Database Develop

[Q] My GPS Experience

I have been hearing of numerous complaints about the GPS of the Galaxy S and was wondering if mine had an issue.
Having only GPS'd my location at a standstill with excellent (within 10 metre) results, I decided to use Google Navigation on a 15 kilometre trip from where I was to my home.
I can honestly say my GPS had pinpoint accuracy for the entire trip, not losing signal once. And when I mean pinpoint accuracy, I mean it felt like a satellite was right on top of me the entire way home.
Apart from Google Navigation using a weird route to get home (which I followed, only forcing the unit to reroute once), and speaking the street names like it didn't understand grammer, I'd say it was almost as perfect as my tried and true Garmin (which uses better routes).
So this isn't a gloating post, but I'm trying to understand what issues all of you have with the GPS, as I don't seem to be experiencing any.
P.S. I'm still on Bell's official 2.1 firmware (latest one, I believe its JH2).
Thanks

Go for a walk. Stop for a coffee somewhere. Walk again. Stop to enjoy something beautiful. Record your experience with My Tracks. Share you track. Then we can discuss GPS quality.
I hope it all works excellent for you.
Regards!
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Nice story but why post it as a [Q] and in development forum

NetCopAD said:
Go for a walk. Stop for a coffee somewhere. Walk again. Stop to enjoy something beautiful. Record your experience with My Tracks. Share you track. Then we can discuss GPS quality.
I hope it all works excellent for you.
Regards!
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
Ditto. 10 char.

NetCopAD said:
Go for a walk. Stop for a coffee somewhere. Walk again. Stop to enjoy something beautiful. Record your experience with My Tracks. Share you track. Then we can discuss GPS quality.
I hope it all works excellent for you.
Regards!
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, I never really use my GPS that way, but for experimental purposes I will. Downloading the program now (not factory software with Bell I guess). Is there a certain distance I should be walking? And what should I notice to report back? That my tracks were the exact route I took?
Having said that, if there is a problem, could it not be a specific problem with the way MyTracks itself cooperates with the GPS? I mean I find it strange the GPS works flawlessly with Navigation (stops and lights, stop signs etc) but not with My Tracks? I dunno.
gllu said:
Nice story but why post it as a [Q] and in development forum
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You're right.. didn't realize I posted it here until after I posted it. I leave the moderating for moderators, but my apologies just the same. Moderators, please move this to an area which is more suitable to avoid posts like these.

greeced said:
Ok, I never really use my GPS that way, but for experimental purposes I will. Downloading the program now (not factory software with Bell I guess). Is there a certain distance I should be walking? And what should I notice to report back? That my tracks were the exact route I took?
Having said that, if there is a problem, could it not be a specific problem with the way MyTracks itself cooperates with the GPS? I mean I find it strange the GPS works flawlessly with Navigation (stops and lights, stop signs etc) but not with My Tracks? I dunno.
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Click to collapse
Not just My Tracks, you can try any other similar apps. That's just the most popular and widely used one.
The thing with Navigation is, it KNOWS you're supposed to be travelling on the road - so even if the actual GPS data suggests that you're 5 meters off the road, the navigation software "corrects" it and puts you back on the road.
Use My Tracks to record a small walk. Make a couple of stops. It ALWAYS puts me 15 feet off the road. And when standing still, it keeps moving around restlessly. Ugh

It's just that navigation software generally has the ability to use road information to supplement the raw GPS data and thus yields seemingly better results. It snaps to roads, approximates expected position etc.
My Tracks and other similar software just records your track without any awareness of roads so the resulting info (track) is pretty close to the raw GPS performance.
Standing still is when the GPS problem is most evident. Your reported position just jumps around, sometimes sending you a hundred meters away or more.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Ok,
Went for a short walk using my tracks... Around a rather large block and through a path in a park, where I sat down on a park bench for 5 minutes, got up, and continued the trail back to the main road, then back to my house.
I noticed when I started off, it showed me on the other side of the street, but quickly corrected itself as soon as I started walking to the right side of the street.
I then stopped at a communal mail box, I noticed the gps had 'bounced' to the other side of the street but as soon as I started walking again, it corrected itself.
The other side of the street on those two occasions was 15-20 feet away (Its a residential side-street), which to me has the GPS as being extremely accurate. Even Google's disclaimer on "My Tracks" states:
Under optimal conditions the location can be +/- 20 feet (6 meters).
And thats exactly what it was with mine.
After the communal mail box, it was extremely accurate to less than 2 metres the rest of the trip/way home. The circle around the orange arrow was extremely small most of the way, only getting larger when I entered my house.

