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All things GPS

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I found the following technique posted in another thread so I just thought I'd add it here since it hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet:

I learned this from another post regarding GPS issues, now my phone works great. Check it out.

Application Settings
Session Type: Tracking
Test Mode: S/W Test
Operation Mode: MS Based
Start Mode: Hot Start
GPS Plus: ON
Dynamic Accuracy: ON
Accuracy: 100
Use Skyhook: ON
Use PC Tool: OFF

SUPL/CP Settings
Server FQDN Type: AUTO Config
SUPL Secure Socket: ON
AGPS Mode: SUPL

Post 319, thank you, THANK YOU!!! I now have a secure lock with in 1 foot of my location, even closer. I followed directions and also have skyhook on. I do NOT have my "use wireless networks" checked. Seems to hinder the lock. I was ready to take my second Captivate back today. Have tried everything. Hope it lasts.
Click to expand...

Prior to this, I was unable to get a lock at all and had already tried the original fix posted by XDA. After following the above steps, I can usually get a lock in google maps within a few seconds. Accuracy is reported as 30-50 meters, although GPS test usually reports 16-19 feet accuracy. There are more satellites in view compared to before and their signal strengths are higher than before (now they are upper 30's/lower 40's IIRC).

It's far from perfect, but still a huge improvement over what I was experiencing before - i.e. no lock at all. The best I could do was a few hundred - 1600+ m accuracy using only the wireless networks to determine my position.

I just thought I'd post this as something to try since it hasn't been mentioned in this consolidated thread yet.
 
yahoowizard said:
Don't know how to access that menu anymore...
Click to expand...
Download Launcherpro from the market (free) it allows you to set a shortcut to LBStestmode right on your homescreen. Not to mention it lets you fully customize your homesceens/docks and lets you create shortcuts to just about everything, the paid version (1.99) has some awesome widgets too and re can resize any widget to any size... pretty sweet.
 
Here's the code to access the LBSTestMode menu in JH7: *#3214789650#
 
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onthefenceguy said:
I just got my Captivate yesterday from the AT&T store. After reading these posts I'm not sure if I should return it and wait for a definite fix. Initially I had my settings at "Use wireless networks" unchecked and "Use GPS satellites" checked. Maps and GPS Test couldn't lock on to satellites after 5 minutes with clear sight of the sky. I changed settings so Use wireless networks was checked in addition to "Use GPS satellites", rebooted, and launched Maps. Maps initially locked on to my location accurate to 60 meters and the GPS icon was throbbing. After about 15 seconds I got a GPS lock and maps zeroed in on my actual location. Now if I uncheck "use wireless networks" I still get a GPS lock, even after ...
Click to expand...

Wow, I've been trying for days...turned on wireless as well as GPS and it work right away!
thanks!
 
Was running GPS Test on my lunch hour today (overcast/rainy). Didn't expect much while sitting in the car but had some time to kill so figured what the heck.

Came to a point in time where I had just awakened the Captivate and launched GPS Test...decided to do something while it took its time locking so put the phone in a plastic cup holder I have on the driver's door. Looked back seconds later and it was locked! FIRST time it had EVER locked that quickly.

Tried in landscape mode, 90 degree to the earth's surface, wasn't as fast, but did lock up fairly quickly. Tried it again in portrait orientation and it locked within a (very) few seconds (maybe 5 and certainly not more than 10 I would say but did not time it). Have attempted this several times afterwards and have always had good luck with it locking quickly.

SO - my question to the board is - is there anyone out there still having problems with GPS lockup being slow (ok, I'll wait for the stampede to die down) that will give this a try and let us know back? The trick (at least for me) seems to be perpendicular to the ground, in portrait mode with the AT&T pointing up of course.

My supposition here is that the antenna is very directional and is mounted at the top of the phone so to give it a good shot at receiving the signal, phone has to be pretty much straight up and down. I had been using it at a viewing angle of probably about 45 degrees which made for slow lockups etc. I did notice that I was getting over 30 in signal strength on a lot of the sats - first time I had EVER seen this.

Be interesting to see if this makes a difference for anyone else.

Tom
 
I think you are experiencing same as I posted a few posts ago. You ended up with your phone close to the window, and no hands on.

I think the antenna is weak. I think if you have the phone where it is not obstructed by the top of the car, and better yet with no hands on, it will get the fix relatively quickly. Check my post a few back for more info on what I experienced.
 
