I went through a few Windows Smartphones before getting my first PPC (a Motorola MPx) just over a year ago. I already had a Bluetooth GPS receiver: Visiontac VGPS 700 I was trying to use it with my Motorola A1200, with no luck. However, with the MPx, and Tomtom, I was able to navigate via GPS with my own GPS system as it were.
That setup quickly (within weeks) gave way to a Cingular 8525 paired to the Visiontac GPS and away I went. I travel a lot for work. From So Cal to (this past year) Mass (Boston), NYC, Kentucky, Ohio, Tenn, Utah, Arizona, NM, and so on. I've used the 8525 in all kinds of areas, from urban areas like San Francisco, NYC, Philly, LA, Cincinnati, Chicago, and so on to areas in the relative middle of nowhere such as the So Cal desert, some areas of Kentucky, PA, and TN I've been to the last year (way, way off the nearest road). Since I've had it, I've put probably driven 20,000-30,000 miles with the Visiontac and Tomtom on. I've got a decent idea of how quick it takes to get a lock when cold, how long to get a lock after getting off a plane in another portion of the country, and how many satellites it shows in Tomtom. I've checked it against hundreds of roadside speed warning signs, and used it to calibrate the speedometers of three Jeeps now.
Then, a last week, I get the ATT Tilt (aka 8925, aka Kaiser). I move my 6gb micro SD across to it, fire up Tomtom (which I've always run off the card- it makes it easier when flashing every other week.) and go. After getting the com port dialed in (COM 4) and the baud rate (started at 4800 like many on here said, now on 57500) I've noticed that the internal GPS of the Kaiser just doesn't compare with the Visiontac bluetooth unit.
I went to San Fran this weekend (from Riverside- about 380 miles) and drove around town up there all weekend using the new phone for directions. I put about 1100 miles on the vehicle, and the navigation on the Kaiser. After losing signal in some areas of the city and having to drive until it found a satellite again and recalculated a route, where I didn't remember losing it before on the old setup, and noting that instead of 5 bars shown for signal as on the Hermes, I see a fluxuating 3-5 bars on the Kaiser.
So, this morning on the way in to work, I fire up both units, side by side to see what the deal is. I was wondering if the Kaiser really was lacking where the Visiontac/Hermes setup didn't seem to be.
Sure enough, the Kaiser running Tomtom 6 shows 3-5 (most often 4) bars on open freeway where the Hermes shows 5 bars. In the GPS configuration settings on Tomtom I find what I believe to be the answer. The Visiontac GPS tracks 12 satellites, the Kaiser, tracks only 8 most of the time, occasionally will track 12.
If that wasn't enough to cause me to lose direction and location, the Visiontac GPS appears more sensitive. The way Tomtom shows how good the signal is, is by the height of a particular satellite's bar on a bar graph. If you were to divide the bar into 5ths, the Visiontac seems to constantly be a fifth higher (20% more sensitive) than the Kaiser's built in GPS.
As for battery usage, I get about 3.5 hours of navigation (along with a few phone calls using the Jawbone headset) with the Kaiser before I get the "charge battery to prevent data loss" warning. On the Hermes, I get about 5.5 hours, with the Visiontac GPS able to run to almost 8 hours before needing a recharge. I expected a loss in battery power, due to the unit also having to power the GPS chip. I'm not sure I expected 2 hours, but I'm not completely bummed over it. My GPS usage is largely in a vehicle, or inside, to find out how far something is, so I can plug it in if needed.
I have also noticed that Tomtom is faster to start on the Kaiser. It is faster to allow you to type in addresses to navigate to, or points of interest to look up, and it calculates the route quicker. Key press response in general are quicker than on the Hermes. I expected a little quicker, thanks to the added RAM, but not this much- they both have 400 mhz chipsets. Granted, it still isn't instant, but it is an improvement.
Phone Specs at time of test said:
Hermes:
Running Starbase64's 6 3.62 WWE/HTC Rom for Hermes
Stock Battery
Kaiser:
Running ATT as-delivered ROM 1.57.502.2 (08/25/07)
Stock Battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Overall:
I just wish there was a way to up the sensitivity and/or the number of satellites that the Kaiser's GPS tracked. Compared to the Visiontac VGPS 700, it just can't compete in urban environs or in heavily wooded areas. It looses signal too easily. And, while I haven't tried some of the larger bridges around here yet, I am left wondering how it will do under them. Aside from that, it is great to not have to carry around two items to navigate, I have no more bluetooth receiver falling off my dash when going around a corner, and if I have my phone, I can find a place for dinner, or find my way out of an unfamiliar area with 90 percent confidence. The Kaiser is quicker than the Hermes for navigation, and overall is accurate, however it does leave a little to be desired. Am I happy I went to the Kaiser? Absolutely. Am I going to be selling my Hermes and Visiontac? (the original plan) Probably not for a while.
Hopefully this helps any who are later to the game than I am and/or still sitting on the fence trying to decide whether or not to jump in.
Would adding the external antenna help, for the areas whre it is a pain?
I don't know what it looks like or how painful that would be, but it may be an option.
I'm not completely happy with the GPS performance of my Tytn2. I had a MDA Vario (pre-pre-decessor of the Tytn2) and an external Adapt-700 bt unit. That one worked brilliantly. Even inside a Renault (with the coated windows) it worked flawless. Alway perfect reception. It's different with my Tytn2. In the morning, it takes some time to get a fix. I was used to 10-15 seconds before a fix was there. Now it is sometimes 1 minute.
But...I've notices something. The QuickGPS program makes it work a lot better. I knew that it should improve the performance, but the program is a bit misleading. It says that once you retrieved the data, it's valid for six days. So...you'd be in the clear for the rest of the week so to say. But I noticed that when you do a 'refresh' in the morning (every day), it works much, much better. I can even get a fix where it wouldn't before.
So, my tip would be to run the QuickGPS every day, or every time before a drive.
Over2land
Another question. How well is TomTom performing for you 'quality of mapwise'? I've read a few posts complaining about how old the maps are for Nagigator 6, and especially for the U.S. Also comments about 'no rumored upgrade' for Navigator 6.