NetCopAD said:
It's just that navigation software generally has the ability to use road information to supplement the raw GPS data and thus yields seemingly better results. It snaps to roads, approximates expected position etc.
My Tracks and other similar software just records your track without any awareness of roads so the resulting info (track) is pretty close to the raw GPS performance.
Standing still is when the GPS problem is most evident. Your reported position just jumps around, sometimes sending you a hundred meters away or more.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
See, standing still with me is absolutely bang on within 10 metres. If you're talking about when you first fire up the GPS, then I'd agree with you, but the hundreds of metres away is not your GPS position. Its where your cell provider is reporting you to be, either by the tower, or triangulation.
The GPS then using that information, as per my guess, to hone on where you are. and it actually finds me within 5 to 10 seconds.

Oh and as for navigation, I'd have to disagree with your assertion about the GPS and the knowing your on a road statement. I live in an area where new roads are built all the time, and those roads are not on any mapping system including garmins, and the GPS will follow you anyway, just go into a constant cycle of
"Recalculating" or "Turn Around" or "Make a U-Turn". (At least that's what my garmin does when I test it), but it still follows me up to and including the road that is actually on the GPS, and I'm sure this GPS will do the same.
Either way, I'm happy that I don't have any issues with the GPS of this Galaxy S. Seems to work quite well.

same here, once i intentionally drove into this field of newly paved road, with no houses foundation even build on them, it was so funny to see myself on google map going into what seems like an empty space
but with the tracking enable, it was able to draw good lines of where i drove over for the missing streets on the map
greeced said:
Oh and as for navigation, I'd have to disagree with your assertion about the GPS and the knowing your on a road statement. I live in an area where new roads are built all the time, and those roads are not on any mapping system including garmins, and the GPS will follow you anyway, just go into a constant cycle of
"Recalculating" or "Turn Around" or "Make a U-Turn". (At least that's what my garmin does when I test it), but it still follows me up to and including the road that is actually on the GPS, and I'm sure this GPS will do the same.
Either way, I'm happy that I don't have any issues with the GPS of this Galaxy S. Seems to work quite well.
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Benchmarking GPS Performance - Brainstorming

Ok..this is going to be a little long-winded so bear with me.
So there seems to be a new fix posted for gps every other day, some are just snake-oil while others might actually be doing something. The problem is how to tell what is working and what is not...and to what degree. Trusting the word of some guy on a forum with 200 posts is NOT the answer. What we need are some objective tests that produce quantitative data. It would also be nice to objectively compare our device's performance to the performance of other android devices out there too...to get an idea of what a realistic gps performance expectation would be.
So far MyTracks seems to have been the best approach but it's still a very poor method for several reasons:
The software acts as an abstraction layer - it's unknown what kind of filtering may be occurring here.
The data is only meaningful to the originator; we don't know which street(s) you were really on.
At best only 1 dimension of the error is preserved; we might be able to assume you were driving down street X, but how do we know how far down the street you actually were when the sample was captured?
Bottom line, there is no way to programmatically extract quantitative results.
I've got half of the solution: Collect a series of samples from a stationary position and collect lat/lon/alt/time, reported gps accuracy, number of satellites used, time to lock, device make/mode, device uptime (to weed out the "I rebooted and it works!" phenomenon) etc.
With this data we can calculate things like jitter, deviation, acquisition latency and all kinds of other interesting things.
I know that sounds like lots of work, but I've already done all of the above (scroll down to the bottom to read more about that) and for the most part the data collection and result presentation components work. The problems I am running into are related to the details of how the above data maps to real world performance.
So let's talk about some potential algorithms:
1. Deviation
This was my first hope as a solution; grab bunch of gps coordinates and use the lat/lon positions along with reported accuracy to get a centroid location. Then using the centroid, calculate the distances between each point and the centroid to measure accuracy. In theory, if the distribution was random, this would work. In practice however, I found that:
A - You get A LOT of duplicate points that throw off the statistics.
B - Even if you throw out duplicates, the coordinates you get are usually very close to one another, in spite of being far from the true location. In hindsight, I think that should have been obvious. Oh well.
In any case, let me illustrate:
I took 30 samples sitting in front of my office. The distribution looks like this:
http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?size=512x512&maptype=hybrid&markers=color:blue|label:1|37.280015489448,-121.943445407709&markers=color:blue|label:2|37.280015489448,-121.943445407709&markers=color:blue|label:3|37.2799150689755,-121.943469689324&markers=color:blue|label:4|37.2798287737251,-121.943507481842&markers=color:blue|label:5|37.2797409130025,-121.943532462122&markers=color:blue|label:6|37.2796490544446,-121.94354159922&markers=color:blue|label:7|37.2796117648545,-121.943468886907&markers=color:blue|label:8|37.2796034813727,-121.943455640717&markers=color:blue|label:9|37.2795946561935,-121.94344227994&markers=color:blue|label:10|37.2795861462627,-121.943431154687&markers=color:blue|label:11|37.2795786087998,-121.94342342341&markers=color:blue|label:12|37.2795720667083,-121.943418240036&sensor=false&sensor=false
And the centroid I calculated from these looks like this:
http://maps.google.com/maps/api/sta...7,-121.943465819874&sensor=false&sensor=false
Looks pretty good so far right? Not even close. You can almost predict where the gps will say I am going to be next just by looking at those points. Unfortunately, there's no data there about where I actually am. I was actually standing outside of the building, smack in the middle, which is about 30 meters south of the closest sample I got.
Which brought me to idea #2:
Measure reported accuracy, sampling frequency/jitter, time it took to acquire the initial lock and call it a day.
Which brings me here - I'd like to do this right and so I'd love to get anybody's feedback on what kind of algorithm to use to characterize gps performance.
Also, if anybody wants to take a peek at whats been done so far, here's a link to a page with the latest version of the android client. Just install it and start it up. It will pop up and error if it can't connect to the server and the server does go down from time to time, so if you get a connection error, try again a little later. The other thing to be aware of is that I enforce the "stationary collection" rule by monitoring the accelerometer. When you hit start you will have 3 seconds to put your phone on a table or the sidewalk or somewhere else that isn't moving. Once the collection starts, it will monitor GPS until it gets 30 samples. You can cancel at any time by moving the phone. If any samples were collected, they will be uploaded and you will get an option to view the results. The results aren't too terribly meaningful for now, but there are a couple interesting statistics there and you will be helping me out by stress testing the server. Feedback appreciated!
Thx

