I have been trying to get my BT359 receiver to work with Streets & Trips 2010 with no luck. My laptop recognizes the GPS and says it is connected to comm 9. When I start S&T, I go to GPS select configure and select comm port 9. It then says the comm port is available but no services are detected. In Streets & Trips under GPS configure I did a scan, and it said GPS detected on comm 9, so I select 9 and when I select show position it says again comm port is available but no services detected. Anyone have any ideas on this problem?

Hi rv7plt,

:welcome: to Laptop GPS World.

Often when people get the message "Com port available, but no signal detected", it just means that everything is working just fine (software and hardware), but simply there is no sufficiently strong signal from GPS satellites in the area where you are.

If you are testing indoor (house, office, etc), take it outdoor (car, RV, etc). GPS receivers require good view of the sky in many directions. They need to see at least 3 or 4 satellites to start working. The more the better.

Did you install the driver for the GPS Receiver? Often, the computer will recognize that it's a GPS that's plugged into the port, but it can't communicate with he device without the driver installed.

You might try connecting to the Bluetooth provided com port wit a terminal program. Hyperterminal woks fine if you are using Windows XP. Bluetooth GPS devices usually communicate at 38400 baud or higher.

You should see see data sentences that look something like these:

$GPRMC,022722.000,A,4103.5880,N,07520.6863,W,0.02,30.04,040110,,*2F
$GPGGA,022723.000,4103.5880,N,07520.6862,W,1,08,1.2,423.3,M,-33.9,M,,0000*68
$GPGSA,A,3,09,14,12,22,18,26,30,31,,,,,2.0,1.2,1.6*37
$GPGSV,3,1,10,14,68,345,36,22,66,157,38,26,56,055,35,30,41,115,42*7A
$GPGSV,3,2,10,31,36,226,30,12,33,071,37,18,29,142,28,09,09,048,28*73
$GPGSV,3,3,10,11,07,311,12,32,06,314,*7E

--- CHAS

No driver is required for a Bluetooth GPS receiver. The Bluetooth stack handles the conversion and generates the data on a COM port.

Terry

That is a realistic approach but don't get confused and think S&T won't work because of the data rate. Most Bluetooth GPS receivers scale to 4800 bps all by themselves just fine. The BT359 would certainly be one of those.

Terry

Thanks for all the replies. I have been able to get S&T to recognize the BT359 and it works if I fiddle with it long enough. I have a Samsung netbook with widows XP. I downloaded the GPS utility and the signal is good and shows a string of figures like it is supposed to but I have trouble connecting to that also. Maybe it is my technique as I typically click on the bluetooth manager, select the bt359 and click on connect then I bring up the program it is suppose to connect to. Sometimes it connects and sometimes it doesn't. Guess I will play around with it some more. Maybe I am doing things in the wrong sequence. To be on the safe side, I bought a S&T 2006 /w receiver yesterday on ebay for less than $20. So if I cannot get the bt359 to start reliably, I will use the microsoft receiver-just didn't want the clutter of cables.