JakeRich

Can you describe the clock problem? Is it a unit of hours off? Could it be either DST or timezone related? Unless you tell it to through some utility, the GPS should not change the Ax clock. The satellite system is off by about 18 seconds from official UTC anyway, so I don't let the GPS update my clock at all.

axjax

I reset the clock and it seems to be OK now. I think one of the clock issues is that our PCs at work are a little screwed up with the DST issue and being such a small company, they don't want to spend any money on having the server and all the 8 PCs here fixed right. I dock the Axim to DL my Outlook info for appointments and I think it screws up the Axim every day.

BTW, its been streaming the data for 3 hours now and hasn't moved... and all the sats are still parked at 12 o'clock. Its driving me bonkers watching the data go by and yet it can't find the sats. Does this sound like a GPS issue or some setting in the Axim?

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AxJax
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• Axim X51v • 2GB Lexar 80X CF • GlobalSat BT-338 GPS • TomTom5 • Mapopolis v.3.27
"If God really wanted us to compute, we'd have memory slots in our heads"

Bikegeek

Can you borrow someone's BT gps? If you take the 338 out of the equation it could point you in the right direction. Maybe the unit is "flaky".

JakeRich

If you can see the data stream and it's moving it isn't the Axim at all. It's in the GPS unit. Did you try it outside? If you don't get data in that stream in 4-5 minutes outside, the 338 is bad. No other option, it's bad, period.

axjax

Jake... three hours of driving yesterday plus an hour just sitting there in the driving while I was inspecting a house... NADA. I've posted this on GlobalSats site and got a "ticket" but they don't tell you what to do next. I mean if its $15 to do a warranty service or something like that I'm willing, but if I have to toss the GPS and buy another...UGH! I will NOT be buying another GlobalSAT.

Hey Jake... remember the other day I mentioned the clock? Well, I also noticed today that the date showing up on the GPSInfo screen is 2005/03/05 and I don't know why the satellite is giving me that date. My Axim is showing the correct day, month, and year. Just FYI, the middle LED on the GPS which is supposed to blink when searching is on continuously, which means its locked on to a satellite(s).

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• Axim X51v • 2GB Lexar 80X CF • GlobalSat BT-338 GPS • TomTom5 • Mapopolis v.3.27
"If God really wanted us to compute, we'd have memory slots in our heads"

JakeRich

Originally Posted by axjax

Jake... three hours of driving yesterday plus an hour just sitting there in the driving while I was inspecting a house... NADA. I've posted this on GlobalSats site and got a "ticket" but they don't tell you what to do next. I mean if its $15 to do a warranty service or something like that I'm willing, but if I have to toss the GPS and buy another...UGH! I will NOT be buying another GlobalSAT. Hey Jake... remember the other day I mentioned the clock? Well, I also noticed today that the date showing up on the GPSInfo screen is 2005/03/05 and I don't know why the satellite is giving me that date. My Axim is showing the correct day, month, and year. Just FYI, the middle LED on the GPS which is supposed to blink when searching is on continuously, which means its locked on to a satellite(s).

You are NOT getting any satellite data. The date is a default setting just to start somewhere, probably the date the utility software was compiled. I think the LED is supposed to blink when it has a fix, but I don't have a 338 now.

Regardless of the LED, the bottom line is that the Axim is working, you have a connection by BT, but the receiver is not receiving, or not calculating a fix. Either way, the 338 is bad.

Is it under warranty?

axjax

Jake... Just wanted to let you and everyone else know that you were right. The BT-338 is defective. Now it's going to be up to GlobalSat and/or BuyGPSNow to RMA it because it's just about 11 months old. We'll see how that goes and I will post updates here on what kind of customer service I get.:rolling:

How did I prove it out? Easy... this weekend I was lucky enough to have two additional BT-338's in my house to pair up with. My brother-in-law has one and a friend of mine also has one and both were visiting. I deleted everything, and then reinstalled TOMTOM and Mapopolis. and paired up instantly with either of their GPSs... and since they had been using them... the fix to my street/house was almost instantaneous in both cases. I wrote down all the settings, deleted everything again, turned on my BT-338 and we had it on for 2 hours in the exact same spot in the bay window and it never produced a valid signal. Even took it outside for 30 minutes on the deck... no signal. Then I tried to pair my GPS up with their PDAs... they found the BT device, but once again... no valid GPS signal. Turned on their GPS and my PDA locked on in less than 30 seconds. I'm convinced.