The only problem is I believe there may be some hardware variation. I've read some posts where they took two completely identical stock phones and got completely different results.

I don't see a problem with stationary data. It will always jump around. That's hardware. The hardware cannot accurately track anything less than 10 meters.
I'm more worried about why it's jumping around and losing accuracy when it's in motion.
I would make a data collection for TTTF , satellites in view, satellites with fixed, signal strength (SNR), bearing, hasAlmanac(), hasEphemeris() and accuracy.
I was thinking of writing an app but I really don't have the time for it. I have a bunch of projects lined up and really won't see any real free time until a month or two. I program for a living and currently have a private android application that uses GPS that I wrote for my clients. It's a shame the GPS is borked with the Galaxy S because I was going to use it to market my application. I have to resort to the Xperia X10. My interest in fixing the GPS is both personal and business related.
Regardless, if you need any help, let me know.
PS: I believe we need a program to really compare our "fixes" and narrow down what changes makes things better and worse. I would like to get to the point where we can calculate: X # of satellites with an average of Y dbHZ of signal strength gives you Z% accuracy

ThisWasATriumph said:
The only problem is I believe there may be some hardware variation. I've read some posts where they took two completely identical stock phones and got completely different results.
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I dont really think that the variations are hardware related, at least I've not seen any solid data to support that assertion. Different results, even wildly different between two identical phones is expected to some degree...theres too many variables involved to directly compare two phones and expect to get identical results, even side by side. For instance, reboot one of the phones and try again. The rebooted phone will have much better performance. If we get some averages based on device and software version / configuration with a large number of samples behind it, actual differences should emerge from the noise. In any case, if there truely is a hardware problem, that will probably also be discoverable as an abnormally high standard deviation compared to other devices.

CLShortFuse said:
I don't see a problem with stationary data. It will always jump around. That's hardware. The hardware cannot accurately track anything less than 10 meters.
I'm more worried about why it's jumping around and losing accuracy when it's in motion.
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Click to collapse
In theory, there shouldnt be any functional difference between a moving receiver and a stationary one. At least over relatively short distances. Yes one will be cross cutting various geometric relationships with the satellites, but they are so minute that its a moot point.
On top of that, benchmarking while moving introduces two problems:
1 - Telephone poles, buildings etc. Will periodically obstruct the signal introducing an error that cannot be subtracted out.
2 - As mentioned above, there is no known point of origin. One of the consequences of that is that the conditions surrounding the data collection of user A can vary wildly from those of user B. In essence you stop measuring performance alone and start measuring performance plus the dynamics of the neighborhood. With a stationary position at least you know that your gps shouldnt be showing you moving.
From my own testing, I can say that the Captivate typically does not even calculate stationary locations correctly, as seen in the links posted above. Sadly the error signal bears no obvious relation to the true origin. And although there is a definite pattern I don't know how to analyze that pattern. I'm humble enough to admit that I'm not smart enough to figure it out. Hopefully somebody else here is though At the very least, I think that the error patterns generated from a stationary position are a solid basis for a standard test.

