Polar HRM - wrist unit is "working" but not picking up heart rate

[The poster formerly known as Colleyville Alan]

I have a Polar F55 that I bought 18 months ago. A few weeks ago, it was
working just fine. But yesterday, the wrist unit would not pick up my heart
rate. The wrist unit seems to work in everything else, the time of day,
list of exercises, etc, but it did not detect my heart.

I thought that it might be that the transmitter was defective, but the
treadmill at the gym was able to pick up my heart rate without any problem.

My guess is that either
a) the wrist unit is somehow defective
b) the transmitter is weak and though the treadmill reads the signal, it is
too weak for the wrist unit to read

Does anybody have any idea as to whether one of those guesses is any better
than the other or how I might determine that?

At 18 months, it seems unlikely that the transmitter has lost its juice, but
it also seems unlikely that the wrist unit functions in every aspect except
the one that is most important.

Feedback appreciated. Thanks in advance
Alan

 

[glen stark]

On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:01:08 -0500, The poster formerly known as
Colleyville Alan wrote:

> did not detect my heart.
>
> I thought that it might be that the transmitter was defective, but the
> treadmill at the gym was able to pick up my heart rate without any
> problem.

The first thing I would try is to replace the battery on your
transmitter. It could be that the treadmill has a more sensitive pickup
than the watch has. Since the treadmill is huge and can easily employ a
larger antenna, this is a reasonable supposition, and it would be
consistent with the behavior you observe. It's also the cheapest and
simplest thing to try.

If it still doesn't work, I'd take it to an authorized polar service
center. They probably won't charge you to have a look at it and make a
guess as to what's wrong.

Glen