Re: can't make connection between Palm Tungsten T3 and GPS receiver
- From: Jack Erbes <jackerbes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:43:44 -0400
Nevertheless, the unit itself is small and transparent blue but has no markings to indicate its manufacturer. It connects to the palm via the serial port which has another cable which feeds power from the cigarette lighter. Around the same time, my uncle purchased the same gps receiver but with a different cable to connect to his Siemens pocket PC. His seems to be working fine and I noticed a small green blinking led inside the unit which dosent seem to come on in mine.
I have a similar GPS (an Altina GGM308) that has a single LED. When IT first powers up it shows a steady green LED, once it has a fix the LED blinks about once a second.
Mine will get a fix on a minute or so, if yours works the same way give it a sky view of the southern sky (outdoors is best) and wait a few minutes. If you don't get a blinking green it may not be working.
The first fix (new or if you moved it a long distance with power off from the last fix) it will take longer maybe even as long as 5 to 10 minutes) as it has to rebuild an almanac to get a fix. After that it will get a fix more quickly if it is near the same location where is was shut down.
It sounds like that could be a Haicom, Polstar, Altina, or one of the others made in Taiwan or China. If you search for those maker's names and "GPS" and look at their web sites you may be able to identify it. As an example, I found this by searching for "haicom gps":
http://www.haicom.com.tw/product.shtml
Also you might ask the seller if they know what make and model it is. There are a number of different GPS receivers being sold that use a PS2 style connector and any one of a number of different power/adapter cables to connect to various PDAs or other devices.
My Altina GPS has a cable with a female PS2 connector. The GPS receiver connects to a male PS2 connector on a cigarette lighter power adapter and that has another cable with a connector for the Palm.
The Palm connector on mine is only making intermittent contact with my Palm Tungsten PDA. I am in the process of getting the cable replaced. The Palm connector they use is, at best, a low quality copy of the Palm connector.
If you are have having the same connector problem I am, the charging LED on your Palm will go off and on if you wiggle the connector a little when it is under power. When that happens on mine my navigation application (Street Atlas Handheld 2004) also loses the GPS data stream. I usually wind up having to reset the Palm and restarting the applications to get it working again.
It is irritating to buy something that works as well as the Altina GPS does and then get it with a lousy connector. But if I have to I will buy a connector Gomadics (http://www.gomadic.com/pacoplas.html) and replace the connector on mine to get one that works.
I've no idea whether this is an indication that my unit is faulty or
whether the light only comes on when the receiver makes contact with
the PDA.
You should see a LED light (red on mine) on the cigarette lighter when it has power, the LED on the GPS should come on at the same time. My guess is that the LED on the receiver would be steady and then blink like your uncle's when it has a fix. It does not need to be connected to the Palm to do this.
I have tried to use ptelnet to test the serial port whilst
connected to the receiver with no luck since after enabling all the
settings I just get a blinking line which dosn't do much else.
I don't have ptelnet, I hooked mine up and it was there when I configured the setting on the application and it looked for it. I set the application to NMEA 0183 at 4800 baud. If you have more settings on ptelnet make sure you try 4800 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, and 1 stop bit, (4800/8/N/1). That should let you see the NMEA data sentences.
So my question is this....do i need to install a special driver on the palm (T3) to enable it to communicate with the gps, does it sound like the unit is faulty and is there anyway I can test it by perhaps plugging it into my pc (the power connection to the lighter has a USB plug).
As far as I know you do not need a driver. But you need an application that will read the data and that probably needs to be configured right. The Palm has one RS-232 serial port, that would normally be called COM1 (maybe COM0) in the applications settings. The set it to NMEA 0183 at 4800/8/N/1.
If you can connect the receiver to a USB port on your PC you can test it using Hyperterminal. Unplug the cigarette lighter connector and plug into a USB port to see if the receiver will take its power from the USB port. Warning! If you have the cigarette lighter adapter plugged into a power source and also plug into a USB port at the same time, it may damage something. If the receiver comes on when you plug into the USB port you don't need the lighter adapter and probably don't want them both connected at the same time.
With the receiver plugged into a USB port and powered up, look at your COM ports in the Device Manager to see what COM port that USB port is using.
Then start Hyperterminal, set if for 4800/8/N/1 and connect direct to the appropriate COM port. Hit enter and you should see the NMEA sentences if the receiver is working. If you Uncle's is available try it with his too. If his works with Hyperterminal when it is blinking and yours is not, the problem is probably that your receiver is not working. These receivers will not normally output any data until after they have a fix.
Also, the connection from the serial to the gps is made via a six pin male to femae plug, could this be the problem?
That sounds like the PS2 (aka Mini-DIN 6) connector I mentioned above. That is the same connector that is used for mice and keyboards. But it is a common connector and can be used for almost anything.
For the GPS that connector brings the power to the receiver from the cigarette lighter adapter and takes the NMEA data from the receiver to the Palm connector. If the Palm connector is also getting power from the cigarette lighter adapter the charging LED on the Palm will come on when it it connected.
I have noticed that the GPS receiver makers that use the PS2 connector do not all use a standard or the same scheme for the way the wires are connected in the PS2 adapter. So if you don't have a power adapter and GPS receiver that were intended to be used together it is possible that your connectors are mismatched. But if they were sold together as a unit they should be right.
Any help/advice anyone could give me at this point would be most gratfully appreciated.
Good luck!!
Jack
-- Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA - jackerbes at adelphia dot net (also receiving email at jacker at midmaine.com) .
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