You should try cognition 2.2 with CLShortfuse's jupiter tweaks. For the first time I was driving 55mph with 9-11/11 sats locked on the whole time, kept an accuracy of 5-10 meters and it accurately reported my speed dead on with my speedometer. I'm pretty satisfied with the performance right now.

Have you done any tests at a benchmark site to see how accurate it is? I have been at a benchmark site one day and gotten really accurate results, only to return on another day and have trouble getting within 300 ft. accuracy. And this was done with a "real" GPS.... I think that it is going to be difficult to get good results with a smart phone acting as a handheld GPS device. Maybe I am wrong ..... I'm no engineer or programmer...
Sent from my custom EVO PC36100 Using XDA app

halfhp said:
From my own testing, I can say that the Captivate typically does not even calculate stationary locations correctly, as seen in the links posted above. Sadly the error signal bears no obvious relation to the true origin. And although there is a definite pattern I don't know how to analyze that pattern. I'm humble enough to admit that I'm not smart enough to figure it out. Hopefully somebody else here is though At the very least, I think that the error patterns generated from a stationary position are a solid basis for a standard test.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't taken a look at your program but collecting mass amounts of information is a start. We can draw a correlation between signal strength, # of antenna and accuracy.
There is another option, that I believe would be best to identify the underlying issue. Have different Android GPS units side by side both running the same application, and have them report data for each satellite (based on PRN). They SHOULD be identical (azimuth, elevation and if possible, the reported time). Also, we would check the system times and see if they are synchronized.
According to Garmin:
Sources of GPS signal errors
Factors that can degrade the GPS signal and thus affect accuracy include the following:
Ionosphere and troposphere delays - The satellite signal slows as it passes through the atmosphere. The GPS system uses a built-in model that calculates an average amount of delay to partially correct for this type of error.
Signal multipath - This occurs when the GPS signal is reflected off objects such as tall buildings or large rock surfaces before it reaches the receiver. This increases the travel time of the signal, thereby causing errors.
Receiver clock errors - A receiver's built-in clock is not as accurate as the atomic clocks onboard the GPS satellites. Therefore, it may have very slight timing errors.
Orbital errors - Also known as ephemeris errors, these are inaccuracies of the satellite's reported location.
Number of satellites visible - The more satellites a GPS receiver can "see," the better the accuracy. Buildings, terrain, electronic interference, or sometimes even dense foliage can block signal reception, causing position errors or possibly no position reading at all. GPS units typically will not work indoors, underwater or underground.
Satellite geometry/shading - This refers to the relative position of the satellites at any given time. Ideal satellite geometry exists when the satellites are located at wide angles relative to each other. Poor geometry results when the satellites are located in a line or in a tight grouping.
Intentional degradation of the satellite signal - Selective Availability (SA) is an intentional degradation of the signal once imposed by the U.S. Department of Defense. SA was intended to prevent military adversaries from using the highly accurate GPS signals. The government turned off SA in May 2000, which significantly improved the accuracy of civilian GPS receivers.
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rtdrumz said:
Have you done any tests at a benchmark site to see how accurate it is? I have been at a benchmark site one day and gotten really accurate results, only to return on another day and have trouble getting within 300 ft. accuracy. And this was done with a "real" GPS.... I think that it is going to be difficult to get good results with a smart phone acting as a handheld GPS device. Maybe I am wrong ..... I'm no engineer or programmer...
Sent from my custom EVO PC36100 Using XDA app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have neither used nor heard of gps benchmark sites - do you have any that you've used that you recommend?
I'm fully expecting the variance you are talking about, but I also believe that the variance is there because of measurable variables...it's just a matter of identifying enough of those variables to make the results understandable. For example, we know a reboot can temporarily fix gps issues so we wouldnt want to compare the gps results of a device that was just rebooted with the results of one that has been running for days.

CLShortFuse said:
There is another option, that I believe would be best to identify the underlying issue. Have different Android GPS units side by side both running the same application, and have them report data for each satellite (based on PRN). They SHOULD be identical (azimuth, elevation and if possible, the reported time). Also, we would check the system times and see if they are synchronized.
According to Garmin:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I briefly started down that road by grabbing the raw NMEA sentences but quickly abandoned that path due to the volume of data being pumped. Maybe I should take a second look.
Regarding the dual phone test, thats an interesting idea. I wouldnt have expected the clock times to vary at all. I'll check into it!

