Database Users

How well does your GPS work?

Just surveying how well the GPS on the Touch works for most people. It seem as though many people still have problems, even after the carrier updates and all the hacking done here. I personally could never get the GPS working consistently without using Alltel Navigator, which cost $10 a month.

My current theory is that the phone's radio injects noise into the GPS receiver, either because it shares an antenna with the phone, or for the same reason why a powerful radio signal (like driving past a transmitter tower) can overwhelm the front end of receivers that aren't even near the transmitter's frequency.
Evidence: If I launch Google Maps when I'm offline, and I can select "Use GPS" and avoid having Google Maps try to go online before it acquires at least 3 GPS satellites, it seems to lock on within a minute or so about 90% of the time.
If anything causes the phone to go online before I've acquired GPS, it almost never seems to succeed.
If I take/make a voice call, or engage in sustained data transfer, it almost always seems to lose the GPS signal.
If I pan/scroll the map and cause Google Maps to need a BIG chunk of data, it will probably lose the GPS signal.
I'd be interested to hear whether anyone else has noticed a similar inverse correlation between RF activity and GPS acquisition.

Hmmm, I haven't noticed any correlation between data and location, it's an interesting theory though. It takes me anywhere from a minute to 15 seconds to get a lock, and when occasionally satellite signal drops out, Google maps finds it again within 10 seconds or less. I'm a verizon user, btw, and I use GMaps, Live, and TomTOm7+GpsViewer.

Mine works great -
Mine works great - I have Garmin XT for turn-by-turn and it seems to find satellites pretty fast - The other day I decided to try a little experiment and I set up both my Sony GPS and my Touch and pressed "go" at the same time and the Touch GPS was just a fraction of a second behind the Sony (both from a cold start), which I think is pretty good - I have no problem using Windows Live, but for some reason the most recent Google Maps doesn't work as well, it can take forever (seemingly) to lock.

baud rate
after doing a little more
research, i found a post
suggesting to use the
57600 baud rate in google
maps. it worked and i got
a lock within about a minute
sorry bought the english
im typing on my phone here
at work.

my 6800 locks consistanly with in 15 seconds. Just bought the wife a 6900 and its been taking about 1-2 minutes. Not sure why that is.

i had a lot of trouple with my gps being inconsistent and what not. this post on ppc geeks fixed the problem now i connect 6-11 satsellites in 30 seconds or less. duno if it'll help u but u can try it:
http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=36377&highlight=shadow-tech+agps
not taking any credit for that guide it was pmed to me im pretty sure all acknowledgements are made within the post itself.

Use this to get your GPS working well...
My GPS works excellently with Google maps, as well as with iGO8. I can lock into about 8 sats in 15 seconds or so using the AstroGPSLauncher that AstronusX created and posted at this thread.
Took me just a couple of minutes to create the shortcut and put it in my program list.
I might lose satellites in iGO8 if I get a phone call and take it, but it will get back the sats after a minute or two once the phone call has completed.
Hope this helps.
Steve

Carrick1973 said:
My GPS works excellently with Google maps, as well as with iGO8. I can lock into about 8 sats in 15 seconds or so using the AstroGPSLauncher that AstronusX created and posted at this thread.
Took me just a couple of minutes to create the shortcut and put it in my program list.
I might lose satellites in iGO8 if I get a phone call and take it, but it will get back the sats after a minute or two once the phone call has completed.
Hope this helps.
Steve
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have M2D plugin?
I have NFSFAN Rom and Igo8 is really pain. If you switch to Today or just phone - there is no way to get IGo back. Have to Reset.

Yes, I've been running iGo8 on NSFFAN's 1.08 ROM. I agree that it dogs down damn bad when I get a call while running iGo, but I can get it back up without having to reset if there isn't anything else running. It does take quite awhile to get sat locks back though after switching over to phone. It might be quicker to close out of iGo and restart.

Thanks for all the helpful post guys, that 57600 baud rate didn`t last to long. It was just as inconsistant as anything else I tried. I`ve heard about the Shadow Tech`s Fix for a while now but never tried it till last night. I am having some trouble with the dialing ##3424 step. I`ve tried the different 3424 numbers, and using task manager to open Dmrouter.exe under /DIAG parameters. Nothing happens on my phone, and I don`t see HTC Diag in Device Manager on XP. I have another post on the Shadow Tech Fix thread, but if anybody here knows what I`m doing wrong I`d appreciate a little info.

