Hi all, Two observations: First For those who didn’t realize, there are TWO different generations of this type of GPS dongle. I bought both. Tested extensively & found the newr gen chipset perform much better at locking onto the signals than the old 1st gen. In a building with lots of metal. They physically looks the same but with different printing on the dongle & different chipsets. Quoting from Amazon website; “G72 gps usb use the newer chip, better than vk-172 gps.This usb gps works with Windows, Linux and Google Earth, not for IOS Android.”’ So the older ones say “vk-172”. The newer gens that I’m very happy with say “GNSS GPS/BDS/GLONASS”. The vk-172 were returned. Second I (as several others have mentioned.) use an USB exten.cable. Higher quality one with a shield (larger diameter is a good clue) , rather than a el-cheapo that only have straight bundle of wires w/ plastic covering. (very thin dia is a clue). I built a dedicated music bluetooth player using a RPi 3+ & a UPS bluetooth dongle feeding an aftermarket 11db omni-directional antenna. The GPS dongle was to provide a time sync to turn device on/off during work hours. My bluetooth dongle/antenna trashed the GPS dongle till I put the GPS unit on a 1 ft extention that was shielded. All runs fine now 24/7. 73 de N6DSW
It might be worth putting a ferrite core over the USB extension going to the GPS. A ground plane might also help. This is just a test so don't get fancy. Just wrap aluminum foil on some cardboard and punch a hole. The ground plane would probably work better if the rest of the Pi is below the plane and if the edges of the plane are covered with conductive foam to reduce defraction. Most conductive foam acts as a reluctor at very high frequency. In a pinch the foam alone would be worth trying. If the bead is not enough but the ground plane works I would get a case for the Pi and put MU metal on it to make a shielded case. I like to fold the exposed edges under where holes are, esp. if wires go through because the cut edges are like razor blades. I scribe through the adhesive where I want the fold to be then heat the part I am going to fold under to remove the adhesive and use pliers to get a crisp bend. MU metal is a good enough thermal conductor in theory that you could pull the layer down over the CPU and either use it as the heatsink or attach the heatsink to the outside of the shield. I tried this once and the heatsink part worked perfectly but too much noise made it out even after annealing. I wound up starting over and putting an aluminum spacer up through a hole in the shield and putting a heatsink a few mm larger on the spacer. That worked but the CPU did run about 5° hotter than it did without any shield, but much cooler than it did with the heatsink inside the shield.
I had similar problems Jason and using an extension lead longer than 0.5m was more successful. Ultimately though using a vk-162 which has a thin 2m lead and is magnetic (so lives on my cars roof nicely) has been my solution. Look forward to seeing a follow-up video on how you’ve resolved it 🤞
Thanks for sharing ! I ran into some similar and even more crazy issues when I tried to use several Alfa WiFi cards. I solved my issues by purchasing a USB3.0 POWERED usb hub.
Just for info. I haven't read all the comments, but I have purchased the same GPS module you have and it connected to a RPi 3+ and I have the same issue. The GPS unit is on a 3ft extension cable so it is 3ft away from any other device. At random moments lock is lost for several seconds. I have a different, and more expensive, GPS on order to see if there is a difference. Keep up the vids.
Being the kind of guy that always takes the path of least resistance, I would just stick a USB 2.0 hub into one of the ports if I had alot of devices to use. I just ordered one of those glonass devices like you have so we will see but I am sure I will have the issue. Just subscribed, like your content! Thanks! -73
Dear Jason, I tried this GPS U-Blox7 USB dongle for more than one week using three devices U-Blox7, however it did not work such as gpsmon, cpgs, xgps and even programming serialOpen(“/dev/ttyACM0”, ...). It is displayed “NO FIX(100000 sec)”. the problem is in GPRMC,000000,0,0 so on or GPRMC,,,,,. The satellite had nothing using xgps. The raw data of GPS are displayed as above. When I’m tried to gather clock as gpspipe-r -n 5 | grep activate # for getting UTC time. No longitude and no latitude. What’s the problem? Is it only has in Asia especially in Korea? I’m using Raspberry Pi 4B w/ raspbian latest.
