What have I got? trying to improve GPS startup time

gregh

Morning all,

I'm just trying to make sure my GPS system has all the latest updates on to try and improve my sat acquisition time.

I have ye olde sleeve which has IPAQ navigation system written down the side of it, and navman written on the back.

Inside the sleeve (where the ipaq sits) it says:

1-y-a-83-0547
GPS sensor designed and manufactured for Compaq IPAQ Pocket PC by Navman NZ Ltd.

If I connect it up and run GPSInfo v1.3 I get:

installed drivers:
Navman, ALK

Active: ALK (COM4: 57600)

Receive SW version: Navman 2.0.0

So my cold start up time can be many many minutes, can I upgrade anything to try and improve this?

thanks in advance,
Greg

Dave · Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2003 12:54 pm Post subject:

Unfortunately not, the older sleeves did experience this problem. There is a thread in the Navman forums that suggest putting some antistatic mirror hard drive backs between the iPAQ and sleeve give faster TTFF times because they are cutting down Electro Magnetic interference to the iPAQ processor.

gregh · Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2003 2:38 pm Post subject:

>> putting some antistatic mirror hard drive backs between the iPAQ and >> sleeve

yeh I tried that Sad

so what's the cheapest sleeve only I can get with faster acquisition times?

I have an ipaq 36xx I use for GPS and TT2 software.

regards,

Greg

Dave · Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2003 3:50 pm Post subject:

Going for just the sleeve, I'd say Emtac. You can go for a 3450 sleeve, but you would have to purchase software it's not available seperately.

pann · Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2003 5:09 pm Post subject:

Dave, at [http://navman.navcity.co.uk/catalog/index.php+c_path+78+RCsid+c9f043c2fa578c82a4b32fc13abb51ab]

you can buy the 3450 separetly it then goes under the name 3100 and the price is 179£.

Dave · Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2003 7:54 pm Post subject:

Interesting, thanks! Hadn't seen that before.

baggaa · Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:47 pm Post subject: Navman 3450 or TT2

The next question is it worth upgrading to the 3450 (3100 sic) sleeve or go directly to TT2. Total GPS is selling for £185 against the £179 for the sleeve.

I think that Navman are missing the point. Just following this forum recently I would have considered that it would make good business sense for Navman to offer customers of its older products a cost viable path. Clearly the earlier products have some fundamental issues that should have been ironed out earlier.

Any how I will have to toss that coin soon and take a plunge..

Dave · Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 6:41 am Post subject:

If you are experiencing long TTFF's then the 3450 is definately worth it. Although I had seen the difference in performance between the 3400 and 3450 sleeves and carried out a whole load of TTFF tests, Mike got to test the new 3450 sleeve in the Navman 3300 package recently, and Mike was very sceptical that the sleeve would give him a good performance, but when we spoke on the phone one morning, Mike was very surprised at the performance.

Mike wrote in his Navman 3300 SmartExplorer Review..."Now my first experience of GPS was using the 3000 sleeve. If I hadn't persisted I would probably not be here today. As you can gather the 3000 didn't inspire me to believe that GPS was a mature mass market consumer product. Indeed the old 3000 often left me stranded in the middle of nowhere having followed the Navigation software blindly with no idea of where I was. Bearing this in mind I was very interested to see what improvements had been made to the sleeve, the performance and the reception.

Well it really is hats off to NavMan. The sleeve really outperformed my expectations. It is as good as any sleeve I have used before and the battery life of the PDA was excellent (for the 5450). In my tests I achieved an average of marginally over 4 hours continuous use before the PDA hit 10% charge. "

onbashi · Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 8:39 am Post subject:

I have owned both the 3400 the 3450, and from my experience the 3450 is a fantastic receiver, i cant find a fault with it except for the massive lump they call an ariel but that is on both anyway, it locks on to sats from inside my house and i no longer have to drive down the road with my arm out the window holding my ipaq and sleeve anymore Laughing Out Loud

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