BU-353 problems

**surfntomm** · 09-24-2009, 10:54 AM

I have a BU 353 hooked up to an intel mobo (dual core atom) blah blah blah. I have been able to use the gps many times but the lock on time from when i start my computer is much worse than advertised no matter how clear my signal may be. It takes me about 5-10 minutes to get a lock on even though it displays that I have at least 3 SVs locked on.

I am in NMEA with baud rate of 4800 on a low com port (3).

I have used sirfdemo and others and it seems that the only baud rate that centrafuse will allow me to use is 4800 even though i do get it to

work at 57600 in sirfdemo and the likes.

running xp SP2 with centrafuse trial version.

where does everyone place their gps unit because I will keep mine in my glove box and it seems to work fine once its locked on but sometimes (once every hour) it will think that i got off the freeway and deviate about 1/4 mile in some random direction till it finally brings me back to my route.

Any thoughts or ideas would really help!!

Thanks

~Tom

**surfntomm** · 09-29-2009, 11:11 AM

responses here are overwhelming....

anyway just wanted to help someone who might have had the same issues.

although i could get reception from my gps with it in my glove box it was very difficult for it to lock on. I keep it on my dash in the corner and hide the wire and i get about 8-11 sats in Los Angeles all the time. Quick lock on.

Sometimes i need to reinitialize my com port but I think xport will take care of that.

Cheers

**Marvin Hlavac** · 10-01-2009, 08:16 PM

Yes, glove box is a bad place to keep it. While it may work there, the performance will be inferior.

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BU-353

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**chris350** · 10-01-2009, 09:00 PM

Originally Posted by Marvin Hlavac

Yes, glove box is a bad place to keep it. While it may work there, the performance will be inferior.

__________________
Laptop GPS World

what he said^. Try to alway have the GPS in a clear path to the sky...

**FirstAid** · 10-02-2009, 02:30 AM

I have mine inside the air vent at the side of the wing mirror, the side that's next to the centre of the road.

Locks in a couple of seconds.

**surfntomm** · 10-12-2009, 11:28 AM

as an update, I have installed xport and played around with it some. I still get a fickle GPS. it works about 80% of the time but sometimes I must manually close and open the port for the gps in centrafuse. Any ideas?

What settings must I use on xport. It doesnt seem to find my gps in xport when i click on the "find gps" button but it diplays the correct port. what am i missing?

**Curiosity** · 10-12-2009, 02:09 PM

Displaying the correct port (and buad rate) means it found your GPS. It's just faster than you'd expect. When you see "No GPS Found" is when you know it didn't. The status on the bottom will show "No data" or "Uknown data" if there's a problem but it will close and reopen the port if that happens, or "Port Closed" if it's not able to open the port. That would mean something else is using it.