I am using an Argonne case. The tie over to my Samsung SATA 3 drive in the lower portion of the case. The USB 3 tie seems well shielded. I had the same problem, though when plugging in the Ublox7 in even to the USB 2. I changed to a 2 foot extension and the GPS got lock and is working. I’m going to try my Global Sat USB which I think will work much better especially since I can run it to an open sky area.
Having same issue with at USB 3.0 Apeicorn adapter for a SSD (Samsung 850 EVO 256gig). Don't need anything that large but was just trying it out and noticed that the GPS lost the lock when it was plugged in; unplugged it and the GPS locked after a small wait. Didn't try the 2.0 USB. Looking forward to see if this will be a easy fix (more and likely won't be)
@@KM4ACK Thanks Jason, that gives me relief!😮👍 I will setup my RPi after my DMR radio and hotspot, I'll be using your tutorials and scripts, can't wait.👍
If you try a new gps, think about using the adafruit gps hat. It has a RTC and from memory I think you can use an external active gps antenna. Another plus is it has a breadboard area which you can fit a buck convert to run the pi directly from 12V via the gpio pins. If you don't use the active antenna it makes for a very neat compact build. Cheers and keep the videos coming 👍
You are able to repeat it, which is a big part of the effort to find a solution, but I am not sure you have it here. By plugging all of my USB-3 devices into the hub and plugging that into the USB3 slot below where my GPS is plugged in I was able to get it to work part of the time. I had to use a 3 foot USB extension on the GPS to make it work. so distance may be an issue. This is a pretty big deal to me since I really want to be able to use these other ports.
Yes your noise went up to jam the gps signal. A gps is approximately -120dBm down so any real noise will jam reception. Below are the GPS bands and anything close can create this issue. This is why I prefer a remote GPS antenna away from any noise. GPS L1 Band: 1575.42 MHz with a bandwidth of 15.345 MHz GPS L2 Band: 1227.6 MHz with a bandwidth of 11 MHz GPS L5 Band: 1176.45 MHz with a bandwidth of 12.5 MHz
a general GPS question: i have the UBOX7 dongle but it does not seem to be “on” as it picks up no satellites, even when outside. During the setup in build-a-pi, I did appropriately select it for install but not working. Tried re-building 3 times just to make sure. Is there some function and/or code required to run to ‘turn it on’?
No. In fact, you don't even have to install anything for the GPS to come on and acquire a lock on the satellites. Many of the GPS units have a light on them that will blink once they have a lock.
@@KM4ACK Thank you for the fast response!! I know about the light as it works on my APRS Wolf on another pi, just won’t work on the build-a-pi. While waiting for your response now, i tried plugging in the VK-162 G-Mouse as well but XPS shows nothing/blank with clear line of sight to the sky. Any pointers?
So after trying 5 more fresh installs of build-a-pi to try different scenarios. Never got any of the 3 GPS to work. So did basic install of Raspian and then individually installed the Ham Radio Apps and the GPS worked immediately. Not sure what build-a-pi was doing.
Per your question on what the different colors mean in the xgps sky view. I found the following information from www.systutorials.com/docs/linux/man/1-xgps/. In the sky view, satellites are color-coded to indicate quality of signal; consult the data display to the left for exact figures in dB. Square icons indicate WAAS/EGNOS satellites, circles indicate ordinary GPS satellites. Filled icons were used in the last fix, outline icons were not.
First off try using a powered hub - that will certainly prove if its a power issue or not. I wouldn't trust DMesg to tell me all the info since the USB module may decide to reset and not tell the RaspPi4. Second switch the GPS to a USB 3 port (I assume its USB 2.0 only anyway) and use the same Aluminium reader in a USB 2.0 port. Effectively forcing both to use USB 2.0 (USB 3.0 Is backwards compatible) in any case I'd probably run a 6-10 inch cable on the GPS dongle and it will probably go away. Otherwise maybe look at using a metal enclosure/case for the RaspPi4 to keep the signals inside - if you aren't already. Lastly if you have a SDRPlay device there is a Spectrum Analyser software program you can try and utilise to track down what is happening when you connect a USB3 device... You may have done all this already, but that's what I'd do anyway - just my 2 cents! :D 73.
@@KM4ACK The one I use is shielded. I could not get the GPS to get a lock reliably without it, unless it was the only USB device used. I have an extension that is .5 m long that does not work at all.