BTW I`m using NFSfans alltel 1.02 rom

pknyo said:
Thanks for all the helpful post guys, that 57600 baud rate didn`t last to long. It was just as inconsistant as anything else I tried. I`ve heard about the Shadow Tech`s Fix for a while now but never tried it till last night. I am having some trouble with the dialing ##3424 step. I`ve tried the different 3424 numbers, and using task manager to open Dmrouter.exe under /DIAG parameters. Nothing happens on my phone, and I don`t see HTC Diag in Device Manager on XP. I have another post on the Shadow Tech Fix thread, but if anybody here knows what I`m doing wrong I`d appreciate a little info.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you go into windows and execute Dmrouter.exe it should, it may not change anything on your screen. Easy way to tell is if you have an activesync connection, execute it, and if activesync disconnects then your in it. Another way is to check task manager, and see if it is running.
There was a problem with the driver for the Vogue in WModem. I found a thread with the fix:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=462712

Valahalla? I know it has to do with GPS just wondering what it is

Phone shows up as Palm treo modem
I got dmrouter.exe working, but in vista it shows up as palm treo modem after drivers are found and installed. I`ll try again in XP and see if it happens again.

Wow I finally got this to work (Shadow Techs Fix)
It took about a day and a half, but I finally got it!
1.) I flashed back to Official Alltel 6.1 Rom and skipped customizations.
2.) I followed the steps in this thread http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=36377&highlight=shadow-tech+agps
3.) Reflashed back NFSFAN`s 1.02 Rom. I then tested it out and 10 seconds later I had 8 satellites locked on me.
Thanks to everybody who helped me out here with your posts. I started this thread as just a kinda survey to find out if I was not alone in having so much difficulty making my phone work as it should, and ended up a very happy Touch owner.

on alltel
it almost never works. shadow-tech's fix helps immensely

im in dominican republic
and i never manage to get a gps signal.
=/ is it me or the phone?
or the fact that this island is worst then the one in LOST

I checked the accuracy of the GPS on my phone about a year ago- Sometimes I work with surveyors, so we matched my vogue against a survey grade GPS to determine how off it was- My phone was +/- 3 feet (1m) in latititude and +/- 10 feet (3m) in longitude. I think that's pretty damn good. This was in a refinery in NJ, USA, with lots of big steel tanks around.
First I was using gps toggle, now I'm running NSFANs 6.5 v8 with gps viewer. I never have trouble getting a lock after about a minute of warming up.

Concerning the Shadow tech fix some of you guys have used here : http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=36377&highlight=shadow-tech+agps
I was wondering if this fix has already been incorporated into all the cooked ROMs for the Vogue that have come out since March '09?

Garmin XT 5.0.20w loosing GPS fix and more....

OK Guys I was searching this forum and not only this but could not find any answer or tip to my problem, so as far as i do not like to start new thread here we go....
It is a bit weird as it started to happen recently...my Garmin XT working ideally with TOPO maps when u hiking but as soon as i get into a car and connect my HD to power and try to navigate home it starts to loosing the plot... basically it will find the route and start navigating and then suddenly loosing GPS fix and switch screen off sometimes, and even once or twice unload itself so phone went back to main screen. also once it lost fix i can see that Garmin switching between full screen and full window view...as i can see top bar every now and then.
contacting Garmin is a waste of time....as they did not offer any solution except hard resetting the device, and i wont do that, to much work to put back everything together and not enough time.
if anyone have a clue what it might be please share ur thought, and give me a tip to sort this out.
I'm using non modified HD with standard WWE version on Orange UK.
Thanks for any help
PS. For MOD, do not know if I posted in right place so if need to be moved, just move it.

Oh and I thought my Garmin was going crazy ! Actually Sygic is working fine with me except that I get some lags sometimes but it is all fine. But yeah tell me about it ... I tried Garmin and it looked for me better with much more POIS than Sygic but few days ago I was driving and suddenly the software started to go into other direction, like it was tracking something else. I think it is a bug with the software maybe. Thank God I am not the only one aware of many things going on with my HD

have u ppl tried 1.13.25.24 radio rom??
with this update... getting fix is very fast (basically it does not search for com ports, shows u connected when u start GMXT).
only drawback is that u can not see the satellite bars in info section.
used gps for short distances (@ 140kmph not much lagging and no disconnection). maybe i'll go for a long drive this weekend... then i'll know if there is a problem of disconnection or lagging etc.

