GPS Tech - Common GPS issues

[Matt Hunt]

Oh my gosh, having the radar and mapping on the same screen is priceless. As was mentioned, the shapefiles are detailed to the point of being ridiculous. You won't see the dirt roads until you zoom in, but you don't want them cluttering up a zoomed-out screen anyway. That would be entirely terrible. It is all user adjustable so that you only get the dirt roads at a zoom level of your choosing, though it is set by default with GRL3 at a reasonable setting. IIRC, the setting is located in the style file, where you can also choose what colors the roads appear. The interstate default color is white, for example, but I have changed mine to light blue, just as they usually appear on road atlases. The shapefiles often even show you where people's driveways are.

The caveat is that you cannot trust your life to the shapefiles being accurate. They are correct 99% of the time, but there was a notorious incident in NE some years ago when some chasers trusted them and they were wrong. The chasers found it necessary to drive across a corn field to escape a wedge and got stuck. Fortunately everyone survived, but the farmer called the sheriff and it got ugly.

The real beauty of it, the thing that makes it priceless, is that you can see your exact position relative to the storm right there on your screen. SN shows you where other chasers are, too.

Use the owners' forum for instructions, where you can ask questions. You'll have to create an account.

www.grlevelx.com/owners/

You can also ask me, to a limited extent.

Wasn't that in Bowdle, SD? Or was there another incident? I typically avoid dirt roads anyway, unless I'm well in front of the storm and know I can get back to pavement before the rain comes. My car will get stuck in an instant!

 

[Matt Hunt]

It has been a while since I have done this (I have been using the GPS pucks ... yes ... I have GPS redundancy in my setup ... for many years with many different computer hardware and it has worked fine for me, so, I have not had to use things now available) ... but ... https://www.amazon.com/Waterproof-Receiver-Laptop-Interface-Gain/dp/B071XY4R26 looks like it should work fine to connect to GRLevel3 . The key is something that will present as a Windows COM port since GRLevel3 expects the GPS to be connected as a COM port. From the questions/reviews, etc. on Amazon, this one looks like it does that.

Well, I got this receiver, and it is not working! Help! I tried with the driver it downloaded, I tried the drivers on the CD, I tried using GPS Gate... nothing in GR3.

 

[Bob Schafer]

Well, I got this receiver, and it is not working! Help! I tried with the driver it downloaded, I tried the drivers on the CD, I tried using GPS Gate... nothing in GR3.

This probably won't work, but you can give it a try: When I had a computer running W7 I had to run the GPSGate set-up wizard every time I wanted everything to work. It only takes about 30 seconds.

 

[Matt Hunt]

This probably won't work, but you can give it a try: When I had a computer running W7 I had to run the GPSGate set-up wizard every time I wanted everything to work. It only takes about 30 seconds.

Yeah, I've tried uninstalling, re-installing... nothing. I forget how I had my old laptop set up, but I believe I was on virtual COM ports with it, and getting GPS to work in GR3 was always finicky, but I could always get it to come on after trying multiple COM ports. In this case, it's only listing one COM port in GR3, but after I choose it, nothing happens.

I ordered the latest GlobalSat puck. Just hoping for the best here. Leaving for the plains on Saturday, so if that doesn't work out, I guess I won't have GPS on my laptop!

 

[Lou Ruh]

Well, I got this receiver, and it is not working! Help! I tried with the driver it downloaded, I tried the drivers on the CD, I tried using GPS Gate... nothing in GR3.

The key is the GPS needs to be accessible as a COM port, which that device is documented to be able to do (but, I just searched for a device that said it did that which this one did) if you get that working first, getting GRLevel3 to process it should be pretty straightforward (again, without direct experience with this device, I am not sure about any specific steps to take ... but, any config settings you tried or screenshots might help).

 

[Matt Hunt]

The key is the GPS needs to be accessible as a COM port, which that device is documented to be able to do (but, I just searched for a device that said it did that which this one did) if you get that working first, getting GRLevel3 to process it should be pretty straightforward (again, without direct experience with this device, I am not sure about any specific steps to take ... but, any config settings you tried or screenshots might help).

I was able to get it to work with a GlobalSat puck, thanks to another thread with instructions on how to set it up!