USB GPS dongle works with EQmod £19.99

[George]

Cut and pasted from the yahoo EQmod group:

This is an FYI in case anyone is looking to add GPS to EQMOD.

Maplin currently do a USB stick GPS Dongle for £19.99 £10 off and it's free delivery on all orders placed on or before 30th Nov 2009. So get ordering if you want a cheap GPS addition.

A small added bonus it that is uses the same driver as my HiTec Astro EQDIR I purchased to connect my laptop to my mount. The GPS Dongle also works indoors unlike my Garmin Forerunner 305, so should work well in a small garden dome/shed/etc.

The instructions aren't great, but the main thing is not to be be tempted to change any of the settings for the COM port assigned to the dongle (I have XP). Simply choose the COM port number it gets assigned to - either in the mini app it comes with or in EQMOD itself. Works great. I now know how far my sofa is from my shed - essential knowledge for calorie calculation!

This is the link for those interested USB GPS Dongle

[Kit-Fox]

yeap, I picked one of these up to use with a wireless AP sniffer that maps all the AP locations it can find using the gps data.

They are for the price outstanding.

[Helen]

I thought I'd add my experience here, just in case anyone else has the same connections problems I had. I had to change the settings on the Com port and in EQMod to 38400,n,8,1 to get it to work. It took a bit of trial, error and muttering but it does now work

Helen

[roboticsound]

Does anyone know if thesky6 can use GPS to determine locaton?

[George]

As far as i know you have to imput GPS co-ordinates manually, ie lat & long from the gps unit.

[Kit-Fox]

If anyone is having problems with these GPS units due to the default com rate setting of 38400 & software not recognising it I suggest you get yourself over to the following linky

How to change baud rate on ND-100 (Mini CDU v1.03 with Baud Rate Change)

which provides a link to an updated version of the MiniCDU program that comes with the dongle. This updated version allows you to change the baud rate of the usb gps stick to any of the recognised speeds.

To find the change rate setting, from the program main screen goto the command menu and right at the bottom should be the option 'SetBaudRate' If the option is greyed out make sure no program is using the GPS device & try again (you might need to reload the minicdu program)

[MG1]

Kit Fox, you've read my mind!

I('ve had no problem with the dongle itself, but just couldn't get it to work with eqmod. I've not got time to check this work around tonight, but will do over the weekend. Glad I made the effort to search rather than just post a question....

seek and you shall find etc....

What did make me laugh is that there is obviously a forum for everything!

USGlobalsat GPS forum...who'd of thunk it

Thanks guys

Mike

[MishMich]

I got one of these a couple of weeks back, I didn't notice any problems, but I did change the baud rate - must have read about it somewhere?

Anybody know where you can get hold of maps etc. so you can use a Netbook as a SatNav?

[Kit-Fox]

I got one of these a couple of weeks back, I didn't notice any problems, but I did change the baud rate - must have read about it somewhere?

Anybody know where you can get hold of maps etc. so you can use a Netbook as a SatNav?

Well my EEE701 (one of the originals, with the crippled celeron in it) manages to run Autoroure 2010 quite happily along with XP with a 2Gb stick of ram & an 8Gb SDHC card.

So if you've got a modern one and your in the EU I'd suggest that, if your in the US i think you'll find the same software is called streets & trips.

Failling that you might try google earth (if your happy letting google know a history of everywhere you've ever travelled)

Apart from those two nothing else really comes to mind but i'm sure there are other mapping programs out there

[MG1]

Sorry to reopen this, but I finally got around to trying to get this all working and I'm stuck.

Eqmod on com10 gps on com14. Eqmod works fine, but when I go into the gps tab/window and put in the correct com and baud etc if does nothing when I click aquire!?!

If I exit eqmod and use the gps program it works fine and I s'pose I could just type it in manually. I guess it doesn't matter too much since the scope doesn't move that much in the night! But it would be nice to know why this doesn't work.

What version of the ascom drivers are you all using?

Thanks

Mike

[Helen]

Don't know if this will help, but I had to change the properties of the com port via devise manager to match the dongle ones.

Helen

[mobi]

The OP link to Maolin the dongle is nolonger sold says Discontinued!!

I found another USB GPS Dongle at Maplins here is the link

USB GPS Dongle : USB : Maplin

Does anyone know if this GPS Dongle will also work ok like the OP's ?

It is reduced by £10 aswell to £19.99 right now.

Anyone using one of this type? cheers

[rosscat]

Have [finally!] got this to work with EQDIR, with the help of this post. Thanks guys & girls!

Anyway, I'd had no luck with the Firmware Updater or the Baud Rate Tools as they didn't apply any change at all.

I ended up downloading 'SirfDemo' (SiRFDemo387) from here: http://www.usglobalsat.com/store/downloads/SiRFDemo387.zip

On running SirfDemo I connected to the receiver at its native baud rate of 4800. (as had worked previously from the ND-100S Utility in obtaining a 3D Fix)

I then clicked the icon for 'connect to data source' and waited a few seconds for a GPS fix, and chose the menu: Action > Synchronise Protocol and Baud Rate

Then, choosing the 'Set UART Configuration' from the Action menu allowed me to create like a single profile 'UART 0', which I set to NMEA and 38400.

I unchecked the box for 'UART 1' profile, and clicked 'send'

Closing out of SirfStar and trying to connect via the ND-100S utility at the desired rate of 38400 confirmed a 3D Fix.

Then of course, testing from EQ-DIR confirmed that it too was working when set to 38400,n,8,1.  Brilliaaaaanttttt!!!!!

I hope that this info helps someone else out.

SirfStar can mash your GPS stick if used incorrectly (but then again there's little point having a GPS stick in your case that doesn't work with EQ-DIR) That should be against the law anyway.

Ross