With TomTom i get the same problem, however i don't know what the problem may be because A-GPS is turned off, but it has happened twice where it would take 4 times as longer to find the signal, and whenever it did it would go find then lost.
Soft Resetting fixed it up however i did notice my QuickGPS was not up to date anymore, must have went out of date the day before and possible cause for it acting up.
Try updating QuickGPS, might fix it up and be sure to have A-GPS off.

still no solution
Psygnosis84 said:
Try updating QuickGPS, might fix it up and be sure to have A-GPS off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i did forgot to mention that my A-GPS is already switched off. the problem is that Garmin keep switching between full screen and full window view and i suspect that my be the bottom of losing fix in the car... i want to stress out that while walking & hiking i have no such problem..... ONLY IN THE CAR and that is most frustrating.
and changing radio....well i'm not convinced as this could halt my phone if something go wrong and i cannot let it happen, as it's not only a toy but business tool, so i rather dont play with it.
any solution????

marasp said:
i did forgot to mention that my A-GPS is already switched off. the problem is that Garmin keep switching between full screen and full window view and i suspect that my be the bottom of losing fix in the car... i want to stress out that while walking & hiking i have no such problem..... ONLY IN THE CAR and that is most frustrating.
and changing radio....well i'm not convinced as this could halt my phone if something go wrong and i cannot let it happen, as it's not only a toy but business tool, so i rather dont play with it.
any solution????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Changing radio won't halt your device. As long as you have Hardspl on your phone beforehand you'll be fine!

And pelase report back if it does solve your problem

Is this a solution????
Hi there, I see we lost some posts over here....so again latest update...
On the way to work this morning I tried garmin with Intermediate Driver and it worked!! but....there always has to be some but....I saw increase in lag...also i did it a bit different way then usually as I did not connected HD to power... will test it again with power connection tomorrow.

i have extensively tested gps of touch hd while driving from 0 to 120 km in open highway
i never lost the fix
it kept locked to satelites but major problem was battery drain
so i have to disconnect gps latter on
i belive with gps on and satelite fixed driving around 80 to 100 km battery with die with in 2 hours .
otherwise there is lag of 5 to 7 km/hr in speed calculated via gps and its normal
my SiRF III CHIP based cowon q5 gps also shows 5 to 10 km /hr differance from actual speed of car
its normal i belive

laggy but working
commando0 said:
otherwise there is lag of 5 to 7 km/hr in speed calculated via gps and its normal
my SiRF III CHIP based cowon q5 gps also shows 5 to 10 km /hr differance from actual speed of car its normal i belive
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
from what i experienced earlier with garmin i can say that lag become much bigger...now when i'm past the junction, on the map i suppose to be either on or even before the junction... never had that before so i suspect that intermediate driver might be responsible for that. also i can say that when using tomtom i have no such experience.
wanted to ditch tomtom but with such a laggy response i will have to use both... garmin for off road navigation and tomtom for car navigation.
the only thing i can confirm is that using intermediate driver solved switching between full screen and full window problem as well as loosing gps fix... at least for me. but u get bigger lag instead....

GPS Program

I search for a GPS Program for fishing! I want save my position on water and 2 days later the program navigate me to the saved position!

Try this: http://www.cradle-software.de/en/software/gpsspot
It works very fine, not limited just for fishing. I'm using it often to find my car LOL For some people it may be good at night, when returning back home from a pub

looooooooooooool i dont think they would make much sense off the 3 inch display like that

Thanks! And sorry for my bad english!

But where do you get a serial?

Buy it of course. Didn't notice you want freeware

2,90€ is almost freeware THX for this tip - the program looks quite interesting

I test it, but its not that what i´m looking for. it have to be preciselier. or maybe with same card where i can see the piont.

i would recommend using Garmin. you can save any point to the gps program (much like any GPS) but with Garmin, as you are just browsing the map, it will show you all the points when you are approaching without having to 'route' to it. it's perfect if you have many fishing spots on the lake and simply want to jump from one spot to another (again, without having to have the program 'route' to it).