BTW, my BIL also told me that his cigarette lighter connector that came with his GPS crapped out a few months ago, and was shooting 12v at the jack when he put a voltmeter on it. GlobalSat told him they don't warranty the adapters so he had to spend another $25.00 to buy a new one. And after hearing this, we brought out my old voltmeter and checked the voltage from both the wall-pack as well as the car charger and both were 5.1v.

So wel'll see if GlobalSat treats me well for recommending this same device to two people.

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• Axim X51v • 2GB Lexar 80X CF • GlobalSat BT-338 GPS • TomTom5 • Mapopolis v.3.27
"If God really wanted us to compute, we'd have memory slots in our heads"

lawman

Hi axjax,

Your proof above is not really a proof. What you have proved is that the other BT338 works, except yours. If you can still pair your PDA with the BT338 device, do the below. You have nothing to lose.

Try the following. Use the WinFast Navigator tool (freeware utility). Pair your BT338 with your Axim and launch this app. Under Tools/Command, select the following choices;

= Under "Reset mode",
== Select Warm start

= Under "Message",
== Uncheck both options for: 1] Enable raw track data, and 2] Enable development data

Then choose OK.

Then click on View/Singal Level and monitor the data that should be coming in.
Essentially, you have just flushed any stale data and the GPSr will retrieve new data to determine its location.

See if this will work. Every BT GPSr that I have that is not able to pick up its location in my GPS software after I move half way around the world, but can still be paired to the PDA, has been able to recover and work fine. Unless its truly dead and not working, of course.

If it does work, just let us know.

JakeRich

lawman, I understand what you are saying, but after a while powered on and without being able to calculate a fix, the BT338 (and just about every other receiver) goes into Cold-fix mode, listening for anything it can hear and starting over from scratch. That's how it can get a fix if you power it off and then move more than about 250 miles. Your "warm start" option will not force a true bare start, but will, instead, say 'Use the almanac/ephemeris you have and get a fix.' For a true "start over" fix, you need a COLD fix.

lawman

Yes, I agree. However, I was not sure if the poster used any utility tool other than GPSInfo from the posted messages above.

Since the original poster indicated that it worked a week ago, and now the time/date is incorrect, it implies to me that the almanac data could be invalid, and that he's tried to cold start it from your response above.

For original poster - axjax :
===================

If the Ephemeris data is less than 30mins old, then when you switch on the GPS unit, the GPS should lock on very quickly since it does not need to get new Ephemeris data - this is considered a warm start.

If the Ephemeris data is more than 30mins old, all Ephemeris data needs to be re-retrieved - and this is considered a cold start.

If the Almanac data is invalid (due to the reason that the GPSr is relocated very far from its original last known location), far enough that no sats are in the area where the Almanac thinks they are, the GPSr needs to re-download a new Almanac and start over. The Almanac data is usually good for ~ 3 months and is updated automatically when you use the GPSr. This is done automatically by the GPSr, nothing is required of you. This usually takes under 15 minutes.


The utility tool tries to simulate only the above scenarios: hot, warm, cold etc.
= A manually triggered cold restart will lose all Ephemeris data.
= A manually triggered warm restart will lose a small part of the Ephemeris data.
= A manually triggered hot restart will not lose any Ephemeris data.

Now assuming all the above was done, there is still one additional thing to know with the BT338. It's related to the firmware that the BT338 is running.

If I recall correctly, this was awhile back. The newer BT338 should be running with 3.1.1 or higher. If its running f/w version 3.1.0, there were some issues with this f/w load.

Example, these symptoms were seen with BT338 (or other SS3) with older f/w v3.1.0;

a] if the BT338 running older f/w suffered an abrupt "change in altitude", it would refuse to get a fix. This implies that the user was using this on an airplane that would have caused this issue.

b] it shows incorrect data when it tries to re-acquire after going thru a tunnel where the sat signals are blocked

c] it displays no tracking even when there are sats with good ephemeris data

The problem above was related to any generic SS3 running the same firmware 3.1.0. These conditions above were rare but does happen, enough times that caused a respin of the f/w load to 3.1.1.

Theoretically, the fix for the v3.1.0 issues above should only require a cold reset (the COLD fix - Jake is referring to above) using same tool - Winfast Navigator or GPSInfo. A permanent fix would be to upgrade the f/w to v3.1.1 or higher.