Special K said:
I found the following technique posted in another thread so I just thought I'd add it here since it hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet:



Prior to this, I was unable to get a lock at all and had already tried the original fix posted by XDA. After following the above steps, I can usually get a lock in google maps within a few seconds. Accuracy is reported as 30-50 meters, although GPS test usually reports 16-19 feet accuracy. There are more satellites in view compared to before and their signal strengths are higher than before (now they are upper 30's/lower 40's IIRC).

It's far from perfect, but still a huge improvement over what I was experiencing before - i.e. no lock at all. The best I could do was a few hundred - 1600+ m accuracy using only the wireless networks to determine my position.

I just thought I'd post this as something to try since it hasn't been mentioned in this consolidated thread yet.
Click to expand...


Tried it tonight after work. Didn't work for me. Next.
 
So, my Captivate has always been pretty good with Nav, but not perfect. With the stock OS and OTA update, I could get a lock reasonably quickly most of the time, and it would track me reasonably most of the time. Sometimes it would take a bit of time to lock, but I found a reboot would fix that usually.

However, it would lose fix at some annoying times when I really needed it, and waiting to drive, or pulling over, to reboot it once in a while was annoying.

Some may call me crazy, but I like this phone enough that I could live with that, if that was the best it could be.

However, I have read enough to form an opinion, which may be right or wrong, but is my opinion. I believe that 5 million of these things have been sold, and they don't all have GPS problems. I would speculate that most don't. There is the phenomenon that we don't hear from most people that don't have a problem, and there are people that have said they have no issues.

So, today was my 30th day with my phone. I went back to Best Buy. I was hesitant to exchange it because I feared I would get something worse.

But I did exchange it. I also bought their $10/month black tie service so I could keep bringing it back if need be. It allowed me peace of mind to make the exchange, and carry me over until the official Froyo. It may not be ideal and I hope I don't have to bother with it and can cancel it in a couple months, but it's fine for now.

Enough background. My new phone is light years better than my old phone. I asked the Best Buy guy if I could go outside to test and it locked before I was out the door. I drove home and Google Nav followed me like I have never seen before, moving smoothly with me, not jerking ahead and behind. The blue circle was never even visible. If followed me around turns instead of catching up after. It never wavered.

It sees 11 satellites and locks on 8 inside my house in under 10 seconds. My old one couldn't see more that 2 weak satellites in my house.

I know that people say that there is a honeymoon period, so I guess we'll see, but I can say that my old phone wasn't close to this one from day one.

So, I'll give it some time, but I speculate that some of these phones have hardware issues and some are better than others, and that Samsung is trying to fix it with software to compensate for the "weaker ones" that may have less sensitivity or more SNR problems or whatever, so they can avoid a recall.

So, there's that. I'll report if things change, and I won't be surprised if things do go south, but I will be disappointed.

Bob
 
ewingr said:
I think you are experiencing same as I posted a few posts ago. You ended up with your phone close to the window, and no hands on.

I think the antenna is weak. I think if you have the phone where it is not obstructed by the top of the car, and better yet with no hands on, it will get the fix relatively quickly. Check my post a few back for more info on what I experienced.
Click to expand...

Think I remember the "no hands on" post but I tried with hands on and in different places around (the lower part of) the body and that didn't seem to make much difference on mine. I understand that the roof is a great shield for radio signals (which GPS are using). Also tried this in the open (out of the car) and saw it sync pretty quickly.

re:weak - if it's very directional, it will be weak in the other non-peaked directions. <g>

Tom
 
The Cognition Froyo ROM completely changed the GPS performance on my phone. The GPS is WAY more sensitive NOW. I can get satellite locks indoors and outdoors in seconds. Things are more flaky for other aspects of Froyo, but GPS changed in a huge way.
 
Cognition 2.2 BETA2.

Spent the weekend in Chicago, and the turn-by-turn got us around town quite nicely. Had a small issue once when it wouldn't lock, but cleared GPS data, rebooted, and got it back.

I'm going to Texas next weekend and will probably be relying on it there as well.
 
dantheman2 said:
The Cognition Froyo ROM completely changed the GPS performance on my phone. The GPS is WAY more sensitive NOW. I can get satellite locks indoors and outdoors in seconds. Things are more flaky for other aspects of Froyo, but GPS changed in a huge way.
Click to expand...

