Where's my GPS?

Rick C · Joined: 06 Feb 2008 Posts: 12

I just got a new Blackjack II. It has a built-in GPS and, unsurprisingly,
it turns out that ATT lies about you needing to buy there TeleNav product,
as Google Earth for Windows Mobile access the GPS fine. I'm used to WM for
Pocket PCs, though, where I have a GPS settings applet that tells me what
serial port to read. How do I figure out where it is on Smartphone, though?
I wrote a little .Net CF app that uses System.IO.Net.Ports.SerialPort to
enumerate the available ports, and lets me try to select a port and then
open and read one line from it. One port throws an exception saying the
port doesn't exist, two return immediately with no data, and the fourth
hangs the application hard (even Task Manager can't kill it; I have to power
cycle the phone.)

It just occurred to me I might be opening the port at the wrong speed, but
if that's not the issue, how can I figure out stuff like this? (I got the
OpenNETCF package that has GPS functionality in it, but the AutoDiscovery
seems to fail.)

Ideas?

Archived from group: microsoft>public>smartphone>developer

Dick Grier · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 171

Hi,

I don't know anything about your device, so my question is in that context.

Do you know that your device uses a standard serial port? This is up to the
device manufacturer, not Windows Mobile.

You might want to download Franson's GPSGate (www.franson.com) to see if it
works on your device. If this doesn't work, I suspect that you are SOL.
BTW, if you decide to go with Franson, I can provide it to you at a 25%
discount from retail.

Dick

--
Richard Grier, MVP
Hard & Software
Author of Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications, Fourth
Edition,
ISBN 1-890422-28-2 (391 pages, includes CD-ROM). July 2004, Revised March
2006.
See www.hardandsoftware.net for details and contact information.

Rick C · Joined: 06 Feb 2008 Posts: 12

"Dick Grier" wrote in message @TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

> I don't know anything about your device, so my question is in that
> context.

Fair enough.

> Do you know that your device uses a standard serial port? This is up to
> the device manufacturer, not Windows Mobile.

Oh dear, I hadn't entertained the thougth that it might not. I mentioned it
in my original post, but I rambled a bit, so you might not have noticed it,
but Google Earth for windows mobile can read the GPS perfectly fine, so I
had been assuming it was a standard port. I can't find anything on
Samsung's or ATT's website to back up that assertion, tho. I'll have to do
a little more research.

All I really want is to write a simple little app that will let me geocache:
I need to see what my lat/long is, and getting a picture of the satellite
status and DOP number would be gravy.

> You might want to download Franson's GPSGate (www.franson.com) to see if
> it works on your device. If this doesn't work, I suspect that you are
> SOL. BTW, if you decide to go with Franson, I can provide it to you at a
> 25% discount from retail.

I'll look at this.

Peter Foot · Joined: 01 Sep 2007 Posts: 56

I'm not aware how they implemented it but Google may be using the GPS API
rather than a virtual COM port. There isn't a control panel to show the
settings for this but I would assume that the Blackjack is preset to use the
right device if the GPS is built in. The settings for this are in the
registry although depending on your security policy on the device they may
be read-only.

Peter

--
Peter Foot
Microsoft Device Application Development MVP
www.peterfoot.net | www.inthehand.com
In The Hand Ltd - .NET Solutions for Mobility

"Rick C" wrote in message
news:%23X%23S73laIHA.5784@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>I just got a new Blackjack II. It has a built-in GPS and, unsurprisingly,
>it turns out that ATT lies about you needing to buy there TeleNav product,
>as Google Earth for Windows Mobile access the GPS fine. I'm used to WM for
>Pocket PCs, though, where I have a GPS settings applet that tells me what
>serial port to read. How do I figure out where it is on Smartphone,
>though? I wrote a little .Net CF app that uses
>System.IO.Net.Ports.SerialPort to enumerate the available ports, and lets
>me try to select a port and then open and read one line from it. One port
>throws an exception saying the port doesn't exist, two return immediately
>with no data, and the fourth hangs the application hard (even Task Manager
>can't kill it; I have to power cycle the phone.)
>
> It just occurred to me I might be opening the port at the wrong speed, but
> if that's not the issue, how can I figure out stuff like this? (I got the
> OpenNETCF package that has GPS functionality in it, but the AutoDiscovery
> seems to fail.)
>
> Ideas?
>
>

Rick C · Joined: 06 Feb 2008 Posts: 12

"Peter Foot" wrote in message @microsoft.com...
> I'm not aware how they implemented it but Google may be using the GPS API
> rather than a virtual COM port. There isn't a control panel to show the
> settings for this but I would assume that the Blackjack is preset to use
> the right device if the GPS is built in. The settings for this are in the
> registry although depending on your security policy on the device they may
> be read-only.

It appears that both Google Earth and Windows Live Search use the GPS API.
Interestingly a little spelunking with a registry editor showed that the
registry entry says the interface is of type "PHONE" which isn't documented
in MSDN. I wonder if I can get away with something like opening GPD1: like
it was a COM port?

As an aside, is it possible in the emulator to pair to real bluetooth
devices? For example, I have a BT GPS I would love to pair to the emulator
for test purposes.

