Buy a GPS PDA Receiver

petchy

Hi guys,

Im about to inheret a PDA - A Fujitsu Siemens LOOX one. Quite newish.

The PDA will come with TomTom on it (the previous owner is leaving it on for me)
So i now need a PDA GPS Receiver to get it to work!

Ive been having a look on the net and seen that you can get Compact Flash Receivers, these seem great as i wont have to have any wires, so my question is;

a) are they any good?
b)where can you get them from and how much roughly are they?
c)does anyone have a reccomended one
d)will any receiver work with tomtom software
e)what are my other options apart from the CF card!

Hope someone can help!

cheers!

comdw

a) Yes, but bear in mind these rely on clear line of sight to satellites, yet you'll want to position your pda where you can see the screen so there is a balance to be struck. Other types of receiver give you more flexibility.

b) Google search for websites that sell them (there are many). Usually around £60-£100.

c) There are good reviews and comparisons of many receivers at pocketgpsworld.co.uk

d) Its quite likely

e) You can use a serial wired GPS receiver (wires can be untidy) or if your PDA has bluetooth you can get a bluetooth wireless receiver. The bluetooth option gives you the most flexible solution IMO.

pre-reg

iam also on the lookout for a GPS reciever for the dell axim x50v iam about to buy, the link below is excellant for reviews etc....

http://palmgpsworld.veriovps.co.uk/menu_gpshardware.php

bordercars

i have a pocket loox pc with tom tom on it, i have a wired gps receiver and it works fine, bought a cradle and power goes to it which also runs a speaker plus gps receiver. dont know about yours but mine is not bluetooth so it will have to be cflash or wired.
i'm also on the lookout for a bluetooth gps receiver to match with an imate jam if anyone knows a good spot to look at

Jnelhams

I have both a Solar Assisted Bluetooth GPS receiver and a wired GPS receiver for my Ipaq PDA. Both have their merits, especially if the Bluetooth one runs out of charge on a long journey, that's where cable wins hands down.
If you search Ebay you'll find lots expect to find a Bluetooth for about £40-£50 for it. (Ideally you want one that says Sirf III or II)

Dont bother with Compact Flash or Smart Media if you can avoid, A) they stick up and can break off. If you change PDA to say Palm it wont work!

When you come to install it in TomTom this can be a bit of a pig, you should have a driver disk which may or may not work on your pda. What you need to do is make sure that under Bluetooth Management on Ipaq that you partner the receiver first, then in TomTom you will need to go into Change Preferences, GPS STATUS, configure, and try first TOMTOM Bluetooth device, if that fails to receive a signal after 60 seconds, try wireless gps, check that your baud rate is the same as receiver (normally 9600) and that you select Bluetooth port, if that fails, try all the other ports, usb, cable, etc.
If that fails select Other NMEA CABLE, then select Bluetooth as the port - odd but that works with mine. Hope that helps!

Little_John

Im not sure about the CF GPS cards but I almost bought a SDio card for my pda same type of thing just my pda didnt have a Compact flash slot just an SD card slot. I then remembered that the GB map is about 100mb in size and I would need to store it on a memory card to feee up space for programs on the pda. a makor problem when you think about the memory card slot being use for the gps receiver.

I bought a bluetooth holux GPslim 236 ages ago for £120 I think it has been brilliant, I bought a 2nd one for my sister and gave her my old pda which was abut £50 less. I have also bought a few holox bluetooth gps units they dont have the same build quality as the holux but for about £40 who cares they work just as well.

I bought all the GPS units from UK sellers on ebay.

Line of sight isnt really required I can use the holux ones in the house not near windows either and it is sat in the centre console of my car and works fine. The real advantage of a bluetooth receiver is it can be transfered between other pda/devices that are bluetooth capable.