Put an USB extension cable on that dongle so that you can get the GPS antenna up and away from the noisy USB 3 ports and to help the GPS get a clear view of the sky so it gets stronger satellite signals improving the s/n. I run good ublox 7 and 8 GPS chips from USB 3 ports all day long with no problems on a partially assembled Win 10 computer (case is always open--I lost part of it!), but they all have a great view of the sky. I don't have a RPI4 to text...yet. --Mark, KE6BB
Several things. USB GPS units run at 4800-9600 baud. They really don't need anything above USB 1.1. Move it into the plain USB2 slots and there should be no adverse affects. Second, GPS is a purely RECEIVE ONLY process. As such, there is no RFI from it at all. I'd turn off the GLONASS process on the unit first just to make sure it's not having problems. Second, I have had the same sort of thing happen on RPI2 and 3's. The "native" ports seem to have this issue. If I plug the unit into my externally powered USB hub, all is well, so I've kinda written this off as a USB power bus problem on the PI. Third, the all aluminum card reader, if placed between the GPS and the satellite, WOULD block the signal. Your mileage may vary... 73, KC5UNL
I've never gotten my gps to work...so I shouldn't make suggestions, but have you tried using a USB extension cable to get the gps receiver away from the 3.0 port?
I use a usb powered hub on my media pi in the truck and I get no gps this would make sense going to power up the pi and pull the hub to see what happens. My ftm 100 does fine in the truck so I know the dongle should work and has. Update unplugged the hub and the gps works fine luckily I don't have anything usb3 on my ham pi. Going to be trying a geekworm case and usb hub in a few days the case is metal will see if that helps. I use the media pi as a test bed it on every day
Might try a VK-162 G-Mouse USB GPS Dongle ($17.00 on Amazon) instead of the VK-172. The VK-162 is larger, but appears to have better design features to protect it from voltage and interference issues.
I bought one of the GPS from the link U-blox7 from the link, i have plugged into my pi and not connecting. I also recently had to reinstall my image on the SD card and went to reinstall build a pi, and it asked me to plug in my GPS but didn't give me any choices on the drop down, not sure if it is seeing my GPS , or maybe i need to run my PI somewhere else in my house to test
@@KM4ACK yes, i did and booted where it should be able to get signal and also tried booting with no internet or wifi also, it is seen and shows on the usb port but will only blink when first connected, Gps doesn't seem to either download what is needed or connect for location/time; im kind of at a loss for now. will try later on when i get a few more of the programs from build a pi set up. thank you , I appreciate it
Disconnect any USB 3 ports and make sure the GPS has a clear view of the sky. Moving closer to a window often helps. The GPS will get a lock provided it can see the sky even before the software is installed on the pi.
I'd like to bring attention to the fact that the FCC has granted Ligado - a 5G satellite company - privileges that have been shown to affect all current forms of GPS receivers. Even DOD ( see : arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/05/millions-of-gps-devices-at-risk-from-fcc-approved-5g-network-military-says/ ) . Bottom line , if nothing is done , then most if not all of our little GPS units will be rubbish and if we want to keep our boats, planes, radios etc. working safely , we'll have to purchase new ( and no doubt more expensive ) GPS units. Jason , if you feel the need - you may delete this post , but I'm hoping to get the word out to our community - I've written all of my elected officials. As always - thank you for your video.
Part of the issue could be with USB enumeration... When devices are are plugged in, plugged out they don't always get recognised in the same way... especially Serial type devices The following is an attempt to "fix" the name/devices hintshop.ludvig.co.nz/show/persistent-names-usb-serial-devices/
Hey Jason...looked through the xgps source code and it looks like the colors correspond to SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio)...starting at line 493 here: fossies.org/linux/gpsd/xgps I've used xgps many times and didn't even know it was written in python! Thanks for the video. 73 de KN4FTT
I use a GlobalSat BU-353-S4 GPS and it has a 59" cable. When I plug in USB 3 adapter and the gps is close to the Pi I have the same problem. At a distance from the Pi the problem is reduced. I tried adding a ferrite choke to the GPS line and noticed little difference in GPS performance.