Try this:
http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-where-is.html
I haven't tried that one myself (it has problems conecting to some in-built GPSs accordingto the comments and I can confirm this with my X1), but it looks pretty good and is still in dev.
Or this is a great GPS programme that might help:
http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-turbo-gps.html
a lot more features than you need, buy being able to store waypoints and showing them on live plots could be useful. I thoroughly recommend this app and have been using it for a couple of years now.
-FM

Update:
Latest version of 'Where Is' seems to work fine with the X1.
It's got a really nice simple interface and, if its granularity is enough, it should do exactly what you want.
Where Is will show a warning that it can't connect to the GPS until it acquires a lock - tap the icon that looks like a notepad to view the raw GPS log and if you see data then it's seeing your GPS fine and will lock as soon as it has enough sats.
I originally thought the GPS needed to be switched to 'unmanaged' by unchecking the box in the WinMo External GPS settings, but this seems to be a red herring. Maybe a soft restart of the device was what got it working, or maybe the message about not being able to connect to the GPS was just misleading.
Hope this helps,
FM

HD2 and Memory Map

been out trying the HD2 using memory map. its a brilliant bit of software that uses ordinance survey mapping and the gps system on the phone.
much better than the i900 that i used to have memory map installed on.
follows the pre-drawn track (walking) very well and obtains satelites very well too.
i also use memory map extensivly when off road driving, but normally use it on a laptop with a gps dongle. this mainly because screen size is quite important when following a track when driving. however the nice big screen on the HD2 overcomes this ;-)
memory map is resident on your home pc and it is much easier drawing tracks that way, but easily downloaded to your phone once done via active synch.
this phone gets better all the time. incidentally, over an hours walking with gps and memory map running used about 20% of battery from full charge. again much better than the i900. my g/f used her iphone over the same period with the equivalent app running and she was down to 57% of power, so a gain over the iphone there as well.
Mike

I can also say a big thumbs up for the HD2 and Memory Map
The only reason for me having it on the phone is that its a back up to a handheld gps unit when im working out in the middle of the back and beyond as a medic if I need to call in airmed then I can give them an exact gps, its great as my phone never leaves me but I have left the dam hand held gps in the car before now, made the call and thought oh [email protected] but so far its not been too bad.
Not had the chance to play live with it yet but so far the tests iv run have been great.

I have the old 2004 edition. Had a few problems to start with but with rotate (to get all the menus) and Pinch to Zoom from BsB it works very well.
I wonder what will happen now that Ordinance Survey maps are in the public domain.

I used the 2005 version as that was on the laptop, plugged in let it synch up and installed not a problem.
The only issue I did have was with the maps but think I was having issues with my sd card at the time so did a backup formated it and then dragged it all over again and its been fine since.
As for the maps I don't know I do know they have been available on the net for a while if you know were to look. The only thing I would really like to see them add to it is to be able to swap from os to satalite view.
I know they wont make it backwards compatible but there has been one or two times it would have been great to get a shot of the surrounding area but its not a must have feature for me just one that would be nice to have.
For that I guess I have google maps so always a back up I guess.

I went out with my hd2 running memory map and was surprised at how little my battery went down, expected the battery to wear down quicker than it did with my x1, didn't seem to, although I wasn't looking at the map as often as I did when navigating down scafell in the pitch black!
Also like the new version of the software with the more finger friendly buttons and the lightening quick loading of overlay list or map tiles - which is probably down to the snapdragon!!

