PDA and Etrex (or Bluetooth)

emeryco · Post by **emeryco** » 23 October 06 6:31 pm

I have an etrex and and XDA II PDA. I am wanting to be able to link them so that I can pinpoint actual location on maps and possibly move waypoints on and off the etrex / PDA. I understand that there is a way to cable connect the 