Also, for whoever is interested, here is a link to some results generated by the app in progress:
http://www.halfhp.com:8080/ggs/results/show/1?mode=mobile
It only shows a small subset of the data collected, but you get the general idea of what I'm going for.

I disabled the automatic time sync. I'm going to look for an app to synchronize my clock. I'm going to disable AGPS and take a test run. It could be wrong timing that makes it unable to grab a fix
WOW, talk about a difference. I disabled time sync and I used an application called "Micro Second".
Clock difference: 5.41638 seconds
That GPS trailing/sliding issue seems about 5 seconds as well......

CLShortFuse said:
I disabled the automatic time sync. I'm going to look for an app to synchronize my clock. I'm going to disable AGPS and take a test run. It could be wrong timing that makes it unable to grab a fix
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Shouldnt the chip be keeping track of it's own time? One common use of gps is to provide a time signal accurate to the microsecond. As far as I know, all gps devices are capable of that kind of accuracy - they have to be in order to work at all, they just dont advertise it because many dont provide a physical interface to the PPS necessary for external devices to utilize it.

halfhp said:
Shouldnt the chip be keeping track of it's own time? One common use of gps is to provide a time signal accurate to the microsecond. As far as I know, all gps devices are capable of that kind of accuracy - they have to be in order to work at all, they just dont advertise it because many dont provide a physical interface to the PPS necessary for external devices to utilize it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"Should" and "does" aren't the same thing. That's under the assumption that the NMEA data is provided by gps device itself. I don't believe it is. I think the GPS device gives raw satellite data and the driver wrapper calculates NMEA data back to Android.
Also, factoring the clock desync from the correct atomic-based time should be in the data.

CLShortFuse said:
"Should" and "does" aren't the same thing. That's under the assumption that the NMEA data is provided by gps device itself. I don't believe it is. I think the GPS device gives raw satellite data and the driver wrapper calculates NMEA data back to Android.
Also, factoring the clock desync from the correct atomic-based time should be in the data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you might be at least partially right as far as the NMEA sentences being generated outside the chip. I did a little bit of digging on the BCM4751 chip and it appears that the protocol used is MEIF, which according to the internet is a proprietary nokia protocol. I havn't found a description of the protocol yet, but I would think that it offers at least the same amount of data that NMEA offers, meaning time is kept on-chip as expected. I just cant imagine the system clock being anywhere close to useable for such a time sensitive calculation as gps triangulation. I'm gonna keep looking though.

Something else to consider guys...
I've seen lots of people referencing GPS accuracy when in motion versus standing still. I'm not so sure that all of them are complaining about what they think they're complaining about.
My primary vehicle is a motorcycle. For crappy weather, I've got a Jeep Wrangler with a fiberglass hardtop. In both cases, the phone has no sheet metal between it and the sky. And in both cases, the GPS appears to track just fine. It may not show me in the proper lane of a multilane highway, but it at least always shows me on the right side of the road, and it never lags behind my actual position. Nor does it suffer from any 'inertia' problems. When I turn, so does it. When I stop, it does too.
Now... I'm out of town at the moment on a business trip and am driving a rental car - one with a fixed sheet metal roof (no sunroof either). Since my GPS had been working at home, I was expecting it to work over here as well. Wrong! It takes forever to get a lock, and when it finally does, it drifts in and out of lock. And as I'm driving along, it's sometimes as much as 5 seconds behind me. Or sometimes along side me on a side street. Or when I stop it keeps going. You know, all the crap that everybody's been complaining about.
So. Is it a setting issue, a driver issue, or is it a problem with the hardware? I can't tell you. But what I can say is that when there's any significant metal obstruction between the phone and the sky, the GPS is hit and miss... mostly miss.

[Q] GPS - Will it ever be useable?

Hello There,
Apologies for what is another thread on GPS issues, but I need to vent!
I picked up a UK Galaxy S from ebay the other week and think all in all its a great phone (coming from a 3gs and HD7).
HOWEVER, the GPS is as good as worthless.
I have tried numerous guides I have found in line (altering settings in hidden menus and the like) and nothing seems to improve the accuracy of the device.
When using Google Navigation I often find that I have the blue sphere around the cursor, which will grow rather large at almost every junction or turn I come to. Tracking also seems to lag and jitter down roads. Going in a straight line is not so much of an issue, but when my speed or direction changes, the cursor will lag, at which point my location will usually be plotted way off.
Im on firmware 2.2, baseband 19000XXJPP and build number FROYO.XXJPO.
Is there anything I can do or should I just accept that the GPS is broken and forget about it? What puzzles me is that some people seem to have no issues what so ever. Whats the latest thinking on this issue?
Such a shame for a premium device.
Thanks

I've always just set mine to cold start and it's worked perfectly for me. It even better in JPX as it seems to get a lock much quicker when driving at speed.

