How does GPS work with GRLevel3?

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

Silly question ...

I need some how-top help on GRLevel3 ... How do we get GPS integration with that?

I got the trial version to check it out, or does this come with the registered version?

My goal is to get the radar display, and some sort of "indicator" based on my GPS position.

Thanks,

 

[Lou Ruh]

There is a GPS selection on the File menu. If you choose Start, it asks for a com port and then it works. Your position will be shown on the screen. In the Windows menu, there is a GPS Monitor choice. The monitor tells you what is being received from the GPS and also has a "Center Display" checkbox that, if checked, will keep the map centered on the GPS location.

You may have an issue with some GPS devices, but, as long as it outputs NMEA sentences on a com port, you should be OK.

 

[cdcollura]

NMEA / Delorme?

Good day all,

I am using the Delorme Serial Emulator with the USB "Earthmate" GPS puck. I choose NMEA on the serial emulator and a COM port (2,4, and 5 - I tried all).

Neither worked selecting the port in GRLevel3 GPS (monitor shows waiting for data, and remains that way).

Any ideas?

How about a different serial emulator?

The Delorme Serial Emulator worked with SwiftWX last year. I cannot get it working with GRLevel3.

I am sure it's something silly - Any thoughts?

There is a GPS selection on the File menu. If you choose Start, it asks for a com port and then it works. Your position will be shown on the screen. In the Windows menu, there is a GPS Monitor choice. The monitor tells you what is being received from the GPS and also has a "Center Display" checkbox that, if checked, will keep the map centered on the GPS location.

You may have an issue with some GPS devices, but, as long as it outputs NMEA sentences on a com port, you should be OK.

 

[Lou Ruh]

I don't have experience with the Delorme Serial Emulator, but, I would first recommend seeing if you can open the port(s) with something like Hyperterminal. You will need to get the speed and bits settings correct. According to what I've read, grlevelx programs use the standard 4800,N,8,1 settings for communicating with your GPS device (so, if that's not what's coming across the com port, that could be the cause of your problem).

If you can get the port to open, make sure you are getting valid NMEA data ... see if you can see a $GPGGA sentence and if the "fix quality" field is non-zero and you see good lat/lon values. http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/nmea.htm has what looks like good information on what NMEA sentences look like.

If that all looks good, then I'm not sure what else to tell you. Possibly someone who knows the Delorme Serial Emulator will have more ideas.

 

[Verne Carlson]

Hi Chris,
I have just the setup you're trying. One thing is you have to make sure you right click on the Delorme Serial Emulator icon (radar dish) in the lower right system tray and click Start. Then let the icon turn into a yellow (2D) or green (3D) icon. Then start GR3, go to File -> GPS -> Start and pick the port you setup before in the Emulator (NMEA).
That should work,
Verne

 

[cdcollura]

Good day,

Thanks ... This is what I was trying. Exactly like this...

1). Clicked the start (radar dish) icon, WAITED for 2D / 3D.

2). Using COMM 2 (or 4 or 5) with NMEA checked.

3). In GR3, clicked the GPS start, picked COMM 2 (or 4 or 5) and nothing.

Monitor says "waiting for data" ... Went out to lunch even, still "waiting for data" ... Does GR3 need to be registered or something (I'm on 21 day trial)?

Second, I even went into Delorme, chose COMM 5 NMEA and it worked in there (not USB - COMM) so I know the NMEA data is there.

Now I installed Delorme, I installed it with the "USB and serial drivers" ... Would this make any difference?

This is weird...

Hi Chris,
I have just the setup you're trying. One thing is you have to make sure you right click on the Delorme Serial Emulator icon (radar dish) in the lower right system tray and click Start. Then let the icon turn into a yellow (2D) or green (3D) icon. Then start GR3, go to File -> GPS -> Start and pick the port you setup before in the Emulator (NMEA).
That should work,
Verne

 

[Tony Laubach]

Hey Chris,

Perhaps I skipped over this, but what OS are you using for this?

I ended up buying a GlobalSat BU-353 GPS unit from ebay for $36.95 and hooked that into my system as Delorme's pucks aren't the world's greatest in my previous experience. I also downloaded and bought GPSGate which works out very nicely.

The Delorme problems began with when I ended up with a Vista machine, and while I'm not 100% sure that's the reason behind it, I never had any real issues with XP.