I just purchased it, so I got it for whatever it's worth. But just curious about what you are seeing.
ewingr said:
Over2land
Another question. How well is TomTom performing for you 'quality of mapwise'? I've read a few posts complaining about how old the maps are for Nagigator 6, and especially for the U.S. Also comments about 'no rumored upgrade' for Navigator 6.
I just purchased it, so I got it for whatever it's worth. But just curious about what you are seeing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Missed the first question, sorry.
I have no idea if an external wired GPS antenna would help it. I would hazard to say it couldn't hurt. However, with the Hermes, there was evidence put forth that the external antenna (for the radio/GSM) fried the output circuits or some such, rendering it useless as a phone. I'd be worried about that happening here. Also, I've got like 5 vehicles on the road right now I rotate through, or try to rotate through, and a hard-mounted wired antenna wouldn't work for me.
In San Fran, there are issues with Tomtom not knowing where and when I can or can't turn a certain direction which really annoyed me. In So Cal, there are certain areas (understandable with the housing boom) that it just doesn't have on the maps. Areas that are 3 or 4 years old still aren't there. I've also noticed the same thing in NJ, intersections don't exist in the maps and so forth. I guess really there is something I've noted everywhere I've gone. Tomtom always gets me there, often with less fan trouble than if I was one my own, I find it more accurate than Mapquest also.
They really do need map updating.
And, they really need to look at updating quickest routes. Half the time in my local area, I don't follow Tomtom's freeway suggestions due to congestion, which is persistent congestion that should be noted. Areas like the 15/91 interchange, the 10 between the 5 and 405, the 10 where it drops south to hit the 60, and so on.
Then again, I've not used any other map/ turn by turn software so I have nothing to compare it against either.
ewingr said:
Would adding the external antenna help, for the areas whre it is a pain?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I still have an external GPS antenna in my car. I didn't have time to hook it up yet, but I'll check if it makes a difference. With my previous GPS receiver, which I kept in my glove compartiment (hence the antenna), it worked well. Not that it was really needed, but I just wanted optimal reception.
This is a great post. I am trying to buy a used kaiser now so I don't need a extra gps receiver. Seems I need to consider it again.
What ROM are you using on your Kaiser? There have been great differences in GPS performance between ROMs. From general advice AGPS should be disabled too for best performance.
Personally I'm very happy with mine, I'm working a lot with different GPS modules, and the performance is as good as the best ones I have. Sat count might be a bit lower (which gives fewer bars in TomTom), but the performance is really similar.
As already noted, an external antenna could help. The typical GPS antenna you'll find in a stand-alone module is a 25x25x4mm ceramic block weighing 30gr, no need to say that it's impossible to fit such a thing in a phone, so obviously the integrated antennas in those are a lot less sensitive.
Of course our uses are different and if you always use the combo in your car it doesn't matter much if you have 2 separate devices. I tend to rather use it walking, running, biking, flying so in lots of different places and with a separate receiver I would of course not have it with me most of the times I'd have needed it. Having the integrated one is great for me, even if there's a little tradeoff in performance.
I am using Romeos 4.2 and have never had a problem with my gps on mt TYTNII. I get a fix indoors which I cannot do with my Garmin Rino no external antenna required.
Related
Some people might experience with certain GPS software.
If you look at the log of the NMEA log, you might realize that it burst out every 6-10 seconds. After that you might wait for another 6-10 sec, which is unusable for real-time navigation. If you happen to meet this trouble.
I have a way which could allow normal update intervals.
Install GPSGATE, it create virtual GPS COM PORT and re-route the NMEA data.
Install GPSGATE, just use the default settings, it create the virtual GPS port as COM 1.
Just use GPS software on COM 1 .
software url: http://franson.com/gpsgate/
Can anyone confirm this works? Ive noticed my GPS works the same way. Im using the Kaiser / TyTn II with Mapking and i notice that i also get my signbal ins bursts and NOT a smooth stream. Anyone know if this will resolve the problem?
What is the update intervals with GPSGATE ?
Do you mean GPSGATE must be run concurrently with the other software TomTom 6 for example ?
It would be a good workaround for people who encounter this GPS issue.
could this be some delicious spam?
How exactly does the OP propose that a user space application can make the hardware produce data in a smoother stream?
I call BS.
seems like BS to me too...Probably some spam Can anyone who has tried it out verify if it really works or not?..
THKS
You don't need to use other GPS software concurrently,
just use the GPSGATE and mapking will do.
Remember you have to modify the settings in mapking to use the virtual com port ( com1 default)
Not SPAM
I am not sure, this is BS.
If I am not mistaken the GPSGATE will act like a "router" (middle man) between the GPS hardware (Internal GPS of Kaiser) and the application (TomTom).
If the GPS hardware is faulty (having problem) with bursting data every 10 seconds, then the GPSGATE will also receive bursting data every 10 seconds.
So, that's useless as long as the problem is in the GPS hardware.
Gpsproxy should be able to do the same thing and its free.
GPSGate is a splitter, allowing using more than one application with the same NMEA stream. It creates another virtual GPS COM port, that's it.
GPS on the Kaiser works great and I'm on SatNav business. Aquisition time is fast, reception is great and update ratio is every 1 sec, just like any other civilian GPS receiver. GPS is NOT evaluated by the refresh rate you see on the screen, other software will give you other rate, try OZI Explorer for instance. I used Kaiser with TomTom, Destinator & Ozi, all works really great even comparing to Sirf III GPS chipset embedded devices such as Eten X500, HTC Artemis and Asus 535.
Last, Microsoft has included the same functionality of GPS Gate in WM5 and WM6 under settings. You do not need to install any additional SW, you can send "trueman 12345" (the guy who opened this thread with 2 posts history) your money directly.
Thanks RonenB for this very usefull precision !
Thanks as well RonenB, However, it does not solve the odd occasional pause in the data that we're seeing. Is this hardware or software that needs help in the Kaiser?
Actually I'm not so sure we have defined the problem accurately here.
