Dan in Fairbanks, Alaska listens on 970 KFBX and asked: “I have a Garmin Runner 35 watch that I got for Christmas. I got pretty much everything figured out, but there’s something I can’t set and that’s the date. It’s telling me to go outside, get a satellite and then set the date but here in Fairbanks, Alaska I may be too far North, I don’t know – but I’m not getting the reading or “the letdown” to do that. I just need some advice how to set the date only. I got everything else figured out. This one’s really got me baffled.”

Dan, there’s only one way to set the date on a Garmin Forerunner 35 and unfortunately it’s the one you already know about.

You need to go into the settings, general, and time, choose your time zone and wait for it to get a signal from the GPS satellites.

The good news is that you’re not too far north, you should be able to get normal GPS coverage in Fairbanks (you can check that by grabbing your phone and trying to get navigation directions somewhere, your phone and watch will get their positioning data from the same satellites).

The most likely cause of your issue is just that you’re setting up your watch for the first time and it may take a little longer for it to be able to successfully connect to the satellites. Running watches tend to save their location to speed up the connection in the future, but the first time might take a while.

If you’re standing outside, you’re not around any tall buildings or very, very thick tree canopies, your watch should make the connection eventually, you may just need to give it a little bit of time the first time around.

The Forerunner series are usually worn by runners, so connecting to GPS quickly is important, no one wants to stand around for 10 minutes waiting for a connection, but don’t worry too much based on this experience, it should be quicker in the future.