Monday, November 17, 2003
Lost In Space (or the UK)? Get the Navman GPS 4400!
Posted by Philip Colmer in "HARDWARE" @ 10:00 AM
User Interface
Once you've done all of the installation work, you can start using the SmartST software ... well, almost but not quite! If you actually want to use the GPS unit, you've got to set up the Bluetooth connection first. This is documented very well in the manual - it takes you through each of the steps required with lots of screenshots. I'm not going to reproduce those steps here but it is reasonably straightforward:
- Turn the GPS unit on;
- Turn Bluetooth on if you've got it turned off;
- From the Bluetooth Manager, get the COM port number for the outbound Bluetooth serial port;
- Find the GPS device in the BT manager, if it hasn't already found it;
- Connect to the GPS device.
After you've gone through the complete process, the Bluetooth software should remember about the GPS unit, thus avoiding the need to discover it again. Therefore, you only need to turn Bluetooth on and connect to the GPS device.
When you first turn the GPS unit on, a blue light flashes twice every 1.5 seconds to show that it doesn't have a BT connection. After the connection is set up, the light flashes once every 1.5 seconds. If the battery starts to get low, the light changes from blue to red.
Once you've got the Bluetooth connection sorted out, you can start using the SmartST software. It starts by taking you through a brief tutorial, explaining how the D-pad could be used, what tap and hold does and the menu navigation. You can turn the tutorial off for future start-ups. What you didn't appear to be able to turn off, though, was the licence agreement. It does seem a bit irksome that you have to agree to this every time you start the software up ...
Having started the software, you have to tell it how to talk to the GPS unit over Bluetooth. This is done by specifying the port number that you got from the BT manager above and clicking on the button next to the COM drop-down list to open the connection.
Figure 12: Setting up the GPS connection
As the system starts to determine its current location (getting the GPS 'fix'), it shows the satellite status in an arc. Figure 12, for example, shows that it is tracking eight out of the possible 12 satellites that are visible in half of the sky.
After a while, the system settles down on which ones it is going to use and the display updates to reflect this, as shown in Figure 13.
Figure 13: After the GPS unit knows where you are
This screen is useful if you are having problems with the system. It shows your current longitude & latitude, your bearing and speed, how many satellites it is using, whether it has a 2D or 3D fix and the time & date being received from the satellites.
Figure 14: The software's main menu