With the GlobalSat puck and GPSGate, my splitting between programs has been very easy, and I've used it with Delorme, Spotter Network, GRLevel3, and StormLab with little issues with splitting.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Dump Delorme's Serial Emulator and get GPSGate. I'd also look at a different GPS. I'm not sure about the new models, but I have an old (4-5 years) Delorme puck and it has pretty poor performance. It takes a long time to acquire and needs an unobstructed view. The serial emulator is very fussy, as it seems like clicking around in it can cause the GPS to go offline. You also have a lot less control over what kind of data is being spit out to your virtual ports, as it seems GR is rather particular. You can manage all of this in GpsGate nicely.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Are you using Vista 32bit? If you're using Vista, there's only one way to get it to work with Delorme Serial Emulator -- and that's this way. If you're running 64bit, I know of no way to get it to work on Vista other than buying a different brand GPS receiver.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day,

Hey Chris, Perhaps I skipped over this, but what OS are you using for this?

I am running XP Pro (I re-installed it with a valid license key after I found out the one I got - From another chaser was stolen / pirated).

I am using SA 2005 ... But today at lunch I got SA 2009 with the new LT-40 puck (the one I have from 2005 has a broken cable but works when you wiggle it a certain way as it did all thru May 2008).

I wonder if the new puck and SA 2009 might help somewhat (doubt it though)?

Vista - That's on my desktop (dual-boot XP and Vista 64) ... Not on my laptop ;-)

 

[Jason Foster]

Dump Delorme's Serial Emulator and get GPSGate.

That is the way to go....GPSgate. No issues on either Vista or XP when using that software. My buddy is running GR(2ae or 3) and DeLorme 2009. Works great. He had it on a Vista (32bit) machine earlier but that laptop was too big to chase with, so got a second machine with XP same software, different OS.

 

[cdcollura]

It works ;-)

Good day all,

Thanks for your comments on this ... I finally got it working, and it was a rather silly issue.

1). I upgraded to Street Atlas 2009 with the LT-40 GPS puck ($49).

2). Re-installed the serial emulator (Comm 5).

3). Aquired GPS no problem and in GRLevel3 it found the Comm 5.

One note that was learned by this is that the older GPS Earthmates (mine was from 2005 USB) do NOT support NMEA, and their data is in RAW format on the comm port (in Hyperterm, it looked like hexadecimal data).

NMEA as stated earlier in this post has neumonics "$" key-words and is a bit more "human freindly" than RAW hex data. The LT-40 clearly sent NMEA to the comm port, the older Earthmate puck (from 2005) did only RAW format.

The reason this worked last year for me on SwiftWX with the old Earthmate GPS was because RAW format is accepted in addition to the newer NMEA.

Also, my Magellan car (windshield mount) GPS also worked with SA 2009 (but not the serial emulator because that is for Earthmate).

Thanks again!

 

[Jason Foster]

Cool...glad to hear...now the only question is......




.....how many cores you gonna punch now?

 

[Cstok]

I had an older Delorme GPS unit and just upgraded to the newest one with the 2009 version... the software and the GPS unit. My older one was probably 4 years old. This version is MUCH faster than the older one. Certainly helpfull when it is reciveing / processing data at a much faster rate... sometimes that delay with my older setup made a stressful situation worse... "Can I get to the next farm road and then go east... or is the GPS just slow!?!?!! "

I also had the problems with the serial emulator download from Delorme, but found that I have less issues if I have the GPS and everything plugged in to the usb ports prior to booting up. Then GRlvl3 and SA2009 work just fine.

 

[Bill Hark]

I just added GrLevel 3 and GPS to my system using WxWorx. I already have GPS gate and use virtual ports for WXWorxGPS and DeLorme.

Unfortunately, GrLevel 3 does not give you a way to input com ports. It will scan and give you ones to choose. I made extra virtual ports using GPS gate and GrLevel 3 would not see them. I tried such numbers as Com 10, 11, 12 15 and 17 without success. Finally, I made Com 1 and 2 virtual ports and GrLevel3 saw them and accessed the data. I guess GrLevel 3 only sees Com ports with low numbers. GrLevel3 cannot access GPS data from Com ports that are already being used by WXWorx and DeLorme.

Bill Hark