GPS out of the country?

[stanelie]

Hello!

I'm just back from a trip from london. I brought with me my P4000 thinking that I would be able to use it's great GPS abroad.

It never worked once.

I thought this thing had an aGPS chip, meaning it was a true GPS that could be assisted by cell towers to find a fix faster. So, my understanding was that it should have worked abroad, albeit slower to find a fix then here.

As soon as I got back home, it started working again.

Any ideas?

Mod Edit: Moved from Titan Upgrading

Thanks!

[gc14]

Hello!

I'm just back from a trip from london. I brought with me my P4000 thinking that I would be able to use it's great GPS abroad.

It never worked once.

I thought this thing had an aGPS chip, meaning it was a true GPS that could be assisted by cell towers to find a fix faster. So, my understanding was that it should have worked abroad, albeit slower to find a fix then here.

As soon as I got back home, it started working again.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

If you were roaming overseas, then you won't be inside Verizon's firewall, therefore you won't have connectivity to the PDE server. The standalone GPS should have still worked, though it probably would take a lot longer to fix due to the fact you moved a great deal since the last fix. Did you try to use QuickGPS to download the ephemeris data? That probably would have sped up your fix a little.

[stanelie]

I'm using tomtom, so, I don't need access to verizon. Anyway, I'm with Telus.

I've let it stand by the window for hours and it never got a lock. I didn't try QuickGPS.

Should I have switched something in the registry to have it work in standalone mode instead of assisted?

[Targitai]

Well, i'm living in Republic Of Moldova. WE have no aGPS here at all, but i still can use GPS function on Titan. I have to wait about 1-3 minutes for lock.
I have installed DCD 3.2.6 rom and 3.42.50 Radio. Use SeaSGEE to download ephemeris data and Navitel Navigator. But Tom Tom and any other programs work fine too.

PS Sorry for my English.

[scrawnyb]

I recall having a similar discussion in an earlier thread.


See if any of this info helps:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=2538917

If you do that right, i'm pretty sure it won't even attempt to connect to a PDE server (when u change GPSMode), so you should be able to get a *slightly* quicker lock, as it won't waste time looking for that server.

I do also suggest using some other tool like QuickGPS to retrieve the ephemeris data before trying to get a lock; it *should* speed it up, but I don't know how true that really holds.

[stanelie]

Ok,

Thanks for all the infos. I'm going to Madrid next month, I'll try again there.

[isdnmatt]

I was able to get GPS locks all over Europe no problem this past July.

[gc14]

I'm using tomtom, so, I don't need access to verizon. Anyway, I'm with Telus.

Well it doesn't matter whether you have Verizon or Telus when it comes to aGPS. I was referring to aGPS. If you aren't inside your carriers internal network, then you won't access the PDE.

The GPS should still work regardless, just in standalone mode, which is why I asked if you tried QuickGPS to try and speed up the lock times.

[Osteo]

I was under the impression that there is a registry setting for the global "zone" for our GPSr to look for and that it was set to US.

From the posts I reviewed few if any folks have been able to lock overseas unless they got locks while traveling

GC, have you found any settings in the registry for this?

In QuickGPS I think the setting is as follows:
[HKLM] - Software\HTC\QuickGPS\region

Its set for US for me here in TN and I think someone from Holland posted on PPCGeeks a long time ago NL worked for him to get a lock once he found and got it via trial and error...

[maccaberry]

I think you guys are really onto something here. I have had the most frustrating time with my titan because of this very issue. I travel outside of the USA frequently and in all my travels have only managed to get a lock once! All through Australia and Thailand with no phone signal I was unable to get a lock with either flight mode on or phone mode on. Even in Taiwan where VZW has some modicum of representation (i.e the phone function worked but zero data) I go no lock.

gc was right about the agps thing. Outside of Verizon network you will not get assisted gps (although strangely when in "extended area" roaming inside USA it still seems to work).

in the end i tried a hundred things to get a lock including leaving the phone out in the full view of the sky for 6 hours. Nothing worked except the gps mode that scrawnyb talked about. I finally got a (very slow) lock after what seemed like hours.

I really believe that osteo's answer about the zone (i.e. "US" here in USA) is also part of the answer. I can only assume that the ephemeris data has to be relative to where you are on the earths surface, so the phone having some idea of where you are surely would help (especially without cell tower help from agps).

Targitai, if you visit this thread again can you please check the setting in your phone to see what zone setting you have that assists with locking. You need to look in [HKLM] - Software\HTC\QuickGPS\region and check that you are not set to "US" or similar.

I wont be traveling OS for a few months now, so I cannot confirm any of the above. I hope others who are traveling see this thread and can report back.

Thanks for the helpful info on this thread. This problem has been bugging me for months. Strange this is that my bluetooth gps never takes more than about 2-3 minutes to get a lock, even after crossing to the other side of the earth, over 9000 miles to Australia.

[stanelie]

Well,

I'm here in Madrid now and it doesn'T work.
I tried changing the registry key of the GPS mode and it didn't help.

Any other things I can try?

[worwig]

Well,

I'm here in Madrid now and it doesn'T work.
I tried changing the registry key of the GPS mode and it didn't help.

Any other things I can try?

How long did you wait, and do you have a clear view of the sky?

After traveling a long distance it can take some time to download the full catalog info on the satellites.

[stanelie]

I waited a few hours in clear sight of the sky.

My old hp hw 6515 with a old stand-alone GPS chips can find a lock fine...

[stanelie]

sorry, double post...

[kdj67f]

I have had my gps lock over the ocean in an airplane. I dont have navigation software installed other than google maps so I just used Visual GPS to verify I had lat/lon fix and a gps speedometer app to tell me I was going at the same speed the captain had said. No wireless data connection at all.

[anddy78]

Hi, I have a similar problem, but when I'm in a no service area, the GPS locks in 2 minutes. When the phone gets a cell phone tower, never gets a lock unless I let him overnight catching sats. I'm from Venezuela, may be the cell phone towers or the network, I don't know, induce some kind of conflict in the position calculation of the GPS. In the flight mode the problem persist.