Reliability of GPS signal in UK

[Stevekir]

I recently bought a DSC-HX9v camera. But I have found that for about a third of the shots that I take, the GPS data are not captured. I am taking all shots in the open, and am not standing under trees, near tall buildings etc. When I look at the menu item "Position Information Display" I often get the following:

(Less blurred of course.) I know close to nothing about GPS, but this seems to show that there are two satellites available (two yellow blobs) but (on the right, near the top) no actual GPS data, just --o--"--`-- At other times I get up to abut 7 yellow blobs and the Lat. and Log. are shown, and as far as I can tell, the photo contains that metadata.

Would I be right in thinking that, GPS in the UK at least, is a hit-and-miss affair? If so, I could come back form holiday or a shoot and find many shots had no GPS data. But I haven't heard of major complaints from sattelite navigation users stuck on a road waiting for a signal. As for avoiding tall buildings, does satellite navigation fail in cities with tall buildings (N. York!)?

Or is the camera faulty?

Thanks for any help.

[gazz1e]

Does the camera say it's got GPS lock when you take the photo? You may need to change the display settings on the screen so you see this information.

It can take a while for the camera to get a lock on the GPS satellites. I've found that it takes 4+ minutes to get a lock with normal GPS. If your camera is using assisted GPS (it's a file on the memory card), it usually takes 1 minute to get a lock. If your inside / in a built up area / under trees, it could take much longer or not even get a lock.

Even though Cybershots are better than most cameras for locking on GPS (when using assisted GPS), I still find it's annoyingly slow for my liking. I've just bought Sony's GPS-CS1 from ebay (http://www.sony.co.uk/product/dcc-gps/gps-cs1) to stop getting annoyed.