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Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 10:20 pm Post subject: broken gps :(
Hi, I have a Imate PDA-n which has been working fine but the last few times I've tryed to use the gps it's not been able to get a lock.
Ive put gps info on and it's saying that the date is 2005/9/11 is it nackered or is there anything I can do?
Cheers
dan
Joined: Jan 14, 2005 Posts: 19638 Location: Blackpool , Lancs
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 8:33 am Post subject:
What software application are you using with the GPS ?
If it has a GPS setup/ status screen please use that to view what is going on, take the device outside, clear view of the sky and not moving. Leave it for 20 mins and see what it is doing, has it achieved a position fix or not? - Mike
HI, Last night i used tomtom to try to get a signal on my way home with it only saying 'no valid gps signal' with none of the sats showing any signal.
This was about a 30/40min drive, I usually get a lock in less than 1min sometimes longer but will get some signal showing for the sats.
When I got home I loaded 'gps info' to see if it was tomtom that was playing up, after standing outside for about 15mins (it was cold, dark and starting to spit) I left it outside for another 10mins as it was starting to rain with no luck.
However noticed the date was showing as 2005/09/11 within gpsinfo.
Today I fired up gpsinfo again for to see if it was just bad luck, but after a hour drive it didnt show any siganls. It does list some sv's though.
The other thing that i've now noticed is that position is showing the time.
IE if UTC is 01:02.43 Lat is 100deg243.004 long is 100deg243.0043
I've had a play and a look, according to gpsinfos 'dump screen'
It can see 12 saterlights but just wont lock on to them
this is assuming I have interpertited the $GPGSV string ok.
One line reads
$GPGSV,3,1,12,30,00,000,,10,00,000,,25,00,000,,27,00,000,*79
Joined: Dec 28, 2005 Posts: 2003 Location: Antrobus, Cheshire
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 2:01 pm Post subject:
dreaddan wrote:
I've had a play and a look, according to gpsinfos 'dump screen'
It can see 12 saterlights but just wont lock on to them
this is assuming I have interpertited the $GPGSV string ok.
One line reads
$GPGSV,3,1,12,30,00,000,,10,00,000,,25,00,000,,27,00,000,*79
You will get a lot of NMEA strings with data in them - but it doesn't mean the GPS is working OK
Unfortunately you don't have any valid information in the $GPGSV sentence - the elevation and azimuth info for the satellites are all 0 and there is an absence of SNR figures. BTW there should be a further two $GPGSV sentences for the other 8 satellites of the 12 - but I suspect these are all giving the same info.
Others to look at would be $GPGGA which gives 'fix' info. The number after the 6th comma is the important one. 0 = no fix, 1 = fix.
$GPGSA where the number after the second comma means 1 = NO fix, 2 = 2d fix, 3= 3D fix.
However it would look like something has happened to your receiver.
Can you remove the internal battery? Or at least run it down and leave it for a day or so without power. This may reset it internally. It could take 15-30 mins to get a first lock after this - but it would be worth trying.
You've not made any changes to it have you (altered any internal parameters etc)? _________________ Phil
It's in a PDA so removing the battry is possable.
I've not played with it, though I'm tempted to see if you can do a reset via NMEA.
I thought the data contained in the GPGSV string was a indication that it could see some sv's but not 'lock' onto them, how does it know what sv's to see or is it picking some random ones?
edit: would doing a hard reset of the PDA affect it?
Joined: Dec 28, 2005 Posts: 2003 Location: Antrobus, Cheshire
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 2:56 pm Post subject:
dreaddan wrote:
It's in a PDA so removing the battry is possable.
I've not played with it, though I'm tempted to see if you can do a reset via NMEA.
I thought the data contained in the GPGSV string was a indication that it could see some sv's but not 'lock' onto them, how does it know what sv's to see or is it picking some random ones?
edit: would doing a hard reset of the PDA affect it?
It's probably using stored or random satellite numbers for the GPGSV sentences. Some units will report what look like valid Lat/Lon values in the $GPGGA/$GPGSA which is why it is important to look for the FIX information codes.
A hard reset may help - but it will remove all your installed s/w and data from the PDA internal memory. If you are prepared to cope with this it's probably worth a go. If you are going to do this then it's proabaly a good idea to remove the battery from the PDA and leave it for a few days - depends if there is a 'backup' battery somewhere on the unit. This would have the same effect as I suggested originally.
Silly thought occurs to me - there isn't a h/w or s/w switch to turn it off or on is there? This used to catch me out with an XDA phone/PDA I had. Disabling wireless (to turn off the phone bit and extend battery life) used to knock out the BT connectivity - so I couldn't connect to my BT GPS - always annoyed me.
Otherwise contact your PDA manufacturer / supplier to see if they can assist. _________________ Phil
A hard reset is ok as I only have Tomtom on it as I only did a rebuild a few months ago as it had loads of toot on it.
It usually works ok with flight mode on (turns bt & wifi off), as far as I know it 'auto' senses when to turn the bt on when you connect to com4.
I will try to speak to imate but there usually crap about this kind of thing.
I use GPS monitor which has the option to reset the gps module (mines built in to my pda phone). You can also use it to change other settings (baud rate, NMEA, Sirf). Might help.
Mines lost the lock in the past also and removing the battery, waiting 30 mins or so, has reset the gps chip.
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