Pharos iGPS-360 and iPAQ 3955 play nice together

rah · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 27, 2003 Posts: 1

:D I read several threads of people having trouble getting their GPS to work with their PDA. This provided help in determining which system I would consider buying.

What I got was the Pharos iGPS-360 receiver with the serial/charging cables to connect to my iPAQ 3955 and a CF adapter to plug it in to the CF slot on the Memplug dual CF adapter. This provided the most flexible system for my needs.
I am not using the Ostia software that came with it but instead using Mapopolis.
The Time To First Fix (TTFF) was about 20 seconds. We went on a short trip Christmas day to visit family. I set the starting point and destination point in Mapopolis. The entire trip was very accurately plotted by the system. It gave me verbal directions at all points where I needed to turn. Just to test it's ability to re-route a missed or errant turn I deviated from the directions on our way home and before I had the car straightened out from that errant turn, the software had calculated new directions.
I would highly recommend checking this system out if you have been looking for a GPS solution for your iPAQ 3955.

rj5620 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 19, 2004 Posts: 4

Last evening got an HP Ipaq 4150 with bluetooth and Wi-Fi, along with a Pharos bluetooth package. Wi-fi is great, surfing from the couch etc. The Pharos Bluetooth unit never could get a solid light and needless to say, can't connect to the Ipaq. Waiting for response for e-mails to Pharos. Will wait 24 hrs and it is goin back to the store and I'll get a Socket or some other unit.

Richard

rj5620 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 19, 2004 Posts: 4

I don't understand why a manufacturer cannot simply post a file on their internet site explaing how to set up their bluetooth device. Anyway, the Pharos iGPS-BT works fine with my Ipaq 4150. The manual is poorly written and you MUST call them to get it to work.

Richard

Dave · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 6:07 pm Post subject:

Well.....Simply, there's so many different configurations, it's hard to cover all of them. Pocket PC's use varying COM ports. A HP 2210 uses COM8 where as a HP 3800 uses COM 5 I believe. It's something we've thought about doing but haven't got around to it because of the configurations and lack of test gear. You could make some assumptions on COM ports, but it may not be correct.

We'll see what we can put together for the future as it might help people, but we might have to get people to try varying COM ports.

DavidW · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 8:06 pm Post subject:

Anything using the latest style Widcomm Bluetooth stack - which is all iPAQs running Pocket PC 2003 or some Pocket PC 2002 builds (iPAQ 5450, all ROM versions, but not 3800 or 3900 series) - shows the COM port numbers of the Bluetooth serial ports on the Serial Port tab of the Bluetooth Manager.

If you tap the Bluetooth icon on the Today Screen, choose Bluetooth Manager, and select the Serial Port tab, which ever number displayed next to Outgoing is the COM port number for a Bluetooth GPS.

David

TWood20 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 04, 2004 Posts: 12

Has anyone had a difficult time with the receiver taking an extremely long time (in excess of a minute) to get a signal (green happy face in the Ostia software)? If so has anyone found a fix for this? And has anyone noticed that Pharos web site is totally weak on support for the iGPS-360?

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