GPS Revievers??????

[interestingfellow]

I have a Magellan 315 handheld reciever. There is a dataport on it, and you can hook it up to a laptop to upload more maps to it. My question is how do you kow if a GPS unit is suitable for use as just a reciever for a PDA? If I butcher a cable to hook it to my XDA, which pins do I use in the connector? I have read the pinouts discussions and am still confused. Thanks.

[cruisin-thru]

You could hook it up if you have the gps to serial port cable for the gps, a serial to pc cable for the xda and a null modem adaptor in between them. Then set your port on xda to com 1, nmea 4800.

[interestingfellow]

I was just going to "engineer" a cable for it, since the data cable costs about $50 US. I just didnt' know if handheld recievers were designed to output the coordinates like I need.

[cruisin-thru]

The gps will output nmea sentences, your mapping software will then use these to overlay your position on the map.

[interestingfellow]

Thanks alot Cruisin

[griffog]

For the benefit of others considering using a handheld receiver in this way, you will need to confirm that your GPS has 'NMEA' out which is the data feed you require to drive an external application. The fact that it can connect to a PC via a serial cable to upload/download waypoint does not mean this is necessarily so. Whilst most modern handhelds do have NMEA out the older models didn't always have the facility.

For the Magellan 315, to turn NMEA output on, Press the MENU key then select 'Setup'. Press ENTER. Select 'NMEA' and press ENTER. Select 'V2.1 GSA' and then press ENTER. Next set the baud rate. Press MENU then select 'Setup' and press ENTER. Next Select 'BAUD RATE' and press enter. Select 4800 for the baud rate. Press ENTER and you are done :)

[interestingfellow]

That is exactly what I needed to know! You da man Griffog! 8)

But one more q: can I use any map software I want (most, not any)?

[griffog]

You can use the 315 to drive any GPS enabled app be it on a PC or a PDA that accepts NMEA input (it's the defacto standard so most do) this includes Streets & Trips, MapPoint etc on the Pc and TomTom Navigator, CoPilot, and many more on the PDA :D

[interestingfellow]

For one final bit of clarity.

Which wires from a GPS (315 in my case) go to which pins on the XDA (reference the wiki connectors page if needed)? I know this quesiton has been asked, but I can't seem to find a clear cut answer.

Thank you sooooo much!