There is a lot of interesting information in this thread regarding the GPS.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=860148
According to what's been said on this page, there may be a possibility of rewriting the GPS daemon:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=860148&page=10

You may also want to check out this thread in the Vibrant forum
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=878970
probably the cause for people that can't get a lock to any or very little satellite. Obviously ignore all the parts about the firmware, etc. since they do not apply to our phone but the hardware should be similar.

i could only get a lock when i am cycling or jogging or even in my house. But never in a car why is that. Sometimes in the car i could see up to 8 satellites but cant get a lock

Running JPX with JK4 modem on my I9000M and it seems pretty decent. Got 5m or 10m lock consiatently within 15sec while driving in a city environment. I have been on firmwares in the past where it was totally broken. So right sw is important.
However my Aria can get 2m no problen even faster so still room for improvement. But I think Samsung is makingvit gradually better.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

chambo622 said:
Running JPX with JK4 modem on my I9000M and it seems pretty decent. Got 5m or 10m lock consiatently within 15sec while driving in a city environment. I have been on firmwares in the past where it was totally broken. So right sw is important.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has been my experience on JPX as well. Locking is very fast outdoors (including in the car), best accuracy I have managed is 5m. I can live with that I guess, since I don't really use the GPS all that much.

In the off chance that Samsung reads XDA, it is still not good enough. They have shown some improvement and they should, hopefully can, and hopefully will show more. Until Samsung stops SGS dev I have hope. From what I can see they are working harder than ever.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Just tilt the phone to landscape and make sure your phone is mounted as far under the windshield as possible. The sgs has a small antenna so where you mount it makes a big difference. Also for car navigation try using something like Sygic Mobile Maps instead of google nav and see if that works better.
I haven't had issues with the gps for months now.

Thanks for all the input and information guys. Some very good stuff here.
From reading some of the threads posted I can definitely see how my problems echo those of others.
Interestingly, for me, the issue seems far worse when in built up areas with lots of buildings. Someone in another thread noticed the same issue and suggested that perhaps the software could not deal with the GPS signal reflections.
Literally I will be driving down the country road near to my house with almost acceptable levels of accuracy and as soon as I turn into my village the signal will vanish almost completely.
I guess the biggest mystery to me is why some people have no issues at all, whilst others do. Having just got the phone I am not familiar with firmware revisions and the like. What is the JPX build and how does it differ from mine? What version is mine exactly (JPO)?

I had terrible GPS issues and was waiting for the update, but my co-worker also had a SGS and got the 2.2 update, it only made a slight difference to the accuracy.
I would recommend you get it fixed by Samsung, I'm convinced they have changed something in the hardware to make the GPS work. It just doens; make sense that some people have the issues and some people don't who are running exactly the same firmware.
Although if you got if from Ebay, it'll probably be out of warranty. It might not though, in which case I would class this kind of problem as a manufacturing defect, they might fix it for free.
Logicalstep

menu > settings > about phone. Under baseband and build number you will see what firmware you are on.
Just plug the phone into kies and see if you have an update, if all else fails take the phone back for a replacement or have the gps antenna replaced by samsung.

Already posted FW version (2.2 JPO).
I havent read any stories of samsung replacing GPS antennas as I understand this is a pretty common problem.

Don't think its still working in the UK...trying all the possible solutions. I am currently running JPK

LeeBear said:
You may also want to check out this thread in the Vibrant forum
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=878970
probably the cause for people that can't get a lock to any or very little satellite. Obviously ignore all the parts about the firmware, etc. since they do not apply to our phone but the hardware should be similar.
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This is interesting. FYI, the thread says that Vibrants made prior to October 2010 had a poor contact with the GPS antenna. There is a recommended physical fix.
I did a quick search and haven't seen any similar news for the international galaxy S. Is the Vibrant made by Samsung directly or through a subsidiary or OEM? There is no manufacture date on my phone or box though.

excuse me, i don't understand if there are a hardware change for galaxy s...
Can they confirm this?

