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PH68 Occasional Visitor
Joined: Jul 04, 2007 Posts: 9
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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 9:46 am Post subject: GPS reception on a Mio P550 |
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Have bought a Mio P550 and everything seems sort of OK.
I have TomTom N6 installed and Google Maps.
After a bit of meesing with COM ports, I got a good GPS signal on TT (about 4 bars) and got a spot-on fix with Google Maps... I was in the house at the time.
Decided to see if TT could get me to work this morning.
It took ages to get a GPS signal.
So I drove down the road for a mile or so (still no signal)... :x
So, I stopped the car, waited, and then got a 1 bar signal.
After a few miles it was up to 4-5 bars.
Everything then fine and never lost reception.
is this a Mio issue, or not, as I got a signal indoors at home ast night. |
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philpugh Lifetime Member
Joined: Dec 28, 2005 Posts: 2003 Location: Antrobus, Cheshire
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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:49 am Post subject: |
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What car are you driving? Does it have one of these athermic and /or heated front screen? If so this will affect signal reception. If you have one of these then there are a couple of solutions. Move unit to another part of car - tricky if it has in-built GPS - or install external GPS aerial - there will be a small connector (MCX or MMCX) on your P550 if it supports this.
Also: moving whilst the GPS is trying to get a lock is usually not a good idea as it will be waiting for certain information from the sats and moving is likely to disrupt this process. It can extend the TTF (time to fix) to several minutes. Turn it on and leave it in car for a couple of minutes before setting off. If you use it each day the TTF should be less than 1 minute usually. _________________ Phil |
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Border_Collie Pocket GPS Verifier
Joined: Feb 01, 2006 Posts: 2543 Location: Rainham, Kent. England.
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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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Having a Citroen with an athermic screen I'd second philpugh's reply other than to say, get a lock outside the car first then set-up inside with the unit on the centre of the dash, below the clear dotted area at the top of the screen behind the rear view mirror. Once you have the lock everything should run fine.
Having said that, I've just tested i-Go software on a Mio P350 and never experienced any of the problems getting locks when starting the unit inside my car. It appears to me that TT, for whatever reason, is the cause of the problem, not necessarily the screen. (Not with Sirf3 anyway). _________________ Formerly known as Lost_Property
And NO that's NOT me in the Avatar. |
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PH68 Occasional Visitor
Joined: Jul 04, 2007 Posts: 9
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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 6:16 pm Post subject: |
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Took about 5 minutes to get just a one-bar lock when on works car park.
I stayed in the car as it was chucking it down.
Again, once locked it went to 3, then 5 bars, and remained good all the way home.
Car is a Skoda Octavia. |
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philpugh Lifetime Member
Joined: Dec 28, 2005 Posts: 2003 Location: Antrobus, Cheshire
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:39 am Post subject: |
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Shouldn't be a problem with the windscreen then.
When (if) you get a dry day so you can stand outside, find a place with a clear view of the sky (i.e. no tall buildings/trees etc) and time how long it takes to get a lock. Turn unit off and try again 10mins minutes later. The lock time now should be in low number of seconds. Try this with the different applications to see if there is really any difference in times. Tomtom is probably a little more conservative on deciding when to decide there is a good enough lock. My Garmin nuvi does something similar. When first switched on it will display the map and position the car with a lock but when I try to set a route it sometimes displays a message "Waiting for better accuracy" or some such. So perhaps some applications look for the HDOP to be below a certain figure before showing a lock? _________________ Phil |
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philpugh Lifetime Member
Joined: Dec 28, 2005 Posts: 2003 Location: Antrobus, Cheshire
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:52 am Post subject: |
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PH68 wrote: | Took about 5 minutes to get just a one-bar lock when on works car park.
I stayed in the car as it was chucking it down.
Again, once locked it went to 3, then 5 bars, and remained good all the way home.
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Just one more thing When you refer to an 'x bar lock' - what are you looking at? Is this a display of satellite status (available in TomTom from the GPS Status screen) or the display similar to a mobile phone signal strength meter from the application main screen The first of these is the more reliable. You can get to this by tapping the lower RHS signal strength meter then tapping the top RS signal strength meter from the next page. When you get to this screen you should see how many sats the unit can 'see' and how many it has information from that it can use to calculate position. In open sky I would expect 8-10+ out of a possible 12 sats 'locked' - that is showing solid bars and good signal strength. Hollow bars represent sats that it can 'see' but it has not received sufficient information from in order to use in the determination of your position. _________________ Phil |
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Border_Collie Pocket GPS Verifier
Joined: Feb 01, 2006 Posts: 2543 Location: Rainham, Kent. England.
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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Quote: | Shouldn't be a problem with the windscreen then. | Maybe I should have added, when I use my external aerial, TT5, I get a lock in 37 seconds. Without the external I could possible become a 'bag of bones'. :P The extra wire dangling across my dashboard is annoying, that's why I get a good lock outside first and once done have no further problems hoilding the lock. Having said that, maybe the windscreen is not as much as a problem as the TT software. i-Go worked fine. _________________ Formerly known as Lost_Property
And NO that's NOT me in the Avatar. |
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PH68 Occasional Visitor
Joined: Jul 04, 2007 Posts: 9
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 8:12 pm Post subject: |
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The bars are those on the main TT screen, not those on the Satelite screen.
Buildings should not be a problem as there are about a handfull of houses in the village, then nowt for miles.
I don't want to use an external aerial thats why a bought a PDA with GPS built in.
It's now locking on in about 2-3 minutes... why does it feel like a loooong 2-3 minutes though. |
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Border_Collie Pocket GPS Verifier
Joined: Feb 01, 2006 Posts: 2543 Location: Rainham, Kent. England.
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 8:38 pm Post subject: |
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There was a free programme WinCE Monitor with which you could check the NMEA $trings received by your device and save to a file to view on your desktop. Using it would tell you if you were receiving all the necessary data. I checked the link before adding here and it appears it is no longer available.
I'm still convinced TomTom software is a problem, as WinCE would find and lock on so much faster than TT, as does i-Go.
I see you have only just purchased the P550 but I'm wondering how long it's been 'on the shelf'. The reason is there was a problem with a batch of P550's last year, slow lock ons, and they had to be returned to Mio for a free fix. It may be worth while contacting Mio and ask if the serial number of yours is one of those affected and if so ask for the free repair. _________________ Formerly known as Lost_Property
And NO that's NOT me in the Avatar. |
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