BT-338 Firmware Upgrade V3.1.1 (EGNOS a temporary feature?)

b1zaphod · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 26, 2005 Posts: 2

My BT-338 has just arrived back with its new Firmware Ver:3.1.1 upgrade, and is sitting on the desk at the moment tracking PRN:120 giving me an impressive EGNOS 3d+DGps Fix as reported by SIRFDemo 3.751, Memory-Map & OzExplorer!. Unfortunately for some unknown reason the DGPS View page of SIRFDemo still remains blank? and I also appear to have the "Forget EGNOS enabled" bug as soon as the GPS is switched off or powers down after loosing the Blutooth link. Maybe we will have to wait for Ver3.1.2 to fix that bug? or maybe its a GlobalSat DESIGN Feature?

Trying to find out more about the "Forget EGNOS enabled" bug on my upgraded BT-338 GPS reciver, after I pre-registered online at USGlobalsat Support website for the FREE e-mail support, I was sent the following in answer to my question "Why WAAS/EGNOS enable stops working after power off then on?".

uffe73 · Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2005 4:31 pm Post subject:

My Holux GR-213 with 3.1.1 FW shows the exact same behaviour as your BT-338 which has given me the same frustration. I too have asked myself how I can switch on EGNOS automatically (i.e without having to start GPSViewer) when I start my PDA. Interesting to hear that it's all down to the FW on the SiRF chip!

Another issue for me is that my Navigation SW (Navman SmartST V3) has no knowledge of DGPS. It makes no indication of 3D DGPS fix but keeps displaying "3D fix". Not sure if any road navigation programs has started making use of EGNOS yet. It should be quite easy to enable/disable EGNOS from the navigation program, by sending the serial message you're mentioning, right?

Regards,

Ulf
_________________
TomTom GO720T: App ver 8.351(9982/090518), OS:315187, GPS v1.20, Boot 5.5120
TT RDS-TMC: 4V00.013
Maps: Scandinavia v840.2562, Western_Europe v715.1703
Garmin GPSMap 60CSx (SW ver. 3.70)

xavalon · Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 5:53 pm Post subject:

While EGNOS went into operation 28 of July 2005, it is still considered a sort of a 'beta field' test in order to qualify and optimise EGNOS operations.

The EGNOS open service will be declared available in early 2006, once the operations have been proven to be stable and robust.

I doubt if soon car-navigation will use the EGNOS data, since it is more designed for maritime and aviation use (car-navigation is listed as a use though). Car-navigation already have algorithms to fix you on the calculated road.

BTW, while your device probably receives the EGNOS signal via satellites, you need to have two (out of 3) EGNOS satellites visible. In (dense) urban situations, visibility to the satellites (also the ordinary GPS satellites) might be limited; it is possible to retrieve the EGNOS signal by other means: e.g. GSM, radio and Internet. I doubt that current EGNOS devices, especially current cheaper GPS units, can retrieve the EGNOS signals other than via satellites. Agree, I don’t know if EGNOS signals are already transmitted via radio, GSM or Internet.

Leif · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 04, 2005 Posts: 16

Receiving from one SBAS (WAAS, EGNOS...) satellite is enough for DGPS fix but that can be hard enough depending on the environment.

I have a Yakumo Delta 300 GPS. When trying an older GPS firmware (2.3.2-GSW2-2.05.024-C1PROD1.0_6A) which supports SBAS, it also lost the SBAS setting when turned off.

	PocketGPS
	Web