Database Users

GPS out of the country?

Hello!
I'm just back from a trip from london. I brought with me my P4000 thinking that I would be able to use it's great GPS abroad.
It never worked once.
I thought this thing had an aGPS chip, meaning it was a true GPS that could be assisted by cell towers to find a fix faster. So, my understanding was that it should have worked abroad, albeit slower to find a fix then here.
As soon as I got back home, it started working again.
Any ideas?
Mod Edit: Moved from Titan Upgrading
Thanks!

Hello!
I'm just back from a trip from london. I brought with me my P4000 thinking that I would be able to use it's great GPS abroad.
It never worked once.
I thought this thing had an aGPS chip, meaning it was a true GPS that could be assisted by cell towers to find a fix faster. So, my understanding was that it should have worked abroad, albeit slower to find a fix then here.
As soon as I got back home, it started working again.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you were roaming overseas, then you won't be inside Verizon's firewall, therefore you won't have connectivity to the PDE server. The standalone GPS should have still worked, though it probably would take a lot longer to fix due to the fact you moved a great deal since the last fix. Did you try to use QuickGPS to download the ephemeris data? That probably would have sped up your fix a little.

I'm using tomtom, so, I don't need access to verizon. Anyway, I'm with Telus.
I've let it stand by the window for hours and it never got a lock. I didn't try QuickGPS.
Should I have switched something in the registry to have it work in standalone mode instead of assisted?

Well, i'm living in Republic Of Moldova. WE have no aGPS here at all, but i still can use GPS function on Titan. I have to wait about 1-3 minutes for lock.
I have installed DCD 3.2.6 rom and 3.42.50 Radio. Use SeaSGEE to download ephemeris data and Navitel Navigator. But Tom Tom and any other programs work fine too.
PS Sorry for my English.

I recall having a similar discussion in an earlier thread.
See if any of this info helps:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=2538917
If you do that right, i'm pretty sure it won't even attempt to connect to a PDE server (when u change GPSMode), so you should be able to get a *slightly* quicker lock, as it won't waste time looking for that server.
I do also suggest using some other tool like QuickGPS to retrieve the ephemeris data before trying to get a lock; it *should* speed it up, but I don't know how true that really holds.

Ok,
Thanks for all the infos. I'm going to Madrid next month, I'll try again there.

I was able to get GPS locks all over Europe no problem this past July.

I'm using tomtom, so, I don't need access to verizon. Anyway, I'm with Telus.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it doesn't matter whether you have Verizon or Telus when it comes to aGPS. I was referring to aGPS. If you aren't inside your carriers internal network, then you won't access the PDE.
The GPS should still work regardless, just in standalone mode, which is why I asked if you tried QuickGPS to try and speed up the lock times.

I was under the impression that there is a registry setting for the global "zone" for our GPSr to look for and that it was set to US.
From the posts I reviewed few if any folks have been able to lock overseas unless they got locks while traveling
GC, have you found any settings in the registry for this?
In QuickGPS I think the setting is as follows:
[HKLM] - Software\HTC\QuickGPS\region
Its set for US for me here in TN and I think someone from Holland posted on PPCGeeks a long time ago NL worked for him to get a lock once he found and got it via trial and error...

I am sure you are onto something here
I think you guys are really onto something here. I have had the most frustrating time with my titan because of this very issue. I travel outside of the USA frequently and in all my travels have only managed to get a lock once! All through Australia and Thailand with no phone signal I was unable to get a lock with either flight mode on or phone mode on. Even in Taiwan where VZW has some modicum of representation (i.e the phone function worked but zero data) I go no lock.
gc was right about the agps thing. Outside of Verizon network you will not get assisted gps (although strangely when in "extended area" roaming inside USA it still seems to work).
in the end i tried a hundred things to get a lock including leaving the phone out in the full view of the sky for 6 hours. Nothing worked except the gps mode that scrawnyb talked about. I finally got a (very slow) lock after what seemed like hours.
I really believe that osteo's answer about the zone (i.e. "US" here in USA) is also part of the answer. I can only assume that the ephemeris data has to be relative to where you are on the earths surface, so the phone having some idea of where you are surely would help (especially without cell tower help from agps).
Targitai, if you visit this thread again can you please check the setting in your phone to see what zone setting you have that assists with locking. You need to look in [HKLM] - Software\HTC\QuickGPS\region and check that you are not set to "US" or similar.
I wont be traveling OS for a few months now, so I cannot confirm any of the above. I hope others who are traveling see this thread and can report back.
Thanks for the helpful info on this thread. This problem has been bugging me for months. Strange this is that my bluetooth gps never takes more than about 2-3 minutes to get a lock, even after crossing to the other side of the earth, over 9000 miles to Australia.

