Rikaline 6010/6012(?) - lost satellites

charles_a · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 09, 2004 Posts: 5

First - thanks for this excellent website. If I had read the Rikaline forum comments perhaps I would not have got into this problem!

I have posted as a new thread but some of the issues sound similar to the jaygsi/kristenbm comments in the "anyone in essex with a ipaq 3630" thread.

I have just purchased from pdamods.com a Tomtom Navigator kit that includes a Rikaline GPS receiver.

I installed the software fine (Ipaq 36xx series with CF sleeve and 256mb CF card) although copying of the maps fell over twice before completing successfuly. Software works fine for route planning and demo route purposes.

On connecting and powering up the GPS receiver in car, I am unable to maintain a fix on the satellites.

On the first occasion, the GPS receiver "saw" two satellites quickly - grey bars - then down to one within about 3 minutes - but then lost them all despite sitting there for 45 minutes or more. Having powered down and done a soft reset on the Ipaq I tried again. On this occasion the receiver found 3 satellites (1, 13, 20) pretty quickly, updated the time in the status screen and on the GPS I got red bars showing a fix had been obtained. However, within a minute or so, all satellites were lost and could not be re-found despite another soft reset.

The car was not moved in this period. Power from the lighter adaptor was on and not interrupted.

I do not know whether the GPS receiver is a 6010 or a 6012 as I gather that they both look the same. From the pictures posted elsewhere (and the problems posted) my guess is that this is a rogue 6012 - unless anyone knows differently!

Using Tomtom's Rikaline 6010/serial COM1 setting clearly works and the initial fix which is lost suggests that this may be a faulty receiver. Any thoughts?

I have sent an e-mail with the details to pdamods but they are well over the indicated 2 hour response time.

Dave · Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 8:49 pm Post subject:

I suspect this is a faulty receiver, you seem to have carried out all the normal tests.

One thing to bear in mind is the 6012 and also I believe one of the replacements for the 6010 has an Evermore chipset, these are considered not as good as SiRF, and it maybe that it does have an Evermore chipset.

I'd suspect it's probably more faulty than good. It sounds to me that a lot of these need to be tested as there seems to be a large percentage of people purchasing Rikaline receivers which are failing or are faulty.

charles_a · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 09, 2004 Posts: 5

Dave - many thanks. I suspect there may be a fine difference between chipsets and product descriptions but pdamods describe this as a "Rikaline Sirf Star II GPS receiver" - the package link is http://www.pdamods.com/proddetail.asp?prod=TTKITGPS.

Entirely happy with the deal IF it works! But currently only the lawyers are getting excited and to date neither calls nor e-mails to pdamods have generated any reply.

As from other forums, I gather that Rikaline, pdamods and Vivo are all closely linked and they surely KNOW that there are problems with their receivers one would have thought/hoped that everything would have been double-tested. The odd manufacturing fault is one thing but the forum traffic suggests that faulty items are getting to consumers far too easily. In this or the specific forums I will report on the service standard I get which currently leaves much to be desired.

Charles

kristenbm · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 09, 2004 Posts: 3

Just in case my circumstances help, here's the long-winded saga so far:

I've used a utility called WinFast to try to narrow down the fault. This has enabled me to see the actual data being transferred - so I can see that there is plenty of data flowing, but that the GPS doesn't think its Locked. As a side note the "USBTools" thingie that comes with the Rikaline reports a Serial Port Error about 2% of the time, so it may be that that is not helping, or that may be normal and a proportion of the serial messages go astray because the iPAQ can’t keep up, or whatever - the serial cable IS quite long ...

[I'm a computer programmer by trade ...] There is a particularly strange occurrence in the $GPGSV messages, which basically reports the Elevation/Azimuth for each of, up to, 12 SVs. Each of, up to, 3 $GPGSV message includes data for up to 4 SVs - i.e. a Full Monty of 3 messages will report on 12 SVs. On mine when a Status screen is showing 3 red circles the corresponding 3 SVs are REPEATED within the 3 $GPGSV messages, such that it ALWAYS reports 3 $GPGSV messages and 12SVs. Reading the DOCs seems to suggest that there should be NULL data when less than 12SVs are available. So, I reckon this is the basis of the bug as, although I know very little about GPS, my understanding is that a GPS should Factory Reset to think there are 24 SVs at a single spot in the sky, and drop them off down to 12-ish, and then start to position those 12 in the sky. The 2 or 3 red circles I see switch between different satellite numbers if watched over a period of a few minutes, which suggests that the GPS can see more than just the couple it is reporting in each data set.

So unless someone with knowledge of how things should be can enlighten me I reckon its bust! and will go back - mine came from nex_gensales on eBay and they have offered to replace it if I can't get it working (although they haven't said that they have had a duff batch and thus it is likely that mine is faulty, which would have saved me several hours of careful checking)

Kristen

jaygsi · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 16, 2003 Posts: 46

hi m8
there is a couple of my threads regarding my problems with my 6010

http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=5020&sid=344634df8b483ba2ef70070edb74b6de

http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=4997&sid=e8e31621d1c0b9fa7c1016064de0e6e6

i sent my set up to a friend and this is what he found,he runs the same set up,but he has a 37 series ipaq.

Hi Jason,

Just to confirm..

I recieved your kit this afternoon - Ipaq/Jacket/256mb CF, Rikaline 6010 gps, Cig lighter power cable.

On inspection everything was is perfect condition.
Testing the Ipaq & checking the software found no issues. The Ipaq slotted into my own car gps installation and worked immediately.
It detected my Rikaline 6010 and locked on to 7 satelites, navigation was as expected.
Trying your power lead again made no differance, everything worked fine.

Connecting your gps module inplace of mine resulted in the fault you are reporting. The GPS fails to initialise and lock onto anything, resulting in the Ipaq not detecting it. Testing it on both mine and your Ipaq resulted in the same fault. Switching GPS back to mine immediately saw the ipaq & tomtom detect and navigate correctly.

Also testing with Winfast navigator showed the same results. Worked fine with my GPS, not with yours. No reseting or messing with config setting was needed, just plug in a go.

The green led on the GPS on my 6010 is solid on initial power on, then after a short period it locks onto a satellite and starts to slowly flash.
your GPS the light immediatey starts flashing at a much faster rate and does not appear to lock or become steady etc..

I would suggest returning this GPS and obtaining a replacement - as it appears this is already a replacement, I would suggest the next replacement should be tested prior to shipping incase of the possibility of this being a faulty batch.

I have reboxed the kit and will return it via your enclosed prepaid return special delivery tomorrow (Saturday 10th), you should receive it back on Mon/Tue next week.

Regards,
Paul Witkowski

hope this helps?

charles_a · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 09, 2004 Posts: 5

Kristen/jaygsi - many thanks for your replies. My Rikaline 60xx is heading back to pdamods I think - assuming I can get them to communicate! Will let you know if this provides a fix. Charles

MikeB · Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2004 8:18 am Post subject:

charles_a · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 09, 2004 Posts: 5

Success! ... and credit where it is due. I returned the defective receiver to pdamods.com on Monday and the replacement arrived on Wednesday. Tested yesterday and (I assume a Factory) TTFF of less than five minutes. Many thanks to all those who have assisted on this thread and to pdamods.com for their unequivocal and prompt replacement policy.

jaygsi · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 16, 2003 Posts: 46

i recieved my third 6010 from pdamods this morning
guess what that dont work either!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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