Streets & Trips Compatible GPS Receivers

Actually, the first time I read about it (in some private e-mails, and later on this and other forums), everyone referred to the unit by the chipset used: u-Blox 5.

The first time I read the actual part name, Navation 168, was when I finally held the unit in my hands, and I noticed the units name on the small sticker on the back of it.

I have just recently purchased a U Blox 5 USB stick along with Ms Streets and Trips 2009.
Is there anyone that has used this kit, my laptop is Vista.----Mobiling.

I want to use this next week in fringe areas of Big River saskatchewan and the area Cold Lake Alberta.
Would my dongles antenna be sufficient to lock in on any satellittes in those areas. or would I need possibly say a Bu 353 Globalsat.
I am new to this area of Gps. and have only used the Calgary GPS tracking
on Tom Tom non BlueTooth.
Would appreciate any feedback you can supply.
Thank You

Hi 0987U,

Welcome to Laptop GPS World.

For the past couple of years I've been using GlobalSat BU-353, but recently it intermittently stopped working. Rather than trying to identify the cause of the issue, I just replaced it with the new Microsoft USB GPS stick, which was included in Streets & Trips 2009. I have had the new GPS receiver ever since S&T 2009 was first released, but I only used it to test it at first.

I have been using it on a regular bases every day for the past several weeks. It works just fine. The only thing to keep in mind is that most likely the performance will be greatly degraded if you plug the GPS stick straight into a USB port of your laptop. That's likely because of some interference. But if you use even a short USB extension, and thus keep the GPS unit a bit further away from your laptop, then it will perform very well. (A short USB extension is included with the USB GPS stick.)

You wouldn't think NMEA compatibility would be an issue these days but apparently it can be.

I bought the new ultra micro PC Viliv S5 which supposedly has a GPS receiver built in. Streets & Trips worked for a few days but then stopped. I wasted all kinds of time trying to revive it, including 2 full-system restores, but without result. I have written the importer, MSFT, and even NMEA with very little satisfaction. MSFT concludes, based on the little information I could provide, that the receiver is not NMEA 0183 2.0 compliant. The importer doesn't know if that is the case or not and the manufacturer in Korea isn't telling. I understand that I am not alone in having this problem with S&T and the Viliv.

This is quite frustrating as the potential for this little computer as a dash-top navigator is impressive. I have used it quite successfully with the Pharos GPS-500 tethered on a short USB cable (you can also just plug it in directly) but somehow this misses the point.

P. S. Reviews of the Viliv S5 are quite laudatory about battery life; people talking about 5 and 6 hours. However, I find that it is more like 3 hours running the GPS-500. In a way, this is understandable because the receiver draws power and the CPU never gets to take a nap what with data coming in every second or so. Perhaps the built-in GPS is more efficient, if one can get it to work.

Yes, it will work. Your reception of GPS satellite signals is no different in Big River, Cold Lake or Calgary. Well, actually you can expect it to be better in Big River and Cold Lake areas than in downtown Calgary.

As Marvin pointed out, the best way to use the uBlox stick is to use the included extension cable. Put the GPS stick on the dash as close to the windshield as possible. You want two things: to get it away from the computer's electronic interference and to give it as good a view of the sky as you can.

I have the opposite experience of Marvin with the uBlox stick versus the Globalsat BU-353. My BU-353 works fine but my uBlox stick only lasted a few days before it quit working. While it was working, the uBlox stick worked fine as long as I used an extension cable to keep it away from the laptop.

...ken...

I had problems with the UBlox (Navation 168) not surviving a Sleep cycle whereas the BU-353 does. However, I rarely use either favouring a Bluetooth GPS instead.

Spades Flush,
You mentioned in another thread that a driver update for the Viliv internal GPS allowed it to output 4800 bps and work with S&T. Perhaps a reload of that driver would resolve your problems.

Terry

Thanks, Terry, but even with the mini-app that Viliv makes available shifting the baud rate to 4800, no result. It is not really a driver, just a tool to halve the baud rate.

I understand I am not the only afflicted consumer; I think it is up to the vendor to produce a solution.

Then dump the mini app and use xport or GPS Gate instead. If you have to load another program anyway, why not use one that is proven effective.

Terry

I've done those, too. So far as I know, Xport and GPSGate don't distinguish as to what version is being received. I can see code being received. MSFT says it ain't NMEA 0183 2.0 compatible. I don't know what is special about the NMEA flavor MSFT wants, but apparently what the Viliv delivers ain't it.

There are a number of possibilities that could be messing up S&T.

- the Viliv internal GPS is sending NMEA sentences that S&T is not expecting.

- the Viliv internal GPS is sending NMEA sentences with data that is not laid out the way S&T expects it (too few fields, wrong field order, too many fields, data fields in the wrong format).

- the Viliv internal GPS is not sending one or more NMEA sentences that S&T expects.

If S&T follows exactly the NMEA 0183 2.0 spec, it's not hugely difficult to compare what's being sent from the internal Viliv receiver and the specification. Basic protocol analysis. There's no excuse for Viliv not to be able to sort this out quite easily.

SpadesFlush is correct, I think, that neither GPSGate nor Xport will fix the problem. GPSGate will insert some of the Garmin protocol stuff when producing the Garmin protocol virtual port from incoming NMEA. But I'm pretty sure that on the NMEA virtual ports GPSGate and Xport will just pass the data through, unfiltered.

...ken...

The more I experience and read about built-in GPS devices, the less confidence I have in such approaches. Whereas USB and BT GPS units just work with everything, I don't understand why manufacturers seem to have problems designing built-ins the same way. Must be cheap components.

Anyway, this discussion is off topic.

Terry

You are right, Terry, we have digressed way off topic, as sometimes happens. Should we start a new thread or just bury the issue?

Hi Terry,

The topic is GPS receivers that are compatible with Streets&Trips, so I would think your comments are still right on the topic. And you're right that it shouldn't be rocket science to include an internal receiver that adheres properly to the most commonly used NMEA spec.

One thing people need to be careful of when looking for certain specifications like NMEA 0183 2.0. Sometimes you will see products that say they are "compliant" and some will say they are "compatible".

"Compliant" means they comply fully with the spec.

"Compatible" means they will probably work with a lot of stuff but is a virtual guarantee that they deviate from the spec in some way(s).

...ken...

SpadesFlush,
From your original comments, you said S&T worked for a few days. I guess you need to find out what changed between then and now. If S&T doesn't like the Viliv NMEA, why would it have worked at all. Was there an update to the hardware which may have affected the NMEA structure in that time frame?

terry