Well,
I'm here in Madrid now and it doesn'T work.
I tried changing the registry key of the GPS mode and it didn't help.
Any other things I can try?

stanelie said:
Well,
I'm here in Madrid now and it doesn'T work.
I tried changing the registry key of the GPS mode and it didn't help.
Any other things I can try?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How long did you wait, and do you have a clear view of the sky?
After traveling a long distance it can take some time to download the full catalog info on the satellites.

I waited a few hours in clear sight of the sky.
My old hp hw 6515 with a old stand-alone GPS chips can find a lock fine...

sorry, double post...

I have had my gps lock over the ocean in an airplane. I dont have navigation software installed other than google maps so I just used Visual GPS to verify I had lat/lon fix and a gps speedometer app to tell me I was going at the same speed the captain had said. No wireless data connection at all.

Hi, I have a similar problem, but when I'm in a no service area, the GPS locks in 2 minutes. When the phone gets a cell phone tower, never gets a lock unless I let him overnight catching sats. I'm from Venezuela, may be the cell phone towers or the network, I don't know, induce some kind of conflict in the position calculation of the GPS. In the flight mode the problem persist.

Geolocation does NOT work with cellid only on 3G

I'm trying to figure out if anyone else is having this problem.
Got my G1 on the 21st. been playing with a few things and the laundry list of UI annoyances is getting longer by the minute.
but overall quite impressed. Here's a weird one.
Google Maps (on G1 of course) cannot locate my phone - at all - with wifi OFF and gps OFF.
I am in a 3G zone. Google Maps on my HTC Touch worked fine (EDGE only of course)
So I looked around and found a reference somewhere stating that cellid geolocation does NOT work in 3G areas.
Is this true of all 3G phones?? If so it's very strange - because I like to keep 3G on but when I am indoors or for that matter when I want to save battery I turn off GPS and wifi.
So why the hell would they not be able to geolocate by cellid?
I tested it on my G1 and it's true - as soon as you turn off 3G (Settings->Wireless Controls->Mobile Networks) then cellid Geolocation works fine.
Just thought people might want to know and I'm curious if anyone else has the same problem.
Nick

I heard from a network engineer that all of the 3G hardware was rapid deployed and configured to minimum specs which happened to NOT include enabling aGPS. It was either an oversight or a timesaver. This will be fixed, it is a known issue. All the techs are still in the middle of the initial deployment and rapid expansion before the end of the quarter.
I HOPE to god Tmo can stop the ATT commercials that brag about the fastest network in the US after this quarter.

that only kind of makes sense...
I mean sure - it's all new etc...
but the point is that the network is not doing the a bit of the aGPS - google is.
Google does a lookup of the cellid in its database - and presumably does not have any information on the new cellids.....YET.
I just find that weird - I am in the metropolitan LA area and you would think with all the hoopla of this launch and the financial might of google they could have gotten it together by now - I mean these towers didn't go up yesterday...
Nick
syrusfrost said:
I heard from a network engineer that all of the 3G hardware was rapid deployed and configured to minimum specs which happened to NOT include enabling aGPS. It was either an oversight or a timesaver. This will be fixed, it is a known issue. All the techs are still in the middle of the initial deployment and rapid expansion before the end of the quarter.
I HOPE to god Tmo can stop the ATT commercials that brag about the fastest network in the US after this quarter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

nickybee said:
Google does a lookup of the cellid in its database - and presumably does not have any information on the new cellids.....YET.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
erm, is that how aGPS works on the G1? That's stupid. I was under the impression that it worked like normal aGPS... I.E. -
Phone: Where am I?
Tower: You are @ 33.12345/32.12345 accuracy 2000 meters
Tower: GPS sattelites G51, T85, R14 are 3 strongest
Phone: Fed GPS data to GPS radio, warm start for 10 sec lock as opposed to over a minute for a cold start lock.
And I am also under the impression that alot of the 3G hardware wasn't configured with the appropriate data (position with est of accuracy based on closest towers and affinity and the 3 strongest GPS signals for that area). The issue was noticed and any new hardware should be fine. Problems will be resolved as the expansion portion of the project begins and all of the areas are revisited.
Where did you get your info nickybee?