Examining the signal from the GPS shows some interesting info.
1
A satellite is locked onto for perhaps only one or two seconds at a time.
2
Several satellites can achieve a lock but out of these a few will be lost every few seconds
3
New satellites are also acquired every few seconds.
The Result
If you are in the presence of many satellites then there is a constant dropping of some and locking onto others. This leads to no problems as there are always a few satellites locked on and data flow is smooth.
BUT
If you are in the presence of only say 2 or 3 satellites it is possible to drop these two or three (as indicated above), but no new ones are acquired. In this situation there will be a few seconds before the first 2 or 3 lock in again. Result a gap in data flow to your GPS software.
Meaning
The Internal GPS is not polling data in bursts. In other words you cannot turn up the frequency of data polling (possible baud rate adjustment maybe). The data is continuous but if there are too few satellites then there can be gaps where it drops some satellites and does not lock others.
There are various applications that can show this behaviour graphically but tomtom shows it well on the satellite view screen.
Compared to external GPS satellite locks this works in a strangely different way. You will see the bars jumping around from a lock on this one to that one continuously. Only a problem as I say when there are only a few satellites in sight.
Mike
PS - I cannot see the advantage of GPSGate in this particular situation as it is due to momentary periods when no satellite is detected.
Having said all of the above, I find the GPS perfectly adequate for general use. Perhaps if I need spot on plotting data then it might be weak. However if I need that unusual level of accuracy I would not use my phone to do it. I regularly use mine in place of my car's tomtom and the results are on a par with the full tomtom device.
mikechannon said:
Actually I'm not so sure we have defined the problem accurately here.
Examining the signal from the GPS shows some interesting info.
1
A satellite is locked onto for perhaps only one or two seconds at a time.
2
Several satellites can achieve a lock but out of these a few will be lost every few seconds
3
New satellites are also acquired every few seconds.
The Result
If you are in the presence of many satellites then there is a constant dropping of some and locking onto others. This leads to no problems as there are always a few satellites locked on and data flow is smooth.
BUT
If you are in the presence of only say 2 or 3 satellites it is possible to drop these two or three (as indicated above), but no new ones are acquired. In this situation there will be a few seconds before the first 2 or 3 lock in again. Result a gap in data flow to your GPS software.
Meaning
The Internal GPS is not polling data in bursts. In other words you cannot turn up the frequency of data polling (possible baud rate adjustment maybe). The data is continuous but if there are too few satellites then there can be gaps where it drops some satellites and does not lock others.
There are various applications that can show this behaviour graphically but tomtom shows it well on the satellite view screen.
Compared to external GPS satellite locks this works in a strangely different way. You will see the bars jumping around from a lock on this one to that one continuously. Only a problem as I say when there are only a few satellites in sight.
Mike
PS - I cannot see the advantage of GPSGate in this particular situation as it is due to momentary periods when no satellite is detected.
Having said all of the above, I find the GPS perfectly adequate for general use. Perhaps if I need spot on plotting data then it might be weak. However if I need that unusual level of accuracy I would not use my phone to do it. I regularly use mine in place of my car's tomtom and the results are on a par with the full tomtom device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, I believe that it is time to explain a little bit how GPS works.
The GPS satellites are transmitting their position rapidly. However, due to homeland security issues (US did not want to allow anyone to place a receiver in a jet fighter or a missile) civilian GPS receivers are limited to aquire position every 1 second only. This is not a problem for a normal user even for civilian aviation. Thus, when you look at the NMEA stream, you will see it coming in bursts and not as rapid as normal data. Since GPS strings are quite short, it is good enough for any navigation system.
Number of satellites aquired is not an indicator to anything. Like any RF system, the engineers can tweak the noise level so that it will look to you that you are receiving X amount of satellites, the signal is on the air anyway.
What is important though is the position of the satellites. the closer to the horizon, the less useable that satellite is to calulate the position. Therefore receivers are taking the best located satellites into account and ignoring others even of they are recieved. Valid fix (position) is aquired by at least 3 satellites for 2D (X,Y) and 4 or more for 3D (with elevation).
Result is that as a user, you should not bother too much looking into the stream or number of sattelite in use as long as you can get a valid fix. The important and effective elements are hidden from the user: number of transsistors in the GPS chipset, quality of antenna etc. User can just evaluate the overall preformance.
As I wrote above, the Kaiser integrated GPS surprised me for superb preformance. I just arrived this week from Israel to Germany and could get a fix as soon as I left the underground garage. I did not loose GPS signal even once since I started using the device. That includes forests and dence city centers. Real good job by HTC here.
This is the problem i am facing:
Im using MapKing with Hong Kong 2007 maps. Getting a fix is no problem. I can normally get a fix in about 10-15 secs. When i check the status page I will normally have a connection to 5-7 satelites.
The problem is that the icon does not move smoothly when i travel. In map king your position on the map is represented by a small car icon. It jumps from location to location every 3-5 secs but does not smoothly move along. Can someone please tell me if this is the case with tomtom as well? Maybe it a problem with mapking?
phame said:
This is the problem i am facing:
Im using MapKing with Hong Kong 2007 maps. Getting a fix is no problem. I can normally get a fix in about 10-15 secs. When i check the status page I will normally have a connection to 5-7 satelites.
The problem is that the icon does not move smoothly when i travel. In map king your position on the map is represented by a small car icon. It jumps from location to location every 3-5 secs but does not smoothly move along. Can someone please tell me if this is the case with tomtom as well? Maybe it a problem with mapking?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is a Mapking problem and you should contact their support. Does not happen to me with Destinator, TomTOm and Ozi.
Ok, there is no point to argue, if you really find yourself having problem with GPS update lag, then give it a try. No harm indeed...
In HK, there are people the validity of the work around. GPS proxy might also work as well( i think it is the same principal) just i wasn't aware of this good free software before hand..
http://www11.discuss.com.hk/viewthread.php?tid=5329804&extra=page=2
(u need an account and some chinese word knowledge)
trueman12345 said:
Ok, there is no point to argue, if you really find yourself having problem with GPS update lag, then give it a try. No harm indeed...