I"m nearing the point I want to test the Cognition Froyo rom. Been waiting for it to support Rom Manger so I can switch between 2.16 and the Froyo.

Which build were you running based on your comments above? I've seen varying input on that thread about GPS.
 
I'm really not sure any of this has to do with the strength of the antennae. The difference between when my phone's GPS worked and when it didn't was just that when it did, it was able to lock on with a few satellites, and after it didn't work, it saw all the satellites but didn't/wouldn't lock into them. For this reason in particular, I believe it is a software issue, and because there was a long period in middle when my phone worked.
 
Back to the store today to complain about GPS not working, trying to get a credit or exchange. Store puts me on with ATT warranty support, who INSIST I go thru another reset operation that wipes out my data again, even though I said I already tried that. After that, the GPS has no improvement...and after putting me through that hassle, he says well we could swap it but it will be for a refurbished unit, and in his words, he is not confident it will work any better. He uses the lame excuse that nothing is going to work correctly 100% of the time, to which I respond that's quite different than saying something will work 0% of the time.

Just a shot in the dark, hoping that somehow there are some actual units with working GPS and maybe with another swap I will get lucky....
 
Here's my latest variant on the GPS issue. I'm on JH7, only change is using the google supl server instead of the dead one. I was out at lunch today trying to use the maps app. GPS status and GPS test would both get locks of 6/6 or so within 20-30s of starting them. But the maps app wouldn't lock at all. The satellite icon kept blinking, and I kept getting the huge blue circle that indicates it's using cell tower positioning rather than GPS. I could quit maps and go back into GPS Test and see 4/6, 6/6, etc again, but maps would never lock. What's up with that? Does the maps app insist on a higher standard of accuracy before it will use the data coming back from the GPS or something? This is both bizarre and annoying...
 
ewingr said:
I"m nearing the point I want to test the Cognition Froyo rom. Been waiting for it to support Rom Manger so I can switch between 2.16 and the Froyo.

Which build were you running based on your comments above? I've seen varying input on that thread about GPS.
Click to expand...

Froyo = Android 2.2 = 2.2 Cognition ROM
Eclair = Android 2.1 = 2.16 Cognition ROM

This also includes the JI6 firmware which might be the real GPS fix.
 
dantheman2 said:
Froyo = Android 2.2 = 2.2 Cognition ROM
Eclair = Android 2.1 = 2.16 Cognition ROM

This also includes the JI6 firmware which might be the real GPS fix.
Click to expand...

Well, I gave the Cognition 2.2 Beta 6 a try. The GPS was worthless on it for me. Adding the Jupiter 6 helped, but it still was not very good.

I find that the 2.16, and 2.17 Cognition/Eclair work quite well. No changes to GPS settings.
 
My captivates GPS works fine but i found a problem...
i doubt this has been mentioned before

i went to my text to speech setting and changed the womans voice to give her a brittish accent..
but when I use the NAV its still the same regular voice...

I want my phone to speak to me in a brittish english!!!!

is there a way for me to change the settings?
the british voice sounds better than the regular voice check it out its awesome!
 
My GPS WORKS!!!!! Yaaaaayyyyy!!!!! (at least at the moment)

New refurbished unit, just got it, updated to JH7, got a lock in about 20 seconds or so. The other one (my 2nd one) didn't work AT all.

We shall see if this lasts....
 
...later that day, and I've been driving all around today with the phone on my dashboard and it's been working like a champ using Google Maps navigation.

Again, this is my 3rd Captivate. The first was bought at ATT, and the GPS stopped working after Day 1. The second was a trade for a new one in my 30 day window. That GPS was a total dud, even with JH7. I bitched earlier this week and got them to send me a refurbished one...updated to JH7 as soon as I got it...

I even downloaded GPS test and was getting like DOUBLE the number of satellites that I had been getting with #2, and with considerably better signal strength, like 30s up to about 40.

Let's see if it keeps working...
 
Yeah, I see very similar SNR (signal strengths) between my n1, g1, and my captivate, the captivate just takes longer to lock and the accuracy is between 3-5 times less accurate than the other two. It is a software issue, and possibly a power regulation issue (controlled by the driver). It will be/can be fixed, it is just a matter of whether Samsung is up to the task or not...
 
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