And of course, if it doesn't work, that's when you buy a new BT GPSr.

Cheers.

JakeRich

Lawman, the theory sounds good, but 30 minutes is a bit short for ephemeris data. The satellites get new ephemeris data from the ground stations every four hours, so on average it's 2 hours old anyway. My units only do a cold start if they've been off longer than a couple of days, so I suspect a warm start can be done with old ephemeris data, then once you have a fix, it can be refined with new ephemeris download. A COLD start is when both ephemeris so old the receiver has to start truly from scratch. Practically, that seems to be on the order of 48-72 hours for me, sometimes a bit longer. I use my GPS daily at about 7 am, then again at about 6 pm and I never get a cold start. It's only on long weekends if I don't use it for 3-4 days that I see cold starts.

I do have one GPS built into a cradle that does a cold start every time, but I think that's because the cradle doesn't have very large internal battery to hold the data. It does cold starts even if it's only powered off for a couple of seconds.

As for the time/date being in error, that's a networking problem from his work location with the DST fixes. He said so a couple of posts back.

So, based on the fact that the icons for the satellites were parked at 12 on the dial, the unit had defaulted into cold start but never heard anything from the satellites, so it never did any updating at all. Endless waiting for almanac and ephemeris that was never going to come.

axjax

My BT-338 was purchased (order date) on March 15, 2006 so I don't really know what firmware it had. I say "had" because USGlobalSAT has issued me a RMA and it is all packed and will be shipped today.

The unit actually started "acting strange" around the last week of January, where it wouldn't (immediately) get a fix when powered on every morning in my car as it had for the past year. It was taking around 15-20 minutes. Then about a week later it would lose the fix while driving a few times, and then it just wouldn't get a valid signal at all. Thats when I started trying everything under the sun including flashing my Axim to A12 from A06, re-installing TomTom, GPSInfo and a couple of other utilities... but still... no valid GPS signal. Jake has basically helped me try a million things and what was baffling me was that the unit powered up just fine and was recognized as a BT device immediately. The most convincing "test" was the side-by-side comparison last weekend where I had identical units to compare it to. The two iPaqs (with their BT devices deleted) immediately recognized my GPS, but no valid signal in either unit. Conversely, I was able to delete everything in my Axim and get a valid GPS signal from either of their units within seconds, and the software worked fine too as I drove around town.

I have to compliment Joe Lee at BuyGPSNow who responded to my request for help and retreived my past orders from his company on his database, and took the time to not only talk to me... but also scanned the shipping invoices and emailed them to me. Likewise, USGlobalSAT has so far been very receptive to my problem and I get the feeling from talking to both the Sales Manager and Service Manager that they will help me get back to my BT-338 very shortly.

My advice to anyone having any difficulty with their GPS is to not only use the great resources here, but to also make sure you notify your vendor and perhaps the manufacturer/distributor as soon as possible if there's a chance that its a warranty issue. I spent a few weeks trying to do this on my own and almost ran over the one-year warranty period in the process.

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• Axim X51v • 2GB Lexar 80X CF • GlobalSat BT-338 GPS • TomTom5 • Mapopolis v.3.27
"If God really wanted us to compute, we'd have memory slots in our heads"

axjax

Just a quick update... just got an email from USGlobalSAT. They bench tested my GPS earlier today and found that the unit was defective when they tried to replicate all the diagnostics and have honored the warranty. They have shipped me a new unit via UPS Ground. Hopefully I'll have it later this week or at the latest... early next week.

Yes there is a GAWD!

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• Axim X51v • 2GB Lexar 80X CF • GlobalSat BT-338 GPS • TomTom5 • Mapopolis v.3.27
"If God really wanted us to compute, we'd have memory slots in our heads"

lawman

Awesome - great news all around!

axjax

Yup! Received my _NEW_ (not reconditioned) BT-338 from USGlobalSAT yesterday and what a joy to do all my ever-changing inspection assignments today without having to pull out that darn map book.

I just want to thank everyone here, especially Jake... for trying to help me diagnose the problem. And I also have to tip my hat to the guys at BuyGPSNow and USGlobalSAT. Once I figured out who to contact, they did the rest and made sure I was a happy customer and owner.

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• Axim X51v • 2GB Lexar 80X CF • GlobalSat BT-338 GPS • TomTom5 • Mapopolis v.3.27
"If God really wanted us to compute, we'd have memory slots in our heads"