aad4321 said:
agps works fine with me on 3G....
also under settings...security and location.... if you look under "use wireless networks" it says with that turned on, it uses wifi and cell towers for location. I would imagine with this off, it will not geolocate through towers...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes that was turned on on my G1 of course.
and no it still doesn't work.
nick

hey syrus - I didn't mean aGPS - I was just referring to the (a) part of the GPS.
i.e. there is no Phone saying "Where am I"
it goes
GMaps application: "What's my cell id?"
Phone: "It's ABC1"
GMaps application: "Hey Google dbase - where's cellid ABC1"
Google: "ABC1 is at 33.12345/32.12345 accuracy 2000 meters"
As to where I get my information from it's out of my ass
I accept that I could be totally wrong - but I assume that google does not go to the carriers for cellid information - it just drives around with the mobile vans and captures GPS data for Wifi and cellid simultaneously. Since the towers are quite new - their data has not been captured yet
Nick
syrusfrost said:
erm, is that how aGPS works on the G1? That's stupid. I was under the impression that it worked like normal aGPS... I.E. -
Phone: Where am I?
Tower: You are @ 33.12345/32.12345 accuracy 2000 meters
Tower: GPS sattelites G51, T85, R14 are 3 strongest
Phone: Fed GPS data to GPS radio, warm start for 10 sec lock as opposed to over a minute for a cold start lock.
And I am also under the impression that alot of the 3G hardware wasn't configured with the appropriate data (position with est of accuracy based on closest towers and affinity and the 3 strongest GPS signals for that area). The issue was noticed and any new hardware should be fine. Problems will be resolved as the expansion portion of the project begins and all of the areas are revisited.
Where did you get your info nickybee?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

i never used the built in gpa, so far.
I use my bluetooth keychain gps. had it from my old excalibur.
works great

nickybee said:
GMaps application: "What's my cell id?"
Phone: "It's ABC1"
GMaps application: "Hey Google dbase - where's cellid ABC1"
Google: "ABC1 is at 33.12345/32.12345 accuracy 2000 meters"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Erm, you know now that I look at it Google is implementing SOMETHING new, I don't know how far they are taking it. Traditional aGPS has been around for a long time now, Google was never involved. I believe that at this point, with this version of Android things are still working the way they always have.
But! Did you notice the setting also indicates that the phone can find your location by wifi stations? I BET google receiving GPS data from users while they are connected to WIFI networks.
And then there's things like this below... ahh
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071116-its-official-google-planning-700mhz-bid.html
Who knows, but I think as far as cell tower based aGPS is concerned android sticks with the basics. It's one data packet sent to the tower, and one back, rather than setting up a connection making a database query and receiving a reply.
They probably envisioned something like...
Phone: Where am I?
Tower: Shiii I dunno where you aaat?
Phone: Grrr, Google! I am connected to wifi access point "ATT" with SSID:12345678945 Where am I?
Google: Looks like syrusfrost was there last week, he was at 32.12345/33.12345 and he used GPS satellites.....
I really don't know how google is doing the Wifi geolocation, they may be parsing some of the wardriving databases out there for the major metro areas, hell when you drive with maps and wifi on you may be wardriving for google, wouldn't that be interesting...

Mikey1022 said:
i never used the built in gpa, so far.
I use my bluetooth keychain gps. had it from my old excalibur.
works great
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hows the battery life?

I'm not in OLDHAM!!!!!! (Weather tab question)

Hi all,
I was just wondering if anyone knew why my Weather tab has suddenly started mis-reporting my location as Oldham. I'm actually a few miles away. Up until recently it always found and reported the location of my fairly small home town accurately, and worked great elsewhere too.
Now however, it keeps defaulting to Oldham. It also sometimes says Rochdale, or occasionally Manchester. These are inaccurate too. Just a couple of weeks ago it always got my location right, but now it hardly ever does. It seems to have suddenly lost its ability to pinpoint my location, so simply defaults to a nearby large town or city, despite the fact I'm miles away from them.
Incidentally, the four dots around the GPS logo (next to the name of My Location) no longer 'gyrate' while updating. They used to rotate in a 'wobbly' orbit around the globe logo in the centre, presumably to indicate GPS activity. Now they just spin in a fixed orbit around the central point (GPS still works fine in TomTom7 and Google Maps etc).
I have Location Service enabled, and allow it to gather data on my location at any time. The problem remains the same whether I'm connected via WiFi or HSDPA, or both.
Does My Location actually use GPS, or just cell towers? Like I said, it worked fine up until recently. I know people have had various problems with the Weather tab, but I can't find anyone with this exact problem on here. Any advice would be gratefully received.
Thanks,
Rob.

