GPS

[Timo Jyrinki]

2008/7/13 BlueStar88 <BlueStar88 at xenobite.eu>:
> Feeding assist data to compensate bad hardware based reception is no real
> solution, since there are some FRs, which seem not to have any problems to
> get a fast fix at all.

My personal current belief is that those FRs are generally no better
than eg. yours or mine. It's simply a matter of software used and
especially the place used (some countries have also better GPS
coverage than others), plus whether one really has a table or so where
the device can easily be mounted firmly. If you hold it in your hand,
still otherwise, it might not be steady enough to get the fix (or does
someone know otherwise, eg. what kind of movement might corrupt the
received bits?). Or are there some people who get a fix while moving
Neo around?

Since the software has zero GPS data saving features etc., it's no
wonder people easily think "it's broken". Especially, like in my case,
if people don't have previous GPS usage experience or don't know how
hard it's actually to "start from scratch" (scanning the whole sky)
without any eg. estimate on current whereabouts or any other help. And
also it doesn't help that if eg. people use AGPS UI which clears any
received data every time it's started. One reason I believe it's not
bad hardware reception is that when the fix is gotten, the fix stays
better than on many "real" GPS hardware.

Still, I've yet to experiment more on what would be best ways to get
the initial fix. Even if feeded initial data, it seems relatively
impossible to get the fix around my place. I'm not sure what could be
improved still for the first fix, since after the fix is gotten it
stays so well one would imagine the fix should also be possible to get
in an (relatively) open area with a clear sky.

-Timo