Laptop GPS World

I just got Microsoft Streets and Trips 2008 installed and working a couple of days ago. I've found the satellite info box but it's missing information that I'm used to in my Garmin GPS.

I'm looking for some way to get the following information, either within Streets & Trips if it exists and I'm just missing a menu selection somewhere, or in an external utility if such a thing exists. I would like to know the following:

- which satellites it's locked with and their signal strength. (Garmin provides this info with a bar chart and the satellite number below/beside each bar.)

- what kind of reading it's returning, eg. 2D, 3D or Differential and the accuracy of the current reading.

- whether WAAS is being used or not, and, if it's working, which bird(s) it is getting the almanac from.

- the current satellite constellation.

Any ideas what's available to see that information? Thanks for your help.

...ken...

Hi Ken,

From the top of my head, I think Franson GPS Gate may have some of what you are looking for, but I'm not sitting at a PC with GPS Gate on it at the moment, so I cannot check it. SirfDemo will likely give you all (or most) of what you need. But there may be other free solutions. Look through the list of free utility programs here »

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Marvin Hlavac

Laptop GPS software reviews | Stores offering discounts to our members: Semsons & Co. Inc. and Deluo Electronics

VisualGPS will do it. Best of all it's free.

VisualGPS™

Thanks for the link to VisualGPS. It's exactly what I was looking for. I tried SIRFDemo but no joy getting it to work. VisualGPS works like a champ.

It's quite entertaining to sit here in the basement with the Survey plot up and watch my house wandering all over the lot. I kicked in the trip meter on nroute and so far the maximum speed was 2.7kph. Not bad for a house!

...ken...

Ken, drive carefully

__________________
Marvin Hlavac

Laptop GPS software reviews | Stores offering discounts to our members: Semsons & Co. Inc. and Deluo Electronics

Thanks

Great link

ok. so I have downloaded and installed visualGPS, and all I want to do is connect my LT-40 to a USB port, and I see all these different RS-232 ports or somesuch nonsense. What am I missing?

A usb to serial driver perhaps?

http://www.delorme.com/support/suppo...te.aspx?id=319

If johndeerebilly's GPS receiver is currently working with mapping software, then you already have a USB-to-serial driver installed.

As for his surprise at being unable to connect to a USB port -- all major consumer USB GPS receivers are actually serial receivers, with a USB converter attached. This shows up on your computer as a virtual serial port. Whatever serial port your mapping software is setup to use -- that's the port that you should supply to VisualGPS.

thanks for the reply. I have DeLorme SA2009+ and just wanted to have a more clear idea of the satellite information after acquiring a fix. Downloaded virtualGPS and plugged my LT-40 into the usual USB port. the virtualGPS shows nuttin! Hence, my question. again thank you for the answer

VisualGPS only works with comm ports. If your GPS is USB make sure that it has a USB to Serial driver installed, otherwise it won't work. If all else fails using GPSGate with a USB GPS works great because it can create a virtual comm port.