Desire HD GPS Fix

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19ninety

Senior Member
Apr 14, 2010
50
3
Oxford
After having no GPS for about a year and getting annoyed with it not working I accidentally found a post about soldering wire to the contacts.
Well, rather than soldering I wondered if I could make a little tin foil antenna. Works a treat!! Pics below:
 

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michaelopolis

Senior Member
Jul 9, 2012
202
29
Seems like a great idea,, much easier than soldering,,,, did you sandwich the foil between two pieces of paper ,, was it easy to clip it back together with this mod.
Very tempted to try it.
 

krzych

Senior Member
Jul 29, 2009
1,141
301
Warsaw
hi,im struggling with enanche GPS signal too. just two questions..is it just aluminium foil ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Folie_2007.jpg ) or some other foil? and behind,is a piece of paper to cover motherboard contacts?
thanks in advance
Any conducting foil should be good enough if you ask me. But look at other threads - about resistance/lenght of the antenna etc. - this one is quite a guess, but should be better than not having antenna at all. By the way, if you have broken antenna (the cover), you could apply this patch to the cover leaving the spring contacts to do the resto fo the job.

And more... A new cover (antenna) on eBay is about 6 pounds? (10 euros?) - is it worth of making this by yourself when you can get a new cover?
 

rickowsky

New member
May 23, 2009
4
0
After having no GPS for about a year and getting annoyed with it not working I accidentally found a post about soldering wire to the contacts.
Well, rather than soldering I wondered if I could make a little tin foil antenna. Works a treat!! Pics below:

Could you please post the URL to that web? I'd like to know how to open that cover

Thanks
 

zphantom1

Senior Member
Mar 21, 2010
76
36
Cassville, MO
Template

Is it possible that you could upload a folding and cutting template? Also, (and I believe it was mentioned a bit back) it appears that you have a piece of paper behind the foil to prevent accidental contact with the board other than on the antenna points. Would something like this also work on the other antenna points?:confused:
 

mitmeister

Member
Jan 3, 2011
15
0
Chennai
Nice idea .. but i am afraid of shorting motherboard contacts... Perhaps any more detail from you in the long run would be appreciated...:)

Also my spring contact broke as soon as i tried to pull it up. so may be soldering a wire would fix my GPS!!!
 

shaz2sxy

Senior Member
Aug 20, 2012
106
16
Tried this. It helped a little but couldnt get a good connection and as soon as i moved the phone it would go :(
probably try to soldier a wire onto it
 

19ninety

Senior Member
Apr 14, 2010
50
3
Oxford
Is it possible that you could upload a folding and cutting template? Also, (and I believe it was mentioned a bit back) it appears that you have a piece of paper behind the foil to prevent accidental contact with the board other than on the antenna points. Would something like this also work on the other antenna points?:confused:

Damn, sorry I missed all the replies!!!
So to make the template I used a craft knife and a board and trial and error cut the paper until it fitted correctly, once I have that done I used that as a template to make the foil.

I used the paper to prevent the foil from touching the motherboard. Its just regular kitchen foil.

To remove the cover I CAREFULLY used a razor blade to lift the side of the cover closest to the camera, its very tight the first time you try and open it, once it been off a couple of times its really easy to do.


To update this methods results, I found it worked for a while but then I started having GRP issues again. I was going to solder a wire in the instead but was due a upgrade so ... HOX ftw.

Soldering a wire in there would be pretty easy using a fine tip on a gas soldering iron, may be a bit more fiddly with a regular fixed bit electric iron but certainly doable. This would be a better fix, though have a look on fleaBay, it may be worth trying a new GPS cover ... I'm certain the issue lies with a really ****ty connection between the motherboard pins and the antenna points on the back of the cover and nothing else.

Sorry again for the slow replies guys, I posted and set for notifications and then forgot about it, was only by chance I found the notifs in my spam folder.
 
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AndroidAdski

Member
Dec 9, 2012
12
18
GPS FIX

If you flash the file attached to this reply it will fix your gps issues :)
 

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xburian

Member
Nov 27, 2012
6
0
If Im flashing it, some error occure and it is aborted.
Im doing something wrong.
Should I rename the file or something like it?
Thanks for reply.