Peter Foot · Joined: 01 Sep 2007 Posts: 56

With the emulator you can map a COM port to one on the host machine, so you
could pair the gps with your PC, map the assigned com port to the emulator
and the connect to that port in your code.
The GPS API does support drivers written especially for it which dont send
NMEA in the traditional way. The best solution is to work with the GPS api
which since it supports mulitplexing will allow you to get data even when
Google is using the GPS.

Peter

--
Peter Foot
Microsoft Device Application Development MVP
www.peterfoot.net | www.inthehand.com
In The Hand Ltd - .NET Solutions for Mobility

"Rick C" wrote in message @TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> "Peter Foot" wrote in message
> @microsoft.com...
>> I'm not aware how they implemented it but Google may be using the GPS API
>> rather than a virtual COM port. There isn't a control panel to show the
>> settings for this but I would assume that the Blackjack is preset to use
>> the right device if the GPS is built in. The settings for this are in the
>> registry although depending on your security policy on the device they
>> may be read-only.
>
> It appears that both Google Earth and Windows Live Search use the GPS API.
> Interestingly a little spelunking with a registry editor showed that the
> registry entry says the interface is of type "PHONE" which isn't
> documented in MSDN. I wonder if I can get away with something like
> opening GPD1: like it was a COM port?
>
> As an aside, is it possible in the emulator to pair to real bluetooth
> devices? For example, I have a BT GPS I would love to pair to the
> emulator for test purposes.
>
>

Rick C · Joined: 06 Feb 2008 Posts: 12

"Peter Foot" wrote in message @microsoft.com...
> With the emulator you can map a COM port to one on the host machine, so
> you could pair the gps with your PC, map the assigned com port to the
> emulator and the connect to that port in your code.
> The GPS API does support drivers written especially for it which dont send
> NMEA in the traditional way. The best solution is to work with the GPS api
> which since it supports mulitplexing will allow you to get data even when
> Google is using the GPS.
Thanks for the info. I did eventually get a little test program that used
the C# GPSID wrapper to work. (I had the WM5 SDK so I had to deal with the
scaling bug that caused a divide by zero error. Then I downloaded the WM6
SDK which corrects the problem.)

I may still play around with the emulator and a file-based fake gps, as I
get poor GPS reception indoors.

Hilton · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 21

Have you tried to Google "blackjack ii gps"?

See: http://modaco.com/gpsactivatorbj2

Hilton

"Rick C" wrote in message
news:%23X%23S73laIHA.5784@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>I just got a new Blackjack II. It has a built-in GPS and, unsurprisingly,
>it turns out that ATT lies about you needing to buy there TeleNav product,
>as Google Earth for Windows Mobile access the GPS fine. I'm used to WM for
>Pocket PCs, though, where I have a GPS settings applet that tells me what
>serial port to read. How do I figure out where it is on Smartphone,
>though? I wrote a little .Net CF app that uses
>System.IO.Net.Ports.SerialPort to enumerate the available ports, and lets
>me try to select a port and then open and read one line from it. One port
>throws an exception saying the port doesn't exist, two return immediately
>with no data, and the fourth hangs the application hard (even Task Manager
>can't kill it; I have to power cycle the phone.)
>
> It just occurred to me I might be opening the port at the wrong speed, but
> if that's not the issue, how can I figure out stuff like this? (I got the
> OpenNETCF package that has GPS functionality in it, but the AutoDiscovery
> seems to fail.)
>
> Ideas?
>
>

chever78 · Joined: 21 Feb 2008 Posts: 1

I have this problem also. Do you have the solution?

Rick C · Joined: 06 Feb 2008 Posts: 12

Yep, and that didn't really do anything for me--in fact, adding the control
panel cause Google Earth and Windows Live Search to stop being able to read
the GPS, so I hard reset the device.

I'm now using GPSID.

"Hilton" wrote in message $pl4.352@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net...
> Have you tried to Google "blackjack ii gps"?
>
> See: http://modaco.com/gpsactivatorbj2
>
> Hilton
>
>
> "Rick C" wrote in message
> news:%23X%23S73laIHA.5784@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>>I just got a new Blackjack II. It has a built-in GPS and, unsurprisingly,
>>it turns out that ATT lies about you needing to buy there TeleNav product,
>>as Google Earth for Windows Mobile access the GPS fine. I'm used to WM
>>for Pocket PCs, though, where I have a GPS settings applet that tells me
>>what serial port to read. How do I figure out where it is on Smartphone,
>>though? I wrote a little .Net CF app that uses
>>System.IO.Net.Ports.SerialPort to enumerate the available ports, and lets
>>me try to select a port and then open and read one line from it. One port
>>throws an exception saying the port doesn't exist, two return immediately
>>with no data, and the fourth hangs the application hard (even Task Manager
>>can't kill it; I have to power cycle the phone.)
>>
>> It just occurred to me I might be opening the port at the wrong speed,
>> but if that's not the issue, how can I figure out stuff like this? (I
>> got the OpenNETCF package that has GPS functionality in it, but the
>> AutoDiscovery seems to fail.)
>>
>> Ideas?
>>
>>
>
>

Reg edit? Hello. Can anybody tell me if I can clear or stop recent programmes list in the start menu using registry editor? Soft reset only sometimes clears the list and I don't really need it. Also should I be using registry cleaner, if so, which one please?

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