GPS Drivers in WM2003?

[racerx]

This MAY sound like a silly question, but I'll throw it out anyway. :roll:
I have an iPAQ 5555 and a TravRoute CoPilot CF GPS receiver. Before the 5555, I had a 3870 and everything worked fine. Software (Destinator, CoPilot, Pocket Streets) was able to see and work with the GPS receiver just fine.
Now I'm on the 5555, and I can't get either CoPilot or Pocket Streets to see the GPS receiver :evil: . I have tried manually selecting the COM ports, but still get no satisfaction.

Can anyone guide me in the right direction?

[Sven Johannsen]

I'm sure you have tried more than one comm port, but that would be my thought. Comm port mapping differs from PPC to PPC. It might not be the same # on the 5555 as on the 3870. You might also go get WinFast Navigator. ( ftp://ftp.winfast.com.tw/gps/Tools/WinFast%20GPS-Install.zip ). It will let you see what your GPS is delivering, or not.

[racerx]

You might also go get WinFast Navigator. ( ftp://ftp.winfast.com.tw/gps/Tools/WinFast%20GPS-Install.zip ). It will let you see what your GPS is delivering, or not.

I downloaded and installed the software at your suggestion. The good news is I found my GPS is COM4. The bad news is that the software showed nothing else :roll: . So I installed the software on my 3870 and used the same GPS antenna and CF sleeve. Found about 6 sats instantly. OK, so I know the antenna and sleeve are still working properly. So I put the sleeve back on the 5555 and put in a CF card, to make sure the 5555 could correctly see a CF device - it did.

So THEN, after I did a backup, I did a hard reset (I copied the WinFast Navigator to iPAQ File Store) Same result. The reason I did this, was because the first time I attached the CF GPS receiver to my 5555, I got a little pop-up ballon that told me that there was no connection configured to use this modem (or something to that effect). I thought maybe I had done something to have the 5555 think that its a modem, but doing the hard reset didn't help me at all - I then did a restore & I'm back where I started.

Sooo, can anyone offer me any additional advise? :puppydogeyes: How can I tell that the iPAQ is seeing the GPS receiver as GPS receiver and not as a modem (other than the Navigator software)? Seems to me something is not right here in Dodge, but I can't seem to put my finger on it. ARE there drivers for GPS antennas? Does anyone else have a 5555 with a CoPilot CF GPS receiver that works? HELP! :)

[Sven Johannsen]

Well, I can tell you that there are no 'drivers' for GPS recievers. At least not for the CF type. They are seen as a new comm port (serial port) and data from the GPS should just stream in continuously. Any program that is pointed at the comm port and knows what to do with the text should pick it up. WinFast has the advantage that the details screen can show you the raw text or the signal level, items that are useful for checking things out, but are generally not shown by mapping programs.

Incidentally, my Leadtek CF GPS shows up as a modem on Comm 5 on my Dell in WinFast Navigator. It's a modem on Comm 2 on my Jornada. It's a socket serial card on my Tablet on Comm 3 (that needed a driver).

[racerx]

:evil: :devilboy: :evil: :devilboy: :evil: :devilboy: :evil: :devilboy:

Turns out that the COPILOT GPS receiver is not compatable with WM2K3!

The CF GPS receiver that you have is not compatible with the New Pocket PC
2003 operating system. It is not defective, but will only work with Windows
CE 3.0 or Pocket PC 2002 operating system.

I have not heard about anyone else having this problem, so it would appear to be something weird that TravRoute is doing with their hardware. I'll seriously consider the LeadTek GPS receiver now that I have to buy a NEW one :evil: .

:soapbox: According to TravRoute Tech Support, my only option is to buy a new, WM2K3-compatable unit. They don't offer any trade-in and I guess they can't upgrade the thing with Flash or anything. But "Also as a note we do allow you to sell our hardware on the used market, so
that may be another option to look at." Mighty nice of them considering I've been a customer of their's for a few years now and its MY hardware. This is the kind of crap that makes people write off companies and go elsewhere!

Thanks for all your help.

[Sven Johannsen]

I'll seriously consider the LeadTek GPS receiver now that I have to buy a NEW one.

As far as I know, the redesigned Leadtek (9534) that I have, hasn't made it to market yet (maybe not even production). I have a pre-production one. I am quite happy with it, though, so if they ever get it together, I'd recommend it.

Keep in mind that I have a PPC2002 Axim and Jornada. I can't confirm the card would work in WM2003. I can't see why it or the Traveroute wouldn't though...a serial port is a serial port. I would have suspected software before hardware.

You might try over a www.gpspassion.com to see what is being said about various GPSs and WM2003.

[racerx]

My understanding of a GPS receiver pretty much meshed with your explanation, so that's why I was looking software.

:soapbox: I mean, I can't figure out HOW you can make a serial device NOT work. Serial is a standard - how can you screw it up? It should either work or not on all devices that can use it. A data stream is a data stream. I just burns my @ss because there is no reason why I should have had to buy a new GPS RECEIVER just because I got a new PDA. New software I can understand, but the hardware should work - its not like they changed the hardware interface on the thing or anything. :evil:

The thing to keep in mind too is that I doubt TravRoute makes this receiver themselves, so other people with receivers under other brands will likely be affected too.

[Sven Johannsen]

I do know that you can fix it so you need specific software, to drive some hardware, even if it is a serial interface. Delorme used to do that by requireing a specific text command be sent to their GPSs before they would output data. Only their software commanded their GPSs to 'speak'. That can't be the case here, though since you indicated that the hardware did work with other mapping programs under PPC2002.