Mate, the GPS is the least of your worries. If Oldham is the nearest place of interest to you, you should move home!

elyl said:
Mate, the GPS is the least of your worries. If Oldham is the nearest place of interest to you, you should move home!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol
But on a serious note, weather worked fine for me, until one day I did a hard reset.
Now I have not once had the correct location at home.
Weird ay?

I suspect that your weather location is tied to your local cell.
GF is on t-mob and I'm on O2, our HD2s regularly report our local weather location as being in different places even though we're both on the same sofa, my guess is that it depends on which cell signal is strongest, maybe your local one is temporarily down?

elyl said:
Mate, the GPS is the least of your worries. If Oldham is the nearest place of interest to you, you should move home!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's my point; Oldham ISN'T my nearest town, but the damn phone keeps sticking it on my Weather tab anyway. My phone has never even been to Oldham!

My Desk in work officially sits between Brockworth and Hucclecoat. I get different locations at each side of my desk. It does sound like its a cell tower problem to me.

Yup depending where i am in town i get either north lincolnshire or appleby its very annoying

it doesn't use gps...uses information from the cell tower your phone is currently using. If that cell tower is labelled Oldham, then that's what you'll get.

I get saddleworth most of the time. I got tameside once which would be better

if i am getting hsdpa signal it's correct if i get 3g signal it reports wrong location.

Same here. I often get Poplar when I'm travelling through Hackney.

I experienced the same problem. It's weird that when I use Wifi, the location is about 30 miles away from where I am. But using 3g, it points to a couple miles away which is acceptable

here is one for you.. lmao
If I am upstairs at my computer I get Richmond, if I am in the guest room dirrectly below my desk down stairs, im in Preston. now if I force it to update, im in Smithfield until I get back to my computer and wait 15 minutes were I am once again, back in Richmond...

at leasts yours works, my location hasnt worked in the 2 months i had the hd2 works fine on my hero lolol

nokiaman1978 said:
if i am getting hsdpa signal it's correct if i get 3g signal it reports wrong location.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny, it's the other way round for me - it's generally accurate if I'm getting a 3G connection, but when it's HSDPA (most of the time) it usually shows up wrong (I'm on T-Mobile).
Anyway, thanks all for the replies. Nice to know it isn't a fault on my handset at least. Doesn't sound like there's much we can do about it though.
Cheers,
Rob.

RH Photography said:
Funny, it's the other way round for me - it's generally accurate if I'm getting a 3G connection, but when it's HSDPA (most of the time) it usually shows up wrong (I'm on T-Mobile).
Anyway, thanks all for the replies. Nice to know it isn't a fault on my handset at least. Doesn't sound like there's much we can do about it though.
Cheers,
Rob.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It'll depend on which cell it's connecting to then. It's probably connecting to an H-enabled tower which is in Glamorous Oldham, and the fallback cell is just 3G/GPRS and closer to home.

i have the same issue, somethings its ok and recognises my location as swindon but in my house it says im in wroughton which is a small village about 5 miles away.

I had a problem like this, but mine was 100 or so miles out.
I found out it was to do with where my time settings were.
I chose manchester (closest major city [and home city for me]) for my time.
So it made the weather show manchester as my location.
now i've changed the time to my location, its the same in weather.
dont know how much use that is to you, worked for me though.

[q] gps & nyc?

Hi,
I know the whole GPS issue has been discussed extensively, but I was wondering whether it even works in new york city. I tried GPSTest and although my phone sees up to 15 satellites, it never locks on to any. I picked up a Vibrant for my wife too -- her phone doesn't even see any satellites (using same setup and GPSTest -- only difference is she has the purple back on hers).
the odd thing is that i tried investigating this on my blackberry curve 8530 (work phone) and it doesn't get a lock either.
so i'm wondering if this a moot issue for nyc residents.
thanks!

I don't have my vibrant yet so I can't test but a Nokia N900 has done well for me in terms of GPS signal in NYC, so I don't think it's *impossible* for smartphone to get GPS signal in NYC, it just may be a bit harder in some areas.

i tried both downtown (wall st area) and all the way uptown (near the cloisters). i'll try more places throughout the week. i did manage to get a "partial fix" with the blackberry -- not sure what that means, just a direct quote.

I am getting a fix within 15-30 secs in Downtown by the Battery Park.
If I move closer to the skyscraper jungle it is a shot in a dark.
EDIT: to add, my coworker with a Captivate couldn't get a fix at all where my Vibrant is solid. We both are using MS-based with supl.google.com SUPL server configured.

