Acquiring satellites - GPS

[CharlieTango]

I have had my gps off for about a week and today it didn't work.

I downloaded gps status and found few (1-3) satellites with 0 connected like 0/2

After a period of time wth gps status running it suddenly had a full compliment of satellites and my gps based apps began to work again.

At the moment I can turn on gps and have 7/8 sats in a couple of seconds.

When the unit is unable to acquire what is the fix other then waiting for hours?

 

[Slug]

When the unit is unable to acquire what is the fix other then waiting for hours?

Afaik there isn't one. The receiver queries the satellite(s) at startup to verify that it has the current almanac, containing course details for each satellite in the network and other information such as whether individual satellites have any down-time scheduled or are operating on reduced power. If its internal almanac copy is outdated it then has to download an up-to-date version from whichever satellite(s) it can find by itself, which as you've found takes significantly longer than if the receiver already knew roughly where to look.

 

[ticho]

In that case, why the GPS fix is quickly obtained after rebooting (with battery reseating), even if before boot it couldn't get a fix within 10 minutes?
This is one thing that has been bugging me about Hero for quite a while now.

 

[Slug]

That sounds like a different issue tbh, Ticho. I don't have an answer for you, sorry.

 

[Stratosphere]

In that case, why the GPS fix is quickly obtained after rebooting (with battery reseating), even if before boot it couldn't get a fix within 10 minutes?
This is one thing that has been bugging me about Hero for quite a while now.

Using what software?

Mine doesn't do that.

Ed

 

[ticho]

Using what software?

Mine doesn't do that.

Ed

Using any software that requests GPS location - be it Google Maps, Mapdroyd or my favourite GPS Status app, in which I can see locations of satellites which the handset has picked up.

Usually, after a week or so uptime, the handset has hard time (1-2 minutes) finding first 2-3 satellites, then it suddenly starts to see 6-11 of them, depending on where I am, but it can't get a fix - so no location coordinates can be obtained.

This is not consistent - sometimes I get this behavior after just 2-3 days of uptime, and at other times I can go over a week without rebooting, and GPS still works reliably.

I'm not even mentioning that when an app requests fine location and GPS subsystem is started, it usually knocks down 3G connection, which is then reestablished after several seconds. This is quite painful with Google Maps, as it can't download map layer because of it.

EDIT: By the way, sorry for hijacking this thread.