Re: PPS fix determination vs. cgps?

[Gary E. Miller]

Yo Steve!

On Tue, 27 Apr 2021 11:46:06 -0500
Steve Bourland <sbourland@swri.org> wrote:

>    I suck, sorry I never finished off this thread...it's been a
> frustrating experience...

We're here to help.

> > gpsctl can change the speed for you, but it is a bit finicky.  
> 
> I tried to get gpsctl to change the speed, but on this particular
> unit, it would always override my garmin driver selection when it saw
> the NMEA coming out and fail to send any commands.

What, exactly, did you try?  Been a while, but it used to work for me, and
no chnages to Garmin in a long time.  gpsctl lets you force the driver.

Which Garmin again?

> In the mean time,
> I have another Garmin 18 that started acting flaky on me,

They were ALWAYS flakey.  What model of 18?

> so I have
> succumb to your very sage original advice...and am working on
> retiring them.  Your post today with this link:
> http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=107&products_id=301
> triggered my memory that I hadn't let you know that I have broken
> down and ordered two of these:
> http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=272
> to keep my offline network on time and my machines synced.  Assuming
> these guys work well, I intend to get some at least one more down the
> road to make sure there are no issues with selection (enough sources).

They make good stuff.  You will be happy with it.  If you don't need the
fancy case, display, etc. then a Raspberry Pi with a HAT does pretty much the
same thing for 1/3 the price.

> > You can use -x, with effort.  force the driver with -t.  Odd that
> > the device was not detected as a Garmin.  
> 
> I thought about going into the code to try and override the override
> of the detection loop, but realized that would really just postpone
> the inevitable failure of the devices...they've been working for well
> over a decade, so I feel they've done their duty.

There should never be a need to override the model detection.  If gpsd
is not seeing you receiver as a Garmin then something else is broken.
Often it is a Tx failure.

> > We never finish anything here, just steps forward.  
> 
> As always, truly appreciate the steps forward you keep making, and I
> still have some Garmins lying around, so if you want me to help
> testing future code and future Ubuntu releases, more than happy to
> help as best I can.

I have my own pile of Garmins.  Mostly useful for memories.  Maybe
someone else can use one.

> > Or, spend $10 on a modern GPS.  The Garmin 18 are ancient.  Barley
> > functional my modern standards.  
> 
> Well, I'm spending a bit more to get the full time server included.
> I'll look at picking up some cheap units over the next few months for
> testing if it's helpful to you.  If you have units you'd prefer me to
> look for, feel free to ping me and let me know!

gpsd users have tried pretty much everything on the market that is not
expensive, so pick something that looks good to you and ask here
of other users's experiences with the part.

RGDS
GARY
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary E. Miller Rellim 109 NW Wilmington Ave., Suite E, Bend, OR 97703
        gem@rellim.com  Tel:+1 541 382 8588

            Veritas liberabit vos. -- Quid est veritas?
    "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it." - Lord Kelvin

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