I have been testing the BU353S4 for the last couple of days with build a pi install. Looking forward to testing it with the pi 4 and USB 3.0. Glad to know you have had a better success rate. Have you had any trouble with RFI getting back into the system because of the longer USB cable?
Hi all,
Two observations:
First For those who didn’t realize, there are TWO different generations of this type of GPS dongle. I bought both. Tested extensively & found the newr gen chipset perform much better at locking onto the signals than the old 1st gen. In a building with lots of metal. They physically looks the same but with different printing on the dongle & different chipsets. Quoting from Amazon website;
“G72 gps usb use the newer chip, better than vk-172 gps.This usb gps works with Windows, Linux and Google Earth, not for IOS Android.”’
So the older ones say “vk-172”. The newer gens that I’m very happy with say “GNSS GPS/BDS/GLONASS”. The vk-172 were returned.
Second I (as several others have mentioned.) use an USB exten.cable. Higher quality one with a shield (larger diameter is a good clue) , rather than a el-cheapo that only have straight bundle of wires w/ plastic covering. (very thin dia is a clue). I built a dedicated music bluetooth player using a RPi 3+ & a UPS bluetooth dongle feeding an aftermarket 11db omni-directional antenna. The GPS dongle was to provide a time sync to turn device on/off during work hours. My bluetooth dongle/antenna trashed the GPS dongle till I put the GPS unit on a 1 ft extention that was shielded. All runs fine now 24/7.
73 de N6DSW
It might be worth putting a ferrite core over the USB extension going to the GPS. A ground plane might also help. This is just a test so don't get fancy. Just wrap aluminum foil on some cardboard and punch a hole. The ground plane would probably work better if the rest of the Pi is below the plane and if the edges of the plane are covered with conductive foam to reduce defraction. Most conductive foam acts as a reluctor at very high frequency. In a pinch the foam alone would be worth trying. If the bead is not enough but the ground plane works I would get a case for the Pi and put MU metal on it to make a shielded case. I like to fold the exposed edges under where holes are, esp. if wires go through because the cut edges are like razor blades. I scribe through the adhesive where I want the fold to be then heat the part I am going to fold under to remove the adhesive and use pliers to get a crisp bend.
MU metal is a good enough thermal conductor in theory that you could pull the layer down over the CPU and either use it as the heatsink or attach the heatsink to the outside of the shield. I tried this once and the heatsink part worked perfectly but too much noise made it out even after annealing. I wound up starting over and putting an aluminum spacer up through a hole in the shield and putting a heatsink a few mm larger on the spacer. That worked but the CPU did run about 5° hotter than it did without any shield, but much cooler than it did with the heatsink inside the shield.
I had similar problems Jason and using an extension lead longer than 0.5m was more successful. Ultimately though using a vk-162 which has a thin 2m lead and is magnetic (so lives on my cars roof nicely) has been my solution.
Look forward to seeing a follow-up video on how you’ve resolved it 🤞
Thanks for sharing !
I ran into some similar and even more crazy issues when I tried to use several Alfa WiFi cards.
I solved my issues by purchasing a USB3.0 POWERED usb hub.
Just for info. I haven't read all the comments, but I have purchased the same GPS module you have and it connected to a RPi 3+ and I have the same issue. The GPS unit is on a 3ft extension cable so it is 3ft away from any other device. At random moments lock is lost for several seconds. I have a different, and more expensive, GPS on order to see if there is a difference. Keep up the vids.
Being the kind of guy that always takes the path of least resistance, I would just stick a USB 2.0 hub into one of the ports if I had alot of devices to use. I just ordered one of those glonass devices like you have so we will see but I am sure I will have the issue. Just subscribed, like your content! Thanks!
-73
It is working good when rooftop at building and thank you so much.
I’ve had GPS connection issues in the past and just assumed it was from a cheap USB adapter. Thanks for the info!
Dear Jason,
I tried this GPS U-Blox7 USB dongle for more than one week using three devices U-Blox7, however it did not work such as gpsmon, cpgs, xgps and even programming serialOpen(“/dev/ttyACM0”, ...). It is displayed “NO FIX(100000 sec)”. the problem is in GPRMC,000000,0,0 so on or GPRMC,,,,,. The satellite had nothing using xgps. The raw data of GPS are displayed as above. When I’m tried to gather clock as gpspipe-r -n 5 | grep activate # for getting UTC time. No longitude and no latitude. What’s the problem? Is it only has in Asia especially in Korea? I’m using Raspberry Pi 4B w/ raspbian latest.