HD2 and Memory Map - my experience
I purchased Memory Map (the whole of the UK at 50,000:1) for my computer a long time ago but have updated it to the latest 5.4 version at no cost. I used to print out maps as required from the computer but have now downloaded relevant sections to my HTC HD2.
The ideal would be to download the whole UK map (which is about 4GB) to my HD2 16GB storage card. Unfortunately this is not possible from the Memory Map version I have - and I do not intend to spend several hundred pounds on purchasing the same mapping in the edition that does have this capability. When required, I load individual areas of the country taking up just under 200MB and now have about nine of these. As an example two sections of less 200MB each cover the West Country from Lands End as far as a line joining Bristol to Southampton. The whole of the Isle of Man takes up only 10MB. Loading a 200MB section takes less than fifteen minutes. Theoretically the section maximum is 400MB but the set up does not seem to function correctly with areas taking up more than 250MB.
The HTC HD2 provides a comparable map reading GPS experience to other specialist devices such as SatMap, latest Garmin mapping satnav, or Adventurer 2800 but obviously is far less robust and less able to cope with some adverse weather conditions. It may well lack some of the more sophisicated features of these devices but is perfectly adequate for my hill walking expeditions. Of course with more adventurous routes I also carry maps/compass as a backup as I did with my specialist Garmin satnav.
Apologies for the length of this reply and to readers not residing in the UK but I hope this is of use to those who have, or who are thinking about acquiring, Memory Map.

a previous experiment with mm and the HD2 (weekend before last) i first tried putting the phone in my top jacket pocket between location checks, after locking the screen (to save power) with mm still open. however it seems the whole phone shuts down so live tracking is lost. however was very pleased with how quickly location was again found once the screen was activated and then unlocked.
this weekend i tried leaving the phone on and just put it in my pocket. was very impressed at power usage as per my first post and also the fact that even though the phone was in my pocket, the gps retained signal and live tracking was accuratly plotted.
of course used in a vehicle power is not an issue at all and the screen is certainly big enough to follow a pre drawn track when off roading.
Mike

Just got a HD2 and want to use my MM on it, what are the GPS settings to use in MM?
Cheers ... FF ...

floyd fan said:
Just got a HD2 and want to use my MM on it, what are the GPS settings to use in MM?
Cheers ... FF ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
for me it worked on install, if not then i think you have to make sure gps device is set to nema or similar for it to work.
Mike

floyd fan said:
Just got a HD2 and want to use my MM on it, what are the GPS settings to use in MM?
Cheers ... FF ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Manufacturer NMEA
Port COM4
Baud 4800

steveianson said:
I have the old 2004 edition. Had a few problems to start with but with rotate (to get all the menus) and Pinch to Zoom from BsB it works very well.
I wonder what will happen now that Ordinance Survey maps are in the public domain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am afraid Ordnance Survey Maps are not in the public domain - at least the ones useful to MemoryMap aren't (25k and 50k). In any case the maps need to be in MM format - something done by MM not OS. OS has released a few datasets into the PD - CodePoint (Postcodes) and some others. There are many complaints on the blogs that OS has released such a resticted set.
Some one also mentioned satellite views. There is on the Internet aerial photographs in MM format. All you need do is download them and put them in the map folder used by MM. They are then available. Works like a dream and you can switch between photograph and map easily. Used in 3D word they are brilliant and the 3D route follower is almost like being there!! The main problem is the size of the file when trying to use on the HD2. But it is possible to send parts of the image from your PC to the HD2.
I use MM all the time for walking in the New Forest. It is interesting looking at the stats afterwards.
BTW - I retired from OS in Sep 2008 afetr working there for 42 years. I am still in touch with several senior colleagues so "have my finger on the pulse" so to speak.
Cheers to all
Ian

Overall

what is your view on this phone overall.
will copilot 7 work on it?
does it seem fast?
wonder if it is worth it.
thanks.

After my Samsung Omnia the Mini is the best phone I ever had. Damn Samsung...
Copiliot is not the best Navi, but it's quiet good.
The HTC is mostly fast in response and syncing with thunderbird over Birdiesync works great.
It does all I want from a phone. Only Problem is the screen resolution, because a lot of apps do not work, or have problems.
Ingo

what do you mean?
because a lot of apps do not work, or have problems...
is there a list?
what is the point of having a phone on which a lot of apps do not work?

There are some lists in this forum.
And the point is, that you perhaps need a software, and it does not really work, or just uncomfortable. If you dont need any apps, there is no problem.

I don't know about copilot. It's not offered in the package of our region.
But one thing i can tell you is that, HD mini has a damn good GPS receiver. The most poweful i've seen so far. It locks on to the satellite signal almost anywhere. Even inside my office building. Really beyond my expectation. Around 1 minute to lock from cold start. Less than 10 seconds for hot start. It even locks faster than my dedicated GPS device in the car.
I installed a freeware navigation software on it. Works really well.

Does tom tom ver 7 or memory maps work on this phone?