Tweaking and Testing your GPS Receiver

barrowfordred · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 8:25 am Post subject:

I use TomTom 3 and a BT-308. This works fine with TomTom - yet this program will not connect, just a blank white screen? I've tried every com port , both NMEA & SiRF?????????????????
My BT-308 is, apparently, locked on SiRF ans I am awaiting it reseting itself, although as it works fine with TomTom I may just leave it as it is.

tOpCaT · Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 5:41 pm Post subject:

I have a similar problem. WinFast Navigator doesn't seem to work with my ClipOn Bluetooth. I can use TomTom 3 fine and other programs too. It's just this one that doesn't work. Any ideas?

Dave · Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 6:25 pm Post subject:

The reason why you both can't connect is because TomTom installs a 'fudge' Bluetooth driver that takes control of your Pocket PC and you will find that NO OTHER application can use Bluetooth apart from TomTom Navigator.

1) Backup your PPC First
2) Uninstall the TomTom ~ GPS
3) Allow it to soft reset

Now you will be able to connect to your Bluetooth GPS with ANY program.

tOpCaT · Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 10:36 am Post subject:

Thanks for your help Dave, but I find that GPS Dash and GPS Tuner can both connect to my GPS unit, even when the TOMTOM GPS thing is running in the background. I think it's version 3.00 400/430 or something, but I don't have my PPC to check... Now I'm really confused...

Dave · Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 12:18 pm Post subject:

Yes, but you may be pointing them to GPS Port.

Uninstalling TomTom ~ GPS and then pointing to COM 8 (or your BT COM Port) NMEA 4800 will allow you to connect and if you goto the VIEW | DEVELOPMENT screen it will show data coming through the com port.

tOpCaT · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 12:57 pm Post subject:

It still doesn't seem to work. I've uninstalled TomTom ~ GPS and have put version 2.07 on. Now when I try and run TOMTOM it just seems to hang. And now I can't run the GPS program either... Confused

If I give up and do a hard reset of my XDA is there a way of reinstalling so that I don't have to copy all of the map data over to my SD card again?

Cheers,
Tom

Uugly2

My apologies to pc-mobile. He gave me the info I needed to sort this out, my Toshiba E755 now works with the Earthmate USB GPS. I meant to post thanks to him on this thread but forgot where the thread was until someone emailed me for info.

This is a cumbersome fix but it works. pc-mobile posted this info earlier in this thread but I didn't understand it without some extra explanation from him.

First I had to buy the Earthmate serial to USB cable. Apparently something more than just putting the signals on the correct pins is done by this cable. Or at least I couldn't find out how to do this without the cable. Next I had to buy a serial to USB cable that used the PL2303 chip. I tried one that I already had that I thought used the PL2303 chip but it didn't work, obviously it didn't use that chip. I ordered a cable with the PL2303 chip from pc-mobile since he was kind enough to explain this all to me. I think it took 5 days to get to me, much faster than I expected. The last piece was installing the PL2303 USB to serial driver. I had problems with that, I probably installed the wrong version, but finally found the right version along with excellent instructions on the Pharos web site at http://download.pharosgps.com/download/NewUSB.htm.

What does all this do? Made me question my sanity for one but it worked. The Earthmate USB to serial cable converts the GPS signal from USB to serial. That cable plugs into the serial to USB cable with the PL2303 chip which converts the serial signal to serial over USB, which the PL2303 driver installed on the E755 understands.

After this experience I think maybe I should wait another 10 or 20 years before I try anything else with a pocket pc.

Unfortunately I didn't reach that conclusion until I bought the Globalsat SDIO GPS unit that just came out. It won't work in the E755 which didn't surprise me since it doesn't support SDIO now. It also doesn't work in my Audiovox PPC4100 which did surprise me. If anyone has a solution for that please pass it on.

Wayne

markylooloo · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 01, 2006 Posts: 1

Hi all,
I downloaded this software a while ago for my Acer N35, and I got it to pickup a signal from a sat when I first used it, then I must have touched something as I cannot get a thing to work on it now? I've been ready to give up all hope of ever getting the nav to work on this product! I've tried the destinator and tomtom5 software on it, and nothing will pick up? Its cost me a lot of money for nothing up to yet. As it was brought for the nav because thats what I needed it for, more than the pc side of things.

One the Development screen its just blank, where as before the information was shooting up it? I have a feeling that something was pressed in this screen to clear the info off it, thus stopping it from working?

If anyone can help me with this annoying problem, then I would give them my wife, if I had one?

Thanks

Thamcore · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 01, 2006 Posts: 3

thanks a lot dave for your excelelnt article!
I have an acer n35 that I bought as bundlejavascript:emoticon(':D') with route66 software.
When it refused to work, Acer did not want to help saying they did not support route 66 and Route66 at first did not help either.
In the end they just told me to download Winfast, but i could not find good directions for use.

Thamcore · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 01, 2006 Posts: 3

Winfast

what are the icons at the bottom of the screen for

a knot (to connect and disconnect)
a red/blue circular arrow
two parallel yellow bars
a brush (?)

fellow · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 23, 2006 Posts: 8

Dave Burrows, you are great!

You said: What I would recommend is that you set GGA=1, GLL=0, GSA=5, GSV=5, RMC=1, VTG=1, MSS=0, User=0, User=0, User=0.

Is that for all GPS receiver?

Mine is GGA=1, GLL=0, GSA=1, GSV=5, RMC=1, VTG=0, MSS=0, User=0, User=0, User=0.

Must I change to your recommand setting?

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