Jason another great video thank you....I've tried to find the xgps you are using but no luck...could you tell me where I can get it. TIA John
from terminal, run "xgps"
KM4ACK Jason many thanks John
I am using an Argonne case. The tie over to my Samsung SATA 3 drive in the lower portion of the case. The USB 3 tie seems well shielded. I had the same problem, though when plugging in the Ublox7 in even to the USB 2. I changed to a 2 foot extension and the GPS got lock and is working. I’m going to try my Global Sat USB which I think will work much better especially since I can run it to an open sky area.
Excellent follow-up Jason, thank you!
Having same issue with at USB 3.0 Apeicorn adapter for a SSD (Samsung 850 EVO 256gig). Don't need anything that large but was just trying it out and noticed that the GPS lost the lock when it was plugged in; unplugged it and the GPS locked after a small wait. Didn't try the 2.0 USB. Looking forward to see if this will be a easy fix (more and likely won't be)
I just ordered 3 x Glonass VK-172 USB GPS'.😮
Maybe I should get small USB extension cables... or are they ok on USB 2.0 ports on my Pi4?🤔
They should work fine in the USB2 ports provided you don't use a USB3 device in the USB3 ports.
@@KM4ACK Thanks Jason, that gives me relief!😮👍
I will setup my RPi after my DMR radio and hotspot, I'll be using your tutorials and scripts, can't wait.👍
This new GPS unit (VK-162) is @ the Pi Store for 1/2 Amazon price. Major pain so far with Pi4.
If you try a new gps, think about using the adafruit gps hat. It has a RTC and from memory I think you can use an external active gps antenna. Another plus is it has a breadboard area which you can fit a buck convert to run the pi directly from 12V via the gpio pins. If you don't use the active antenna it makes for a very neat compact build. Cheers and keep the videos coming 👍
that hat and active antenna work great on a pi 3b + with pps support and never lost signals
How far away was that GPS receiver/antenna.
Another reason for good grounding, housing and RFI planning.
I tried it with the GPS plugged direct into the pi and with a 1' extension cable.
You are able to repeat it, which is a big part of the effort to find a solution, but I am not sure you have it here. By plugging all of my USB-3 devices into the hub and plugging that into the USB3 slot below where my GPS is plugged in I was able to get it to work part of the time. I had to use a 3 foot USB extension on the GPS to make it work. so distance may be an issue. This is a pretty big deal to me since I really want to be able to use these other ports.
Yes your noise went up to jam the gps signal. A gps is approximately -120dBm down so any real noise will jam reception. Below are the GPS bands and anything close can create this issue. This is why I prefer a remote GPS antenna away from any noise.
GPS L1 Band: 1575.42 MHz with a bandwidth of 15.345 MHz
GPS L2 Band: 1227.6 MHz with a bandwidth of 11 MHz
GPS L5 Band: 1176.45 MHz with a bandwidth of 12.5 MHz
a general GPS question: i have the UBOX7 dongle but it does not seem to be “on” as it picks up no satellites, even when outside. During the setup in build-a-pi, I did appropriately select it for install but not working. Tried re-building 3 times just to make sure. Is there some function and/or code required to run to ‘turn it on’?
No. In fact, you don't even have to install anything for the GPS to come on and acquire a lock on the satellites. Many of the GPS units have a light on them that will blink once they have a lock.
@@KM4ACK Thank you for the fast response!! I know about the light as it works on my APRS Wolf on another pi, just won’t work on the build-a-pi. While waiting for your response now, i tried plugging in the VK-162 G-Mouse as well but XPS shows nothing/blank with clear line of sight to the sky. Any pointers?
So after trying 5 more fresh installs of build-a-pi to try different scenarios. Never got any of the 3 GPS to work. So did basic install of Raspian and then individually installed the Ham Radio Apps and the GPS worked immediately. Not sure what build-a-pi was doing.
No idea. I just built a new pi yesterday with build a pi and the gps installed correctly first time.
