Garmin GPSCOM 170 - Manual (Page 25)

Battery Voltage Indicator
The satellite status page displays current battery
voltage for the Ni-Cad battery pack. When using the
Ni-Cad pack, any voltage above 7.2 indicates a fully
charged condition. You should charge the battery pack
when the voltage is between 5.8 and 7.2. At 5.8 volts,
you will get a low battery voltage message. At 5.5
volts, the Com and GPS functions shutoff. It is
normal to see a drop in voltage when transmitting.
The trickle charger/AC adapter supplied with the
GPSCOM 170 converts line voltage to the DC voltage
necessary to operate the unit. The AC adapter also slow-
ly recharges the Ni-Cad battery pack at a rate of 14 hours
for a full recharge. Make sure you charge the
Ni-Cad battery pack for 14 hours before using your
GPSCOM 170 to ensure optimum capacity and perfor-
mance. When charging the battery pack, be sure to turn
the unit off to ensure a full charge.
Screen Backlighting and Contrast
If you want to see the display at night, you have to
turn on the ‘backlight’ (which is a very small light bulb
behind the screen). The bulb lights the screen display for
a user-defined interval (the default is 15 seconds) after
every keystroke. There are three levels of light intensity.
When backlighting is on, a bulb icon will appear in the
upper right–hand corner of the display. To adjust the
length of time the backlighting will stay on, refer to
system setup in the reference section.
To turn the screen backlighting on:
1. Press the backlight button. Cycle through the three lev-
els of backlight by pressing the backlight button.
To turn the screen backlighting off:
1. Press the backlight button. Whenever the backlighting
is off, the bulb icon disappears from the screen.
To set the screen contrast:
1. Use left and right arrow keys to adjust the bar scale
for the desired contrast and press
E
.
Screen contrast is adjustable
from the satellite status
page.
Screen
Backlighting
Reference
20
IMPORTANT!
Using the screen backlight-
ing can greatly affect bat-
tery life. If you’re using
your GPSCOM 170 pri-
marily in daylight hours,
you should keep the back-
light timeout at the default
15 second
set ting.
170 manual pages rev D 9/21/98 9:23 AM Page 20