BT308 no longer BTing!

Rogerfrit · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2004 6:50 pm Post subject: BT308 no longer BTing!

The blue bluetooth light has stopped working on my BT308, and no signal is being transmitted - anyone able to help me?
Roger

Rogerfrit · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2004 7:39 pm Post subject:

Ooooops - seems I may have found the solution here - http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/globalsat-bt308.php
I presume power cycle means letting it run flat and recharging?
Roger

Dave · Posted: Sun Feb 29, 2004 12:20 pm Post subject:

Usually power cycling is just powering off and on again.

Rogerfrit · Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 7:49 pm Post subject:

Sadly I have had no joy.
Turning on & off have had no effect, nor have discharging and recharging.
I have e-mailed Globalsat with no response, and my supplier (globalpositioningsystems.co.uk) with my problem, but no response yet.
This is what happened.
I was driving with the GPS on charge. Sudden;ly the cursor and map on TomTom stopped moving. I looked at the GPS, and the blue light had gone out, the green light was flashing, and the charge light had gone Red!
Then on I get the blue light with a quick flash only on turn-on, and then nothing else. The green light flasshes on fix, and the orange/red light seem to function fine.
Still there is no bluetooth signal.
Any ideas?
Roger

GadgetCT · Posted: Mon May 10, 2004 6:46 pm Post subject: BT308 problem fixed

We are a seller of the GlobalSat GPS on ebay. let me try to help you.

1) if you have a pocket PC try loaded the GPSinfo software and choice the "Cold Start" this will reset your bluetooth GPS.

2) Drain the power totaly and let it on for 24 hrs. recharge it. now you should be able receive the satellite signal.

Gadgetct

Trash99 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 23, 2004 Posts: 1

GadgetCT

Hi
I have received numbers of email about the problems of the GlobalSat BT-308 GPS.As a power seller on ebay and our buying power with GlobalSat, we got a quick reply from them. these problems has been fixed. the following is the problems.

Known Problems

When switching from NMEA to SiRF mode using a 3rd party utility it is important that the BAUD rate is set to NMEA 38400 when switching back. If this is not the case then the internal communications link between the Bluetooth module and the GPS Engine will be broken. Beware that this can happen "unintentionally" by using an application such as TomTom and selecting SiRF mode.
To fix this problem the battery needs to be completely drained and the unit left switched on for 48 hours after.
This will completely drain all the power from the receiver and reset to factory defaults. This will be fixed in the next release of firmware.
I occasionally get problems with the BT interface whereby the receiver just stops outputting data. After this it is difficult to remake the connection. The only reliable way is to power cycle the BT308 and perform a soft reset on the PDA. This is the same with both iPAQ 3870, 5450 and a Portable PC with a TDK BT Dongle. Although this does not happen too often it is a major irritation when it does. When this happens the receiver appears to be working correctly and has a fix.
GlobalSat are aware of the problem and are working on a fix at the moment.

Gadget CT

Stevie · Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 5:10 pm Post subject:

Is it possible to update the firmware and if so how can you tell what version you have, anyone?

Hunnymonster · Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 5:24 pm Post subject:

The only way I've found is to use GPSTweak toflip into SiRF mode, poll for firmware version and flip back to NMEA for real life..... bit of a pain to do as it doesn't always flip between modes when it should Rolling Eyes

Hunnymonster · Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 5:25 pm Post subject:

Erm - only way to find out the firmware version that is - still unable to find any SiRF firmwares for user upgrade Sad

DavidW · Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 6:07 pm Post subject:

I think the firmware being talked about here is the firmware of the Bluetooth part of the Bluetooth GPS, not the firmware of the GPS part. Internally, the two parts are linked using a serial port - it's when the GPS chipset gets set to a different serial port speed to the Bluetooth part that you have a 'lost' Bluetooth GPS.

The fix to stop this sort of thing happening is to add code to the firmware in the Bluetooth part of the Bluetooth GPS that intercepts mode switch commands to the GPS chipset and makes sure (by one of a few possible techniques) that the internal serial link between the Bluetooth module and the GPS chipset won't finish up with different speeds at both ends.

SiRF firmware is only very rarely made available for user upgrade - if an upgrade is issued, it's important only to use an upgrade if it's aimed at your specific device and to make sure you follow the instructions to the letter. If anything goes wrong with a firmware upgrade, you'll almost certainly put the GPS beyond economic repair.

David

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