HI-302E pcmcia problem solved (ish)

[beemer]

Long story that may assist others, mainly relevant to laptop and iPaq2210. Got a Haicom HI-302E to use with my laptop and Navigator (Europe). Worked at 1st, but had problems with the mouse culminating in the mouse being completely uncontrollable. I had tried to use the GPS via a usb card reader, the idea being that I could sit the gps and card reader on the dashboard and the laptop elsewhere with a longer usb lead.

This doesn't work, for a compact flash gps to work it needs a pcmcia adaptor!! So £5 for one of those and also an antenna for the HI 302 to sit on the dashboard.

Meanwhile got Ipaq 2210 tom-tom 3 car kit from Globalpositioning, hoping cf gps will also work in that for when i might go walking in some foreign city or lakeland fell.

So how do you cure a laptop recognising a compact flash gps as a Microsoft serial Ballpoint Mouse.. Numerous google links and forums tell you to disable the mouse in system properties... Thats fine, but your mouse goes haywire and you cant get into system properties to disable it, believe me I tried.. Disconnect the gps and the serial mouse no longer shows so you cant disable it.. The answer lies partly at this link and involves editing the registry of your laptop.. Basically telling the operating system not to look and load the information coming from the relevant com port.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;283063

Hmmm you need to be a little computer literate to sort it but it worked for me.. I've emailed Haicom to see if they can write a prog thats sorts this for those not so computer literate..fingers crossed.

Now the ipaq, another day or three trying to get the 2210 to recognise the HI 302E.. Bluetooth mysteriously coming on, Tom-Tom gps settings changed to NMEA 0183v2 4800 and CF_card generic as in these forums (no joy) Freeze up soft/reset etc.. Eventually try GPS Information Program and it defaults to com4 with bluetooth flashing!!!

After much messing I finally got it to work 2 nights ago, but it wouldn't give me an active gps fix with microsoft pocket streets or navigator4(CE) and i couldn't try it with tom tom as it was in the compact flash slot and the tom-tom maps were on the compact flash card (lying on the desk) not the 64Mb smartmedia card.

Anyway the idea isnt to use the cf gps with tom-tom as the car kit works very well.. its for imported maps when walking.. Just trying it now and there not speaking to each other the joys of gps and computing.

On a seperate note Navigator4 for the laptop is far better at street level in Europe than Autoroute..Looking at a route I'm shortly taking in France Autoroute doesn't show enough detail take Sarlat-le-caneda for instance.. Just 2 main roads in Autoroute. Navigator4 goes down to individual streets.

Hope the pcmcia card bit helps someone

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