Sent from DHD - Tapatalk
 

mmessass

Member
Jan 5, 2008
5
0
After having no GPS for about a year and getting annoyed with it not working I accidentally found a post about soldering wire to the contacts.
Well, rather than soldering I wondered if I could make a little tin foil antenna. Works a treat!! Pics below:

EDIT: Please dont jump into conclusions too soon as I did! At first I thought tha this fix was working 100% but I then noticed that although I (at last) had a signal it was too weak compared to a 'healthy' gps receiver and the phone lost it as soon as i got in a moving car or changed direction.
I used tinfoil from my kitchen, plain printer paper, a pair of scissors and a cheap modeling knife. I used the 'trial and error' method just like you said and cut out the paper for insulation first. I trimmed holes for the two flash leds and the strange circular part right next to them.. I then cut the tin foil a tad larger than the papers area and I folded its edges all around to keep it from falling apart.
Congratulations for thinking so cleverly. Thank you for uploading and sharing this fix.

Is it possible that you could upload a folding and cutting template? Also, (and I believe it was mentioned a bit back) it appears that you have a piece of paper behind the foil to prevent accidental contact with the board other than on the antenna points. Would something like this also work on the other antenna points?:confused:

With 19ninety's permission I could draft up a template for that and upload it later on.

With
Nice idea .. but i am afraid of shorting motherboard contacts... Perhaps any more detail from you in the long run would be appreciated...:)

Also my spring contact broke as soon as i tried to pull it up. so may be soldering a wire would fix my GPS!!!

EDIT: My spring contact also broke apart but it seems to have little on this fix. If the tinfoil has enough width then it should lie correctly on what remains of the broken spring on the main board. The problem is that after a few days the tinfoil looses some of its width due to continuous stress that we apply on the phone (while holding it or having it in our pockets) and thus loosing contact
 
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19ninety

Senior Member
Apr 14, 2010
50
3
Oxford
This gps fix WORKS 100%. I just tried it and i got instant gps fix using gps test app. I used tinfoil from my kitchen, plain printer paper, a pair of scissors and a cheap modeling knife. I used the 'trial and error' method just like you said and cut out the paper for insulation first. I trimmed holes for the two flash leds and the strange circular part right next to them.. I then cut the tin foil a tad larger than the papers area and I folded its edges all around to keep it from falling apart.
Congratulations for thinking so cleverly. Thank you for uploading and sharing this fix.



With 19ninety's permission I could draft up a template for that and upload it later on.

With


My spring contact also broke apart but it seems to have no affect on this fix. If the tinfoil has enough width then it should lie correctly on what remains of the broken spring on the main board.


Sure you may make a template if it helps anyone else who has this issue :)
 
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    After having no GPS for about a year and getting annoyed with it not working I accidentally found a post about soldering wire to the contacts.
    Well, rather than soldering I wondered if I could make a little tin foil antenna. Works a treat!! Pics below:
    1
    Could you please post the URL to that web? I'd like to know how to open that cover

    Thanks

    It's just round the corner:

    http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1318892


    Sent from my HTC Desire HD using xda app-developers app
    1
    This gps fix WORKS 100%. I just tried it and i got instant gps fix using gps test app. I used tinfoil from my kitchen, plain printer paper, a pair of scissors and a cheap modeling knife. I used the 'trial and error' method just like you said and cut out the paper for insulation first. I trimmed holes for the two flash leds and the strange circular part right next to them.. I then cut the tin foil a tad larger than the papers area and I folded its edges all around to keep it from falling apart.
    Congratulations for thinking so cleverly. Thank you for uploading and sharing this fix.



    With 19ninety's permission I could draft up a template for that and upload it later on.

    With


    My spring contact also broke apart but it seems to have no affect on this fix. If the tinfoil has enough width then it should lie correctly on what remains of the broken spring on the main board.


    Sure you may make a template if it helps anyone else who has this issue :)
    1
    No sense buying new cover, it doesn't help...

    It also worked for me.
    I tested the old one with a DMM and there was a broken circuit, so the antenna was obviously not connected.
    The new cover was perfect, and now I get a lock in about 4-20 seconds, depending on the weather conditions.:victory: