"Priming" GPS hw with GPStest MS or Chartcross?

[Guest john redcorn]

I tried GPSvp a few months back and couldn't get it to work even though I had the COM4 hack installed. Later I read on here that the gps hardware needs to be "primed" or initialized with chartcross gps test and gps test left running in the background while using gpsvp. This worked fine although it drains the battery quick and makes the phone get real hot.

Yesterday for some reason I tried to initialize the gps with the ms gpstest in the windows directory, I figured that little app is probably accessing the gps through the intermediate driver but as long as the com4 hack is there, it ought to be initialized for com4 also. I guess I was right because once the ms gpstest got a lock, gpsvp worked.

One thing I noticed this time (gpsvp running for 1 hour) was that leaving ms gpstest running in the background, the back of the phone did not get nearly as hot 90F maybe, where with chartcross it seems

to get to maybe 110F (this is me estimating by hand) could I have stumbled onto something here?

I know chartcross alone without gpsvp will get the phone real hot, ms gpstest doesn't seem to.

I like using gpsvp for camping, hiking, boating and just making little graphs and maps with www.gpsvisualizer.com and if this way uses less battery it would be great, I'll do some more playing around today and see what I can see.

Edited May 28, 2008 by john redcorn

[Guest KWolfe81]

I tried GPSvp a few months back and couldn't get it to work even though I had the COM4 hack installed. Later I read on here that the gps hardware needs to be "primed" or initialized with chartcross gps test and gps test left running in the background while using gpsvp. This worked fine although it drains the battery quick and makes the phone get real hot.

Yesterday for some reason I tried to initialize the gps with the ms gpstest in the windows directory, I figured that little app is probably accessing the gps through the intermediate driver but as long as the com4 hack is there, it ought to be initialized for com4 also. I guess I was right because once the ms gpstest got a lock, gpsvp worked.

One thing I noticed this time (gpsvp running for 1 hour) was that leaving ms gpstest running in the background, the back of the phone did not get nearly as hot 90F maybe, where with chartcross it seems

to get to maybe 110F (this is me estimating by hand) could I have stumbled onto something here?

I know chartcross alone without gpsvp will get the phone real hot, ms gpstest doesn't seem to.

I like using gpsvp for camping, hiking, boating and just making little graphs and maps with www.gpsvisualizer.com and if this way uses less battery it would be great, I'll do some more playing around today and see what I can see.

Wow, you are/were attempting to do the exact same thing as me and reached the same conclusions I have. The idea of GPSvp being able to log data at timed intervals is exactly what I was looking for to save battery life, but if I have to have some seperate GPS software running at the same time, it kind of kills the idea. If you find anything else out, please keep us posted!