting regardless of the time zone but no GPSr is going to be able to see it.

My old eTrex actually gave me an error message when I was in Australia with -5 GMT programmed in. I switched it to local time, gave it 15 minutes to "lock on" and all was good. Had I left it on during my flight over the Pacific, the eTrex would have known that I travelled through several time zones but I had not and it glitched because it couldn't locate any "familiar" satellites to reference for where it presently was located.