Advice on BT 338 settings

[cj4151]

Newbie here, could do with some advice.

Following reading many posts on this forum, I decided to buy a new BT 338. It arrived, I assume with the latest firmware as the serial number starts with AAW. I wish to use it with an old Sony Vaio laptop with Memory Map OS software. (I will shortly buy a PDA so that I can use it for hiking/biking). I set up the laptop with the tried and tested “NMEA 38400” settings in Memory Map but could not get it to talk to it. After trying various combinations, I changed “NMEA 38400” to “SiRF 38400” and heypresto it worked! I am new to this, but this suggests to me that the BT 338 is set to output SiRF and not NMEA. I haven’t touched any of the BT338 settings with SiRF demo or anything else. My questions are:

Should it have arrived set to output SiRF?

Does this mean that it may have been tinkered with before I have received it?

If it has been tinkered with, is there some way that I can reset to default values?

Or am I misunderstanding the settings?

Any advice would be appreciated.

[lbendlin]

It should have arrived with NMEA set as the output format
Yes, someone tinkered with it - not a nice move.
You can use SiRFdemo to switch the device back to NMEA mode.

If you only use Memory Map, and it can read SiRF then you could of course also let it run as is...
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

[cj4151]

thanks for the rapid reply. It's likely that I will need to change it to NMEA from SiRF at some time in the future. Having read quite a few of the pages on SiRFdemo and the difficulties with getting it to talk to some BT devices, I'm a little unsure about using it in case I manage to lock up my BT 338.

I have read elsewhere on the forums that some GPS receivers will reset if the battery is left out for a while. Is this likely to set my BT 338 back to NMEA? Would doing this cause any other problems? Or am I stuck with chancing my arm with SiRFdemo?

Again any advice would be appreciated.

[lbendlin]

yes, taking the battery out for a while is a very safe way of switching the device back to NMEA. This has no adverse effects (apart from the time wasted)
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

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