Still can't believe I'm saying this but my gps went from zero to hero with jk4 froyo.
Initial lock can be slow, but is very accurate. One thing that I noticed last week that was odd, I typically use My Tracks, Nav, GPS Essentials and Gas Buddy, they all work great. Well last week I tried maps right after starting the gps radio, Maps could not get a lock. After starting one of the other apps and watching it get a lock, I went back into Maps and Maps could then find me no problem. It seems very weird to me that My Tracks can get a lock without a kickstart but Maps cannot when you would think the underlying software should be pretty near the same.
I have thoroughly tested my gps on journeys from fifty to one hundred miles and the tracks are fantastic, I've monitored my sats with gps essentials and I'm typically seeing 9-11 sats all locked on with one sat dropping intermittently.
I wish I could help the others but I can't cause I've done nothing to this phone, all stock, never modded, only updated using official methods and firmware.
Neil

My GPS was perfect initially, then poor on JPK, now perfect again on JPU. Seems more like a firmware/software issue, rather than hardware...

neil85ae86 said:
Still can't believe I'm saying this but my gps went from zero to hero with jk4 froyo.
Initial lock can be slow, but is very accurate. One thing that I noticed last week that was odd, I typically use My Tracks, Nav, GPS Essentials and Gas Buddy, they all work great. Well last week I tried maps right after starting the gps radio, Maps could not get a lock. After starting one of the other apps and watching it get a lock, I went back into Maps and Maps could then find me no problem. It seems very weird to me that My Tracks can get a lock without a kickstart but Maps cannot when you would think the underlying software should be pretty near the same.
I have thoroughly tested my gps on journeys from fifty to one hundred miles and the tracks are fantastic, I've monitored my sats with gps essentials and I'm typically seeing 9-11 sats all locked on with one sat dropping intermittently.
I wish I could help the others but I can't cause I've done nothing to this phone, all stock, never modded, only updated using official methods and firmware.
Neil
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Interesting. Do you happen to know where I stand in the firmware order with JPO?
There is a sea of information regarding firmwares and such like and it can be difficult to figure exactly where one particular firmware stands in relation to the others.
Is yours newer?

your is newer
I would think, however I'm betting their are many little variations with hardware so not necessarily is the latest the best for all devices.
I'm quite confident that general performance is affecting the gps too and a lagfix might help. This is based on observations I made with my old 2.1 when the phone was busy and hot the gps would wander all over the place.
I hope you can get it resolved.
Neil

Is the GPS fixed by Google?

I know this seems odd but the GPS seems fixed; without tampering with the settings. A friend bought a Fascinate so we started comparing crappy GPS. While his had him in Eastern Europe, mine was dead on accurate. It was like it wasn't the phone I've been using for months that couldn't keep a lock in the middle of a field on a sunny day.
I was running JH7 and started using the GPS every chance I got and it never lost a lock and usually locked in 30 seconds or less. The Fascinate also isn't having any problem after he got the market app to connect.
It's been almost two weeks and it's still working perfectly. I'm in my basement and it's locking me within 80ft right now; which I consider pretty good for being underground. I've never changed the settings so I had no idea why it started working.
Anyway; I bought my wife a Focus and spent a lot of time in AT&T stores while she SLOWLY shopped for a phone. Two different stores both told me that the GPS is fixed. I blew it off as not caring (see below comments about Froyo) but even the display model was locking fast and finally got 'in' the building after a minute. 3 reps at two different stores told me it's been fixed.
What I don't understand is they both stated the fix didn't come from Samsung. It came from an update of Maps over the last month. Maybe they were versed.
So my GPS magically works now. I ocassionally get a larger blue circle but most of the time have no range of error. It does sometimes jump in fast turns like i'm going straight but corrects itself before Navigation gets a chance to re-route.
Is anyone else seeing this?
Lastly; one guy was irritating me with arguing with me why I was telling my wife she'd want more space then the 3GS 8GB offerred. I tried to annoy him and started badgering him about my Froyo. His response is below.
"Don't know and don't care! We sell the phones as is and don't care if they ever get updated as they are great phones as is"
Coming from a corporate AT&T store making this comment didn't appease me. His comment, and the announcement well be the only non-froyo galaxy by month end led me to put Cognition on the phone again.

i did read that the US govt was preforming some tests on GPS satiltes lately and some people in the mid (EAST??) Us would experiecne problems

As much as I want to believe a fix is coming, I've given up on it. Keep in mind I live near Baltimore, MD, and my GPS has always been 'good enough to barely get me turn-by-turn directions.'
The update you are referring to (as well as most people whom first claim an update fixed GPS), is a google maps update that allows path prediction. The best way to test this is to take your phone for a drive with MyTracks, but there is an easy way to test the prediction vs. actual performance.
If you are driving along a road (lets say you get to 40mph+) and are coming up on a red traffic light or stop sign; proceed and then try to stop fairly quickly (please be safe). Immediately look at your phone for your location, and you will notice your arrow being way ahead of you, and it will start working its way back to your current location. The same thing will happen if you take a right-turn detour from your projected route (it will show you go straight past, and then try to work it's way over to finding your actual location). The stronger lock you have, the more responsive this will be.
Either way, I'm fortunate enough to have a Garmin for road trips since the captivate generally has trouble keeping me tracked with a decent level of accuracy.
FYI: For my trips, it's all outside Baltimore. No big buildings, clear day no clouds, etc.

GPS remarkable observation

Guys,
I spent 2 weeks of holidays (my wife almost left me for that) mostly trying to find out why GPS performance on my P970 is so poor, losing satellites fixes every so often and sometimes no fix at all although 'seeing' satellites. I did not find a 'real' solution, even after tests on both mostly Huexxx 7 and lately boype's 0909, too.
Best results now on boype's 0909 CM7 but with adapted gps.conf and gps_brcm_conf.xml. Nevertheless, the result is still disappointing, far away from satisfying.
However, during all these checks, I found that satellite's receiption is depending on the way I hold the device in my hands, at least on MY device. Whenever I hold a finger on the top left of the chassis (just above the location where the GPS chip is located, see pictures), then receiption improves by 0 up to 14 db (!!!).
Also the number of 'seen' and 'used' birds increases from 6 to 10 easily!!! However, the fix did not become more stable through that.
Pls check on your devices if you can verify the same behaviour.
If so, what could be the reason (i do not put any pressure on the device)? And is there anything that we can do to make this improvement permanent, i.e. put a piece of 'aluminium foil' between the back lid and the device or something similiar?
Let me know your remarks, guys.

No problem at all. Riding on the tram right now. Fix on 12 in few seconds. Sure it's not because of your position? And 6 is enough to fix the position.

@eighty-four
I appreciate your info, and you are surely right it is depending on my position. My question was a different one though: Do you observe the same reaction as soon as you put the finger on top of the device; i.e. increase of signal strength?
BTW You attached an impressive picture, would like to aks you are you still on AOKP beta 1.1 ICS 4.0.4 and how do your files gps.conf and gps_brcm_conf.xml look like? Can you share them?

AOKP 1.1, no any GPS fixes
Hard to say about reaction while on move. But didn't noticed any noticeable changes.
Can't check now - I'm in home.

I've been using Marvel v9 since released, with the GPS "Tweaks" installed too.
I'm getting GPS signal, sometimes really fast, some others i need to wait for a couple of minutes (maximum 3 minutes).
There are certain times though, that it doesnt lock no matter what, just like in your situation. It manages to find many sattelites (7+) with an average decent signal strength but it refuses to get a gps fix location.
I believe it has to do with the temperature of the chip (i couldnt get easy GPS fix at winter) because now that summer passed by and used my GPS a lot, i had no issues... might be the clouds, might be the stars alignment and zodiacs ... i really dont know.
It's not that accurate and fast though for city driving. Some turns are being announced way too late (Sygic Aura) and the error treshold is about 10meters mostly, rarely goes down at 5meters.
I guess it's a chip manufacturing bull**** rather than a "case construction" or antenna problem.

@morx
I just wanted to check if others can verify better receiption when holding finger on top.
I agree it seems a hw or engineering defect, nevertheless I am trying to optimize the settings in order to compaensate at least partially.
Interesting you mention the temperature: In my research I came across a relationship between temperature and gps accuracy. Our (and any other gps chip) uses a oscillator hw module for precision timing. These oscillators' accuracies depend on the temperature and are measuered in PPM. There is also a setting in the gps_brcm_conf.xml that refers to this, it is "FrqPlan". The usual value in CM7 is "FRQ_PLAN_26MHZ_2PPM_26MHZ_300PPB". However, other values do also work, like "FRQ_PLAN_26MHZ_2PPM_26MHZ_100PPB".
You can check details in THIS post.
Would be interesting to determine if different values lead to better results.

I had no clue that chip temperature had a side effect on GPS fix !!
When i was writing my concern about that, i was feeling stupid until i saw your redirection to that post...
hmmm there are many factors which can be put on the table about optimization and troubleshooting.
Later on, i'll give a try keeping the cellphone with both hands, different angles, one handed on top/bottom etc...

Interesting thoughts.
I'm on CM10 nightly and always had blazing fast fixes until yesterday. I activated GPS in my car and after 3 minutes it fixed (in Osmand), after some more minutes the fix got currently lost.
Due to my big custom 3500 mAh battery I couldn't place my phone in the cradle therefore I simply laid it onto my dashboard. Maybe because of this the signals were harder to receive.
I will switch back to the normal battery today and try to test your variant.
Sent from my LG-P970 using xda app-developers app