[experimental][sense-only] set home agent for better speeds?

i had been getting consistently poor ping times (latency) on 3g, as well as slow (about 300kbps) downloads and slow (<100kbps) uploads. i was playing around with my evo epst codes (that you see when typing ##DATA# and not pressing call on your phone's keypad from a sense rom) and might have come across something. this is what i did (i make no guarantees this will help you or your phone get better data, but it seemed to help me get better ping times especially, and also better download/upload speeds on 3g, haven't tested it on 4g):
DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DAMAGE TO YOUR PHONE OR ROAMING CHARGES IF THOSE EVEN EXIST ANYMORE OR EXCESSIVE DATA CHARGES. IF YOU ARE AFRAID, TURN BACK NOW. THIS MIGHT ALSO HAVE NO EFFECT AT ALL. WHO CARES, IT MIGHT BE SOMETHING TO TRY IF YOU'RE FRUSTRATED AND BORED.
when editing any EPST/##DATA# values, write down the originals so you can revert back if there is a problem. if you update your data profile or prl, these changes might be erased.
1. download msl reader from the market, run it, and record your phone's msl code.
2. go to your phone dialer (sense roms only) and type ##DATA# but do not press send, just wait a few seconds.
3. press edit mode.
4. press data profile.
5. scroll down and press primary home agent
6. change your primary home agent if you want (SEE INFO AT THE END OF THESE INSTRUCTIONS FOR POSSIBLE VALUES) and do this at your own risk of course.
7. back at the main epst/##DATA# menu, press menu and choose "commit modifications." your phone will reboot. mine said "proxy start at port 8000" or something like that, and i have no idea what that means exactly for your phone or data routing.
INFO:
look at your Primary Home Agent. what does it say? mine said 255.255.255.255 which means you switch user agents automatically depending on where in the country you are, so if you roam or travel a lot out of state you might not want to change this (or you might want to change it whenever you travel out of state). also look at your Secondary Home Agent. mine was set for a server in California even though i live in Chicago. i looked at the list on this page:
http://www.evdoforums.com/thread2001.html
and changed my Primary Home Agent to a Chicago address since that's where i live. i left my Secondary Home Agent alone, because i figure the Primary will supersede it. however, in the future i might change that to a secondary server nearby.
here's a list of some servers (not verified, source is an old evdoforums post but the chicago server worked for me):
note: sprint seems to use the 68.28.1-255.76 & 68.28.1-255.77 range of addresses, so you might want to ping them from a computer in your home town and choose the result with the best (lowest) ping time.
68.28.49.76 San Jose, CA Area 1
68.28.49.77 San Jose, CA Area 1
(could be Stockton or Sacramento)
68.28.57.76 Anaheim, CA Area 1
68.28.57.77 Anaheim, CA Area 1
68.28.81.76 Kansas City, MO Area 2
68.28.81.77 Kansas City, MO Area 2
(could be Omaha)
68.28.89.76 Kansas City, MO Area 2
68.28.89.77 Kansas City, MO Area 2
68.28.113.76 Pennsauken, NJ Area 3
68.28.113.77 Pennsauken, NJ Area 3
68.28.121.76 New York, NY Area 3
68.28.121.77 New York, NY Area 3
68.28.145.76 Chicago, IL Area 4
68.28.145.77 Chicago, IL Area 4
68.28.153.76 Roachdale, IN Area 4
68.28.153.77 Roachdale, IN Area 4
68.28.177.76 Fort Worth, TX Area 5
68.28.177.77 Fort Worth, TX Area 5
68.28.185.76 Atlanta, GA Area 5
68.28.185.77 Atlanta, GA Area 5
68.28.241.76 Relay, MD Area 7
68.28.241.77 Relay, MD Area 7
68.28.249.76 Atlanta, GA Area 7
68.28.249.77 Atlanta, GA Area 7
Unknown:
68.28.16.76/77
68.28.18.76/77
68.28.54.76/77
68.28.62.76/77
68.28.96.76/77
68.28.118.76/77
68.28.126.76/77
68.28.140.76/77
68.28.150.76/77
68.28.158.76/77
68.28.160.76/77
68.28.170.76/77
68.28.182.76/77
68.28.190.76/77
68.28.192.76/77
68.28.205.76/77
68.28.206.76/77
68.28.208.76/77
68.28.220.76/77
68.28.246.76/77
68.28.251.76/77
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Worked like a charm, took my seconday address and made that primary and entered 255.255.255.255 as my secondary, my speed went to 700 kbs from 200 ping has been less then 200
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

detcup4evr said:
Worked like a charm, took my seconday address and made that primary and entered 255.255.255.255 as my secondary, my speed went to 700 kbs from 200 ping has been less then 200
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
awesome! glad to hear it worked for someone!
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App