Try putting your GPS USB device on an extension cable and move it away from other electrical devices and transmitting antennas.
Per your question on what the different colors mean in the xgps sky view. I found the following information from www.systutorials.com/docs/linux/man/1-xgps/.
In the sky view, satellites are color-coded to indicate quality of signal; consult the data display to the left for exact figures in dB. Square icons indicate WAAS/EGNOS satellites, circles indicate ordinary GPS satellites. Filled icons were used in the last fix, outline icons were not.
First off try using a powered hub - that will certainly prove if its a power issue or not. I wouldn't trust DMesg to tell me all the info since the USB module may decide to reset and not tell the RaspPi4. Second switch the GPS to a USB 3 port (I assume its USB 2.0 only anyway) and use the same Aluminium reader in a USB 2.0 port. Effectively forcing both to use USB 2.0 (USB 3.0 Is backwards compatible) in any case I'd probably run a 6-10 inch cable on the GPS dongle and it will probably go away. Otherwise maybe look at using a metal enclosure/case for the RaspPi4 to keep the signals inside - if you aren't already. Lastly if you have a SDRPlay device there is a Spectrum Analyser software program you can try and utilise to track down what is happening when you connect a USB3 device...
You may have done all this already, but that's what I'd do anyway - just my 2 cents! :D 73.
I had a similar problem. I used a 1m USB extension cable with the GPS, works like a champ.
I hesitate to use longer USB cable. This has gotten me in trouble before ruclips.net/video/84OIKKt8eKM/видео.html
@@KM4ACK The one I use is shielded. I could not get the GPS to get a lock reliably without it, unless it was the only USB device used. I have an extension that is .5 m long that does not work at all.
Put an USB extension cable on that dongle so that you can get the GPS antenna up and away from the noisy USB 3 ports and to help the GPS get a clear view of the sky so it gets stronger satellite signals improving the s/n. I run good ublox 7 and 8 GPS chips from USB 3 ports all day long with no problems on a partially assembled Win 10 computer (case is always open--I lost part of it!), but they all have a great view of the sky. I don't have a RPI4 to text...yet. --Mark, KE6BB
Is "XGPS" part of the "Ham Radio Raspberry Pi | Build a Pi V3" Project? If so, how do you start it? If not, how do you install it?
If you installed the GPS during the build, yes. Start it from terminal by running *xpgs*
Several things. USB GPS units run at 4800-9600 baud. They really don't need anything above USB 1.1. Move it into the plain USB2 slots and there should be no adverse affects. Second, GPS is a purely RECEIVE ONLY process. As such, there is no RFI from it at all. I'd turn off the GLONASS process on the unit first just to make sure it's not having problems.
Second, I have had the same sort of thing happen on RPI2 and 3's. The "native" ports seem to have this issue. If I plug the unit into my externally powered USB hub, all is well, so I've kinda written this off as a USB power bus problem on the PI.
Third, the all aluminum card reader, if placed between the GPS and the satellite, WOULD block the signal.
Your mileage may vary... 73, KC5UNL
The GPS was in the USB 2.0 port. It was a external data thumb drive plugged into the USB 3.0 port that was creating the issue.
Roland Stolfa I think you have a point. It may have something to do with the amount of current the USB can provide.
Along the lines of a usb extention cable. The BU-353 comes with a 59" cable.
I've never gotten my gps to work...so I shouldn't make suggestions, but have you tried using a USB extension cable to get the gps receiver away from the 3.0 port?
Same issue when plugged into a short (1 foot) extension.
Copper foil between gps and PI can help isolate GPS from RFI. This is a common fix used in Arducopter drones which use GPS
But the issue persisted when he used the 1 foot USB extension...
Have you tried using a USB extension cable to move the GPS unit away from the SD card reader?
A short 1' one was in use on FD when I first experienced the issue. Anything longer runs a risk of introducing RFI into the pi.
Good to know. New technology brings problems for other services.
I use a usb powered hub on my media pi in the truck and I get no gps this would make sense going to power up the pi and pull the hub to see what happens. My ftm 100 does fine in the truck so I know the dongle should work and has.
