GpsGate and National Geographic TOPO!

Hi! I'm trying to use GpsGate with National Geographic TOPO! maps simultaneously with nRoute. (TOPO! has live tracking and works fine with my Garmin GPSMap 60CSx USB port). I have GpsGate working with nRoute using the Virtual Port 1 Garmin Emulator, but TOPO doesn't recognize the unit when I assign it to COM port 2 (or any other port). Do I need to add an output in GpsGate or does this not work in TOPO! Has anybody else got this to work?

Check the Settings in GPSGate ... click the Output tab and see what other COM ports GPSGate has assigned besides the Garmin output for nRoute. You should be able to use any one of those in Nat Geographic.

Something else to check. If Nat Geographic was working with you 60CSx previously, that probably means you've got it set to look for a Garmin receiver (Garmin proprietary protocol). It won't get that on the other COM ports to you need to change it to look for a standard NMEA data stream.

...ken...

That depends on how you have to set up NG Topo. If it truly uses the USB port, I suspect it won't work while GPS Gate is using the same device on the same USB port.

How do you normally set up NG Topo to find your GPS?

Terry

GpsGate has Virtual COM 1 assigned to the Garmin Emulator (which I used in nRoute). There is also Virtual COM 2-5. In the TOPO GPS setup (which I normally select as USB), I switched it to Serial Port: COM 2. (I tried different baud rates.)
This is how I normally connect to TOPO with USB:

I started GpsGate (it finds the receiver, no problem), then set TOPO to Serial Port COM Port 2 - no connection.

How do I set it to a standard NMEA data stream? That is not a selection in the Receiver Type. It IS set for a Garmin receiver.

I see that. That's the problem. (Well, that and the small detail that in your above example you still have the USB port button checked in the Connection Settings window, so setting COM 2 in the box to the right is irrelevant.)

See the little dropdown selector box on the top left of the Receiver Type window that says "Make"? Change it to nearly anything except "Garmin".

You are using the only GPSGate COM port with the Garmin protocol on it for nRoute so you need to make NG Topo use non-Garmin, e.g. some other "Make" that uses standard NMEA protocol. If it's not obvious to you from the names listed in the "Make" dropdown entries, just start trying them one at a time until you find one that works. (Do similar fakery with whatever gets offered in the "Models" list when you change Makes.)

It shouldn't take much to find something that works.

...ken...

You could probably have GPS Gate produce 2 different Garmin type ports if that is necessary. If you are having difficulty getting NG to do NMEA (although it shouldn't be an issue), shut down nRoute and see if GpsGate and National Geographic will work with that COM port to test. As Ken pointed out, make sure the connection type is Serial, not USB.

Terry

I tried all of the above. I made a second Garmin Emulation on COM Port 6. It almost worked! TOPO connected and I was able to create one point on the map, then it loses connection. (I had nRoute on Garmin Emul. COM Port 1 at the same time just to make sure I could run both at the same time.) I put the GpsGate settings box and the TOPO app side-by-side so that I could see what was going on. The Garmin Emul. port 6 would say "1 client connected", then would drop the connection and say "no client connected" after I tried to mark a second point. It's not stable evidently.
I tried changing the receiver type to about a 100 different ones ( I found the standard NMEA) with a standard com port 2 - no go. nRoute works fine and stays connected. The NMEA receiver type when tested states "Unable to test, but still may work". No, it didn't - no connection to receiver when I tried to mark my location.

Terry was asking how I normally connect to my receiver. The screenshots show my "normal" USB connection. I change it to Serial & the appropriate COM port when trying to connect with GpsGate.

I know it shouldn't matter but did you try any other data rates than 9600 on NG. Maybe 4800 on NMEA.

Terry

Tried different rates with the Garmin set-up, but will try on NMEA.

Will keep at this! I will win!!!

Figured this out! Evidently the way TOPO! receives data is to connect, then disconnect with every data point (?). If I tell TOPO to Show Current Position, it will. If I ask it a second time, the GPS is not connected and I get an error that there is no GPS connected. If I Setup Automatic Tracking, it works just fine, marking a position every 5 sec and tracing a route.

That's one of the wierder methods of operation I've seen. Glad you got it working.

...ken...

The only thing I can figure is that TOPO is not a true routing application, per se. It seems to work on a different principle. If you watch GPSGate, it will state "Client Connected" for the appropriate port, then it will disconnect.

Or maybe it has something to do with the way TOPO communicates with GPSGate, because I never had this problem when TOPO was configured just to use the USB port w/o GPSGate.

TOPO is probably only looking for data when you ask it to do something that requires data. So, when you ask it to show where you are, it treats it as a one-time request, connects, grabs enough data to do the job and disconnects (e.g. opens and closes the COM port). GPSGate probably gets confused by this behaviour.

When you set automatic tracking on, TOPO knows it needs to have more or less continuous access to the incoming data so it opens the COM port and leaves it open until you turn automatic tracking off.

That's my guess anyway. The programmer who wrote the data acquisition code probably thinks they created a very well-behaved program because it doesn't tie up the port when it's not being used.

...ken...