In HK, there are people the validity of the work around. GPS proxy might also work as well( i think it is the same principal) just i wasn't aware of this good free software before hand..
http://www11.discuss.com.hk/viewthread.php?tid=5329804&extra=page=2
(u need an account and some chinese word knowledge)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Quite agree it's worth trying, and the application has other uses too.
Mike
FYI: I got GPS to work easily by installing GPSViewer, opening COM4/4800baud and getting located. After that, using Google Maps was a breeze; total "trick" took me about 1 minute to figure out which is way quicker than some other workarounds on the internet.
I was driving with iGuidance for about 1 hour this morning and I'm seeing different behavoir for this bug. iGuidance also has an excellent GPS signal viewer, mine was showing 8 out of 8 sattellites, all green, all the time (they turn red when not receiving signal from a sat). My map was moving about once per second or slightly faster. The program only paused once after about 30 minutes into the trip, for about 20-30 seconds. The iGuidance program's moving arrow's color also changes color based on signal quality of the combined sattelite lock, Green for good 3D mapping, Yellow for 2D when there are minimal sats for navigating, and Red for no signal data. During this pause the arrow went Red to indicate no data.
This seems like a bug to me.
A lot of folks (myself included) have been wondering how good the GPS in the Kaiser is. Since I own something like 7 GPS units at last count, I decided to grab all the handheld ones and do a comparison
In the best highly subjective and unscientific manner, I let each GPS lock in my window where easily 12 satellites are visible, then after it had stabilized brought them in another 5-6 feet to where my oldest GPS had always been borderline. I used Mapopolis and TomTom on the PocketPCs to display how many satellites (birds) and what signal strength each of the connected GPS's was locking. The standalone units I put on their satellite display to get the same info.
I watched them all for close to an hour, fiddling with positioning, orientation, etc and derived a completely unscientific rating for each. Keeping and holding more satellites with higher signal strength yielded more points, and I arbitrarily set the best one at 10 points, then tried to rate the others relative to that. Note that this is only signal holding ability, not lock time or ease of lock, and it isn't tested MOVING where a GPS can really show (or show up) it's signal holding ability. With all that said, hopefully these are better than nothing and will give folks some idea of where the Kaiser falls in the spectrum of GPS performance.
In order from "worst" to "best", 'Unit - My Rating':
Garmin eTrex Vista - 3
Holux GM270 CompactFlash Card - 4
Garmin eTrex VistaC - 7
AT&T Tilt (Kaiser) - 8
GlobalSat BT-338 BlueTooth - 10
The SirfStarIII in the BT-338 blows away all the other GPS units - it consistently held no less than 9 of the 12 birds, and typically 11 or 12 - and all with fantastic signal strength. Based on my past experience, I can say this is an awesome unit for lock time, lock durability, etc, etc, etc so I was unsurprised that it was the best performer here.
The Tilt/Kaiser actually did surprisingly well, typically 1-3 birds less than the BT-338, noticeably weaker signal strength and a lot more hopping around - i.e. holding 9 birds, but a different 9 from moment to moment. Test was done with QuickGPS data having been downloaded a few days ago, but QuickGPS executable not running.
The VistaC was another surprise - I've owned the original Vista since not long after it came out, and recently got a used VistaC. A lot more hopping than the Kaiser, but consistently holding 6-8 birds for a good solid fix. I had always assumed the GPS circuitry was common across the eTrex line, but the newer VistaC was a LOT better than my old Vista.
I don't recall which chipset is in the Holux - I think it was SirfStarII. I was never thrilled with this GPS and often had to use an external antenna in the car to get decent lock durability, so I was not shocked to find it near the bottom of the list.
I loved my Vista so I didn't really realize how much GPS technology has improved - it'd be tough sell to recommend one of these to anyone today. Wonderful device, but the new Vista HCx is likely to blow it away.
Well, it was a fun little project and I hope someone evaluating the Kaiser will find their existing GPS on my list and get an idea of how the Kaiser may perform in comparison.
Richard
Nice review.
It would be nice to see a similar review of the devices while you are moving.
At this moment, Tilt's GPS is completely useless for geocaching and walking because there is not way of disabling static navigation as you can do with SirfStarIII's gps. Even if you got information from 8 satellites there are moments where you position will freeze and it won't update even if you are walking.
Tilt's GPS only really works when you are driving.
I did a similar test back when I got my Kaiser about 6 weeks ago, running it and my BT-338. Results were pretty much the same.
However, more recently, it's been harder for my Kaiser to get an initial fix indoors, even with fresh QuickGPS data. When the Kaiser was new, it would get a fix within 30 seconds running in my living room -- now it can take up to 30 minutes if it gets a fix at all. Outdoors, it still gets quick fixes -- 10 to 30 seconds.
Have a Eten M700 and Kaiser and have some comparison. For GPS reception, I would rate M700 with full mark 10 and kaiser 7. The GPS signal is unbelievably strong on M700 as it gets a patch antenna inside.
I modify my kaiser a little so that the screen can be tilt up to almost 90 degree, I can just leave it on the dashboard when using tomtom.
staryon said:
Nice review.
It would be nice to see a similar review of the devices while you are moving.
At this moment, Tilt's GPS is completely useless for geocaching and walking because there is not way of disabling static navigation as you can do with SirfStarIII's gps. Even if you got information from 8 satellites there are moments where you position will freeze and it won't update even if you are walking.
Tilt's GPS only really works when you are driving.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've used kaiser's GPS for cycling and it has worked fine with "compegps" application!
pepeto2001 said:
I've used kaiser's GPS for cycling and it has worked fine with "compegps" application!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For that it should be fine. Usually you got this problem is your speed is below 1.2 m/s (3.2 miles per hour)
Modify Kaiser?
Tonychen,
How did you modify the Kaiser to tilt almost 90 degrees? This would be awesome as the 'tilt" is not enough for me to use it on the dashboard of either of my cars.
Can you provide any pics of the mod you did and explain how you did it?
Thanks.
This would void your warranty, unless you really want it. I can write a small guide here if you are still interested.
Check the photo attached.
tonychen said:
This would void your warranty, unless you really want it. I can write a small guide here if you are still interested.
Check the photo attached.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you don't mind a tuturial would be great.
tonychen said:
This would void your warranty, unless you really want it. I can write a small guide here if you are still interested.
Check the photo attached.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Come on with this small guide we are (at least me) interested...
BUMP.
Guide please.
juiceppc said:
BUMP.
Guide please.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not that I really care, but you might do better PM'ing the guy who said he modded his rather than bumping a GPS thread and hoping he responds
Just my $0.02,
Richard
I would just like to comment that I have not experienced this lockup of the GPS while moving at slow speeds. I've played around with TomTom while walking down a city street and it seemed to track speed and direction just fine, not that it was particularly useful in this manner. It consistently tracked my speed at 1-2mph and has never had this locking up or pausing that I've read about in other threads. I've tested with the original AT&T rom and one of the Big Storage AT&T modified roms with no issues.
-James
Compared with a Garmin Vista Cx, it seems more sensitive - it can lock onto three or four birds in the centre of the ground floor of my house while the Garmin is hard pressed to get a full lock even on the top floor.
Looking at the pattern of locks on a GPS monitor program, I get the impression that it is a lot less than 12 channel - anyone seen a specification? My overall impression is that it's a useful feature for non-critical navigation, but I still carry my Garmin for the serious stuff. The combination of GPS and 3g is wonderful - open up Live Search and look for Fast Food near "Here" - yes, Garmins have a POI database built in, but it is very limited compared with the combined contents of MSN and Google!
Martin
Follow up : I am really beginning to be quite impressed by the sensitivity of this GPS. I went into London by train yesterday and switched the GPS on sitting in the middle of a crowded carriage. I got a five bird lock within a minute and retained it for the entire journey (apart from long tunnels, of course). On several occasions it was reporting locks on as many as ten satellites. Accuracy was also pretty good - assessed by comparing position reported through Google Maps with observation through the window - certainly, when we stopped in stations, the position in Google matched well. I've tried the same with a Garmin Vista Cx - on the same route - and you are lucky to get any kind of fix without sitting at a window seat, with the GPS held close to the window.
Hi!
I encountered a strange GPS behaviour and wanted to share this with you / maybe someone has an idea bout this one:
On a businessjourney i wanted to log my way with my kaiser, and everything went fine so far. But after several hunderts of kilometres, kaiser lost more and more satellites till only 1 was left and the values were unuseable (phantasy-koordinates, speed and altitude too).
I am 100% sure that it was not a problem with our jet or any kind of shielding in it - because after a softreset it could lock again on 8 to 12 satellites. I could approve this strange loss of statellites on longer flights and car etappes (lets say 500km+) now several times.
Any idea what could be the reason?
Did the airline crew know you were using a gps device?
unwired4 said:
Did the airline crew know you were using a gps device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Who cares, GPS device is just a receiver, they use several of them in cockpit. Even GSM mobile phone intereference is exaggerated...
Well, since it was our own jet and pilot i guess that its ok
But back to the issue: A friend of mine could acknowledge that he has the same problem when traveling over a certain distance by car.
Is it possible, that this has something to do with QuickGPS where the receiver calculates extimated postitions of the satellites (and those triangulations will be false when moving too far)? Is QuickGPS postition-dependend?
Any ideas highly appreciated...
licht77 said:
Well, since it was our own jet and pilot i guess that its ok
Click to expand...
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Good answer
It could be, but quickgps only provides a pre-download of the ephemeris data so that the GPS unit does not have to download it from the satellites. If it does not have the quickgps data, it could download it from the sats (thats why a normal lock takes so long), so I would guess not, unless maybe download of new data from sats is turned off if quickgps is turned on.
I see no option to specify location in quickgps but then again it could look at the handset's country code or something. Surely though it is kilobytes in size at max so downloading the whole world's data via GSM/3G would be no biggie.
On a side note, I get the same issue on my Kaiser even if I stay local sometimes. I *think* it may be getting stuck on A-GPS (Using cell phone masts to get a rough fix) - maybe try and disable A-GPS as it would be no use in a jet?
I have experienced the same thing once - and that was after using the Kaiser in a jet for only a few minutes. Once I landed, I started TomTom and was placed over 700 miles from my actual position. A soft rest cured it; I was a bit worried that the high speeds of a jet might have confused/fried my GPS, but all was fine after a soft reset.
You may see what I mean here: xxx (username and password: test): Right above Toledo / Madrid the GPS readings go crazy... :-(
Could this be the mythical 'Barcelona Triangle' ?
Interesting, you might try posting this at GPSpassion.com forum. They are the experts in GPS. It's odd that it would loose sats as the view of the sky couldn't be much better and you'd think that it would be able to keep up things, even at jet speeds the number of visible satellites wouldn't change. I would try it with GPS ON and Phone radio OFF as this might rule out any cell tower issues.
RemE said:
Interesting, you might try posting this at GPSpassion.com forum. They are the experts in GPS. It's odd that it would loose sats as the view of the sky couldn't be much better and you'd think that it would be able to keep up things, even at jet speeds the number of visible satellites wouldn't change. I would try it with GPS ON and Phone radio OFF as this might rule out any cell tower issues.
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Hi! I tried it with GSM off - with no improvement. It seems that this is some kind of bug in the GPS-receiver?
If you have an user in that forum - feel free to post this issue!
Thx, Licht
I do experience this problem too. I was thinking it is the problem of the chip, has anyone tried the external antenna and does the problem still persist?
ZorMi said:
Who cares, GPS device is just a receiver, they use several of them in cockpit. Even GSM mobile phone intereference is exaggerated...
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Might be exaggerated... but considering how much interference a normal GSM signal has with household electronics (and yes, commercial jetliners are heavily shielded)... it's still kind of scary.
I actually discovered I left my phone on in my bag on a Frontier Airlines flight when the GSM modem started up at around 15,000 feet and the in-seat screen in front of me started flickering and I got that cool 'ch-ch-ch-ch' noise in my headphones.
Whoops.
It's probably safe to have the GPS on, but you really should turn off the radio.. there's no telling what wiring is running next to/under your seat, and there might just be an antenna above your head that you don't know about. It's just not worth the risk (plus, if you get caught.. well.. it's a federal offense).
If you just ask, some pilots will let you turn your GPS unit on in the plane (the flight attendants will ask him/her)... Delta Airlines doesn't seem to have any problem with this, while United and American do.
I think you'll find the answer to this thread is to do with the travelling speed and height.
Dedicated flight GPS units have a much faster baud rate for data transfer and the unit itself has virtually no other background tasks to take care of.
The 'Kaiser' GPS is primarily designed as a 'walkabout' unit and can just cope with vehicle speeds. If the data shows a marked change in position (due to say travelling at a few hundred kph) then the GPS firmware believes it has an erroneous sat lock and tries to re-aquire causing the confused output.
Also, Ephemeris data is incorrect for ionospheric distortion when you are at above 25,000 thousand feet so if it tries to use QuickGPS it will actually lengthen the acquisition time.
Try it next time with both A-GPS and QuickGPS off (QuickGPS auto disables if data is out of date so just disable downloads) and note what speed/height you are when is goes crazy.
As far as i know, there is no profen evidence that one single plane was downed by a gsm signal. Additionally, i have seen Boeings where all TFT Flatscreens started heavy flickering when the intercom was running - so dont mix up important avionic board systems with unimportant, unshielded secondary systems Here in europe all commercial planes have excellent shielding standards - and there are several commerical and private planetypes around which already come up with internal gsm-repeaters and satellite connections to the gsm-groundstations (the reasons for low usage are missing business models and - i guess annoyance). And - as i said - it was our own jet and pilot, and so its me who makes the rules in there :-D
So much for offtopic.
But I really would like to know what causes this "satellite loss" and "mis-positioning" problems... - this probably makes some killerapplications impossible
Does anybody know if a-gps is geographically influenced? Anybody has further informations about how our Kaisers keep the fix on the satellites?
Farsquidge said:
I think you'll find the answer to this thread is to do with the travelling speed and height.
Dedicated flight GPS units have a much faster baud rate for data transfer and the unit itself has virtually no other background tasks to take care of.
The 'Kaiser' GPS is primarily designed as a 'walkabout' unit and can just cope with vehicle speeds. If the data shows a marked change in position (due to say travelling at a few hundred kph) then the GPS firmware believes it has an erroneous sat lock and tries to re-aquire causing the confused output.
Also, Ephemeris data is incorrect for ionospheric distortion when you are at above 25,000 thousand feet so if it tries to use QuickGPS it will actually lengthen the acquisition time.
Try it next time with both A-GPS and QuickGPS off (QuickGPS auto disables if data is out of date so just disable downloads) and note what speed/height you are when is goes crazy.
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Thx for your informations - your ideas sound plausible! But on the flight i posted before, u can see that we were travelling about 2.5 hours at 10.000 metres and 800 km/h before everything went crazy within 60 seconds (Placemark 273 is plausible, 275 insane)... but i turned GSM off to save battery... so a-gps and quick-gps should have been off too (correct me if i am wrong)...?
licht77 said:
Thx for your informations - your ideas sound plausible! But on the flight i posted before, u can see that we were travelling about 2.5 hours at 10.000 metres and 800 km/h before everything went crazy within 60 seconds (Placemark 273 is plausible, 275 insane)... but i turned GSM off to save battery... so a-gps and quick-gps should have been off too (correct me if i am wrong)...?
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A-GPS would be disabled but QuickGPS would still be active as it is just a downloaded info table.
It would only need loss of signal for a few seconds, say your reception was detuned by a flight manouver or you moved the location of the unit within the plane (signal strength is poor within an aircraft body without external antenna) to cause it to get confused and at speed it takes ages for a lock. You can see a big difference just starting the GPS standing still against starting it in a moving car.
Consumer GPS devices misread at high speeds and altitudes. Government regulations keep them from functioning to prohibit their use in the construction of ICBM's since most devices use a version of a generic GPS chip. Think I'm nuts? Google it.
xconradx said:
Consumer GPS devices misread at high speeds and altitudes. Government regulations keep them from functioning to prohibit their use in the construction of ICBM's since most devices use a version of a generic GPS chip. Think I'm nuts? Google it.
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Nope, I don't think you are nuts! You are perfectly correct!
There are 3 types, consumer, commercial and military. (four if you count the US who contol the network and have the best).
Farsquidge said:
A-GPS would be disabled but QuickGPS would still be active as it is just a downloaded info table.
It would only need loss of signal for a few seconds, say your reception was detuned by a flight manouver or you moved the location of the unit within the plane (signal strength is poor within an aircraft body without external antenna) to cause it to get confused and at speed it takes ages for a lock. You can see a big difference just starting the GPS standing still against starting it in a moving car.
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OK I guess i will give this a try as i found out how to deactivate QuickGPS
@xconradx: No youre not nuts - i can confirm that there are regulations (thats why we are gonna send up Gallileo *g*) - but i can hardly believe that this was the bugger: The readings were accurate (too accurate to prevent abuse) for 2:45min - and then the readings were just insane.
I hope we can find a workaround...
Haha, I'm glad people dont think I'm a nutjob... I've tried to explain the regulated GPS to people before and was called "paranoid, crazy", whatever....
Thats weird that it read so well for a period. I just know that basics!
GPS on my Kaiser always worked fine until yesterday.
Now i only get a fix with 2 sats. I'm from Germany and GPS Tuner says my position is
48°51'59,000''N
13°2'36,237''E
-12426m haha... somewhere underwater?
speed sometimes over 600 km/h ...
Google Maps says it can't get my Position,
TomTom shows the worng Position above.
I updated QuickGPS data a few times with no errors, but still can't get it to work. Strange...
I will test my external GPS Mouse when its battery is full... still loading
xsmiler said:
GPS on my Kaiser always worked fine until yesterday.
Now i only get a fix with 2 sats. I'm from Germany and GPS Tuner says my position is
48°51'59,000''N
13°2'36,237''E
-12426m haha... somewhere underwater?
speed sometimes over 600 km/h ...
Google Maps says it can't get my Position,
TomTom shows the worng Position above.
I updated QuickGPS data a few times with no errors, but still can't get it to work. Strange...
I will test my external GPS Mouse when its battery is full... still loading
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I read this before. Some guy was having the same issue but only when he was in cemetery. Really. Try to search and u will find his thread.
I got erroneous data from Tomtom once when I was walking near Eton College (tall buildings surrounding narrow streets). It said I was travelling at about 190 mph through some place that sounded French (cant remember the name). Shutting down Navigator and restarting it and a soft reset didn't make any difference. For a while I thought a hardware fault had developed with the device because it was just after I started using Bluetooth for the first time with it. As I have no customisation on my device other than the addition of Tomtom Navigator and Microsoft’s Date and Time update for Daylight Saving (my media files are on microSD as is Tomtoms map and voices), I performed a hard reset. All is now well and Tomtom is back to normal and hasn't posed this problem since. I haven't been back to Eton so I don't know if the location played a part in bringing on the problem.
Ok, today I walked around a litte bit and now it works! I did nothing. I think this is a problem of bad GPS reception. The Problem only occured when I was surrounded by buildings.
xsmiler said:
Ok, today I walked around a litte bit and now it works! I did nothing. I think this is a problem of bad GPS reception. The Problem only occured when I was surrounded by buildings.
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Probably you where near some powerful RF transmitters with very close frequency of that one used by satellites.
Medical equipment also generate spurious harmonics that could make any GPS radio receiver crazy.
Hi, I face a similar issue at the beach in front of my house - it shows me as -44 m for the altitude at the beach. everywhere else, e.g. in cities, it shows up fine.
Ghost in the Tytn2? who knows...
i have tested this issue. i stood under high tension power lines and 100 feet from them (high emf field) this caused bad data, also had my tomtom with me (bad data as well). there are many variables that can cause incorrect data. emf field, signal blocked, use the htc gps tool next time and see how many sats your locked on, next time this problem happens. I personally have found that less than 4 fixed sat's will throw off gps data, since the kaiser/tilt dosn't have waas correction built in. I have a gps puck with waas correction and tested under to 100 feet from high tension power lines and recepion and correction was 60% better. i have even noticed in my car (metal all around) the fix is about 30ft off, wich isint bad for a gps non waas. experiment a little bit. But make sure you use quick gps.
also the resonant freq that gps uses is 1575.42 Mhz, so if there are transmitters in the area with a freq in the range you will be subject to interference. 1240.000 - 1400.000 mhz is in the amateur radio band, this could also throw off spurious harmonics, so if you have a amateur radio operator around you, this could also be a part of your problem. and if any of you seen my username you also might know that im a amateur radio operator, so when it comes to amateur radio and frequiencies i know what im talking about.
ohh yea forgot to ad 1.7-80mhz is in the ballpark for broadband over powerline (BPL) this has been known to interfear with damn near everything. so if your one of those unlucky people that live in a BPL enabled area this could also be a huge factor. read more about bpl (i am very against this). http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fc...portadobe/ntia_bpl_report_04-413_volume_i.pdf
thinking about utilizing my kaiser's gps for road trip, i figure i'd ask for advice before jumped in buying gps software (since i don't have a guarantee to be able to load google map at all times). let me hear it if you've done road trips using kaiser as your main gps device & how reliable is it - of course it'll run on car's power plug - does it get overheat or have any issue receiving call when gps software is active etc?
thanks in advance guys.
I use AT&T's Telenav and have made trips with the Tilt running for up to 5-6 hours at a stretch, no problems. I just have it in a Brodit car mount, use a car charger and use my Jabra BT8040 for the street names and voice directions when I need it. Since Telenav is using a data connection, it drops out if a call comes in on an EDGE connection. Keeps going fine if in a 3G area though.
i use kaiser with garmin and adria route maps and everything works fine. no overheating, no problem with calls. you just have to make sure to get the right maps for your needs (up to date, covering your area of interests...)
gps
i use my tilt as my only GPS, and with the tomtom6 software loaded onto it, its taken me hundreds of miles all over the US with no issues. I recommend using this and not buying another GPS, especially since the tomtom software makes it identical to any other tomtom device
It's nice to have google maps, windows live installed to use when you can, but it's hard to beat something like TomTom or iGo8 if you want to splurge..
Definitely recommend getting a car mount (that you can swivel!) and a car charger and your battery gets chewed up QUICK when using GPS...
Enjoy!
-RT
i used it at a last min, with google maps on a trip, of course having gps and edge on at the same time kills the battery, but having it charge in car was fine it worked well, just wish i could have faster then edge connection with us tmo
Tomtom Navigator worked reliably under my TyTN IIs original WM 6.0 firmware (allbeit a little like watching a slideshow at times) but now under HTCs latest 6.1 release, GPS performance is very erratic and it takes ages to get a fix in most cases. HTC needs to come up with a fix to this issue so I suggest you steer clear of the HTC WM 6.1 update until it's been resolved.
It's perfectly suitable for this kind of use.
Don't forget about car charger, I've bought mine off eBay for silly price
Yep, I'll throw in my $.02 too. Great for road navigation, sucks for much else. It's off by 15-20 feet at all times, jumps around randomly, and altitude is always WAY off, but none of that matters with road nav software as they "snap to road".