Update unplugged the hub and the gps works fine luckily I don't have anything usb3 on my ham pi. Going to be trying a geekworm case and usb hub in a few days the case is metal will see if that helps. I use the media pi as a test bed it on every day
Might try a VK-162 G-Mouse USB GPS Dongle ($17.00 on Amazon) instead of the VK-172. The VK-162 is larger, but appears to have better design features to protect it from voltage and interference issues.
I'm having more lock issues with the G-Mouse VK-162 than I am with the the VK-172 on a an extension cable.
The little thin cable on it might be an issue? I'm not smart enough to know, but I tried this and it's not great.
I'm also having these problems with the VK-162 that I'm using. Has anyone found a solution to this problem?
Surprise you didn't compare it with draws GPS to see what sats band it was working in.
USB ext. cable on GPS stick. Or: GPS RX with external antenna. Jup. It's more expensive.
I bought one of the GPS from the link U-blox7 from the link, i have plugged into my pi and not connecting. I also recently had to reinstall my image on the SD card and went to reinstall build a pi, and it asked me to plug in my GPS but didn't give me any choices on the drop down, not sure if it is seeing my GPS , or maybe i need to run my PI somewhere else in my house to test
Try plugging the GPS in before boot
@@KM4ACK yes, i did and booted where it should be able to get signal and also tried booting with no internet or wifi also, it is seen and shows on the usb port but will only blink when first connected, Gps doesn't seem to either download what is needed or connect for location/time; im kind of at a loss for now. will try later on when i get a few more of the programs from build a pi set up. thank you , I appreciate it
Disconnect any USB 3 ports and make sure the GPS has a clear view of the sky. Moving closer to a window often helps. The GPS will get a lock provided it can see the sky even before the software is installed on the pi.
Forgive me but when you say "the forums" where is the forums ?
groups.io/g/KM4ACK-Pi/topics
I'd like to bring attention to the fact that the FCC has granted Ligado - a 5G satellite company - privileges that have been shown to affect all current forms of GPS receivers. Even DOD ( see : arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/05/millions-of-gps-devices-at-risk-from-fcc-approved-5g-network-military-says/ ) . Bottom line , if nothing is done , then most if not all of our little GPS units will be rubbish and if we want to keep our boats, planes, radios etc. working safely , we'll have to purchase new ( and no doubt more expensive ) GPS units. Jason , if you feel the need - you may delete this post , but I'm hoping to get the word out to our community - I've written all of my elected officials. As always - thank you for your video.
Part of the issue could be with USB enumeration...
When devices are are plugged in, plugged out they don't always get recognised in the same way... especially Serial type devices
The following is an attempt to "fix" the name/devices
hintshop.ludvig.co.nz/show/persistent-names-usb-serial-devices/
Dave H wins the prize here. Colors relate to SNR.
Anybody figure out the yellow dots?
Probably the reason I have not experienced this problem is that I use a 6ft USB extension cable on the GPS.
True but it can introduce other issues ruclips.net/video/84OIKKt8eKM/видео.html Are you using ferrite beads on the USB cable?
It's been 10 months. Has anyone found a solution to this problem? KD9JPW
This GPS seems to eliminate the issue amzn.to/3yabuGy (affiliate link)
@@KM4ACK Thanks! KD9JPW
Just plug your GPS dongle into a USB extension cable. Its hardly a problem, just move the GPS to a better location away from the issue.
I've tried that and it gives you the same problem.
Hey Jason...looked through the xgps source code and it looks like the colors correspond to SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio)...starting at line 493 here: fossies.org/linux/gpsd/xgps
I've used xgps many times and didn't even know it was written in python! Thanks for the video.
73 de KN4FTT
GREAT FIND!! Thanks for sharing. I didn't know it was in python either. Now I want to see "green with some blue" :-)
I use a GlobalSat BU-353-S4 GPS and it has a 59" cable. When I plug in USB 3 adapter and the gps is close to the Pi I have the same problem. At a distance from the Pi the problem is reduced. I tried adding a ferrite choke to the GPS line and noticed little difference in GPS performance.
I have been testing the BU353S4 for the last couple of days with build a pi install. Looking forward to testing it with the pi 4 and USB 3.0. Glad to know you have had a better success rate. Have you had any trouble with RFI getting back into the system because of the longer USB cable?
@@KM4ACK I have not.