There *is* the occational time I'll have TomTom suddenly think I'm on a nearby road, like if two are closely parallelling each other (say, interstate and small road beside it) and once or twice I've had it think I'm on a cross street I'm approaching, but rarely is it more than you might see it blip over to the wrong street, start recalculating, then jump back.
reliable
here is my 2 cents having just used it on a 1500 mile week-long roadtrip a week ago. simply, it was as awesome as it can get. i had tomtom 6 with the latest US-Canada map on my 2GB microSD.
before setting sail, i saved all the addresses i wanted to go to as FAVs, and just went off, no problems getting a signal, and the signal was accurate enough for driving.
when i needed to look for a POI that TomTom didn't have, I would just start Google Maps for Mobile and find it. I was also running Mologogo to allow family to know where I was. GPS photos where also nice to have.
as others pointed out, a windshield mount and a car charger are musts.
the only problem I had (couldn't explain, but didn't cause enough problems to research) was that it would heat up really good (of course being exposed to direct sun light helped) that it would start flashing red while being charged, and i had to stop charging to get it back to flashing green. I then found that brining it next to the AC actually helped in keeping it charging.
ya ill 2nd that it does get really hot while using gps and internet while trying to charge it... but i only used it for short times 20-30min and when you have a super long road u dont need it, i dont use it to tell me every direction i was a copilot
i think most gps sucks at accurate position or even giving live directions, thats why i dont use it in such a way, only to see the map and were I am in relation to the directions.
I think the GPS is very accurate. With Google Maps, if I stand at the end of my driveway and zoom into the sat view of my home, it's got me pegged to within a meter or so, easily (even clearly indicating which side of the driveway I'm on, and it's only about 13m wide at that point). And, as soon as I start walking, "my location" starts moving along too.
I use it with Garmin Mobile XT (GMXT) software for road navigation and it works quite well. Must have a car charget as it drains battery a lot. GPS is sometimes slow to lock (even with QuickGPS data), so you can't expect to turn it on and be navigating within 30 seconds everytime. Other than it is perfect - only one device to carry. Good maps, voice directions etc...
My suggestion is to get a entry level Garmin or Tomtom automotive gps cost less than $130 and is designed to be used for extended period of time repeatedly and have maps of entire North America.
In my opinion phones are not designed to be running for so many hours constantly, some inner parts might be aging (pcb boards becomes dark and burned looking) without you knowing it. Especially in the hotter areas where the dashboard temperature could reach 160 degrees easily since it's constantly exposed to the sun. GPS on the phone works as a backup when you are far from your car in a totally strange place. Automotive GPS are designed to be used in such harsh conditions.
Also consider the network coverage of the phones if you are using one of the free services, as when you are out of the internet service, you can't get any map update...... So in the long run an entry level GPS w/maps saves you more money, since they cost about same as a piece of software for your phone that probably does not get updated as often as each company's regular automotive GPS products.
So what I am trying to say is:
Save your delicate Tilt/TyTN II, and get a GPS! You can find discontinued Garmin GPS products on eBay for heck cheap, for example the Garmin C320 that my girlfriend still uses since I bought it years ago, and gave to her when I upgraded to C580, goes for around $60-70 and it's one of the best GPS I've used.
just went to georgia and back with garmin mobile xt + 2009 maps installed, no problems at all.
I have tried it on long journeys using tomtom, route66, garminxt and miomaps.
Works fine using any of this s/w. I found the new Diamond ROMs slowed tomtomt down when getting a satellite fix. It took at least 10 minutes at the best of times. I have gone back to one of Duttys 6.1 ROMS and it is all working fine again.
I use GPS tuner V5.0 for GPS, you can create your own maps, waypoints etc. No tomtom in this part of the world, but Mapking works good too.
Be sure to have a charger nearby though...
Thank you guys for the advice
It's awesome to hear from your experiences in a way that gives me an idea how much should I expect from my Kaiser, well I guess I'll try to use it only when I need directions the most (i.e. within cities) as opposed to "continue on highway XYZ for 80 miles, drive straight ahead, straight ahead, 79 more miles c'mon you can do it, ...."
and thank you guys also to be kind enough providing some info for the GPS software, I'm entirely grateful
If you're taking a long trips over 1 hour DO NOT USE GOOGLE MAPS!!! even if you have a car charger. Google maps requires a constant data connection to update its maps on top of keeping the screen on and powering the internal GPS receiver. The drain is more than the car charger can handle. The phone will get hot with in 30 minutes of google maps usage. If you dont have a car charger Google Maps will kill your fully charged standard battery less than 4 hours if you're on EDGE, less than 3 hours if you're on 3G. Stay away from Google Maps for long trips. The only time I use Google Maps on a long trip is to check for traffic.
A dedicated GPS navigation software like TomTom, iGuidance, Destinator, Garmin mobile work best for long trips. The drain is minimal. The car charger will handle TomTom, iGuidance or Destinator for hours and hours without any problem. The phone doesnt get as hot plus it actually charges the phone. As for its actual useage and practicality, TomTom software is just as good as the dedicated TomTom. The interface is the same. High end TomTom may have more options but that's about it. It gets you from point A to point B. It may not take you on a route that you like but it'll get you there. It automatically reroutes and recalculates if you miss a turn. Like any other GPS device, if you need to change destination or search for POI hand it to the passanger and let them do it.
I'd say you need a better car charger. I use AT&T Nav, which also uses a constant data connection for maps and real time traffic updates. When I've used mine for whole days of constant use (ferrying people around D.C. and greater area one weekend for a work function), my car charger managed to keep it fully charged the whole time (and I made/received quite a few calls and emails those days too, plus did a fair bit of web surfing).
Sure, the back got a little warm, but honestly, I feel the device is not harmed by it - in fact, I'd argue it's designed for such use. just like people who use wifi for long periods or who get tons of push mail daily and so forth. Heck, mine gets pretty warm just using wifi when updating my RSS and podcast feeds every day. Does it have thermal overload protection anyway? I would not be surprised if it did.
The screen LEDs are not likely going to burn out from constant use in the lifetime of the device (which for even the most infrequent user won't be more then several or so years). You figure an LED should be good for at least, say 50,000 hours (?) which is over 10 years if on for 12hrs every single day.
The heat may kill the battery a bit sooner then later, but after one year or two at most of 24/7 use (I never turn my phone off), the battery will be shot anyway.
I say just use the thing - what's the point of such a device if you cannot use it for the things it is supposedly intended for? Anyhow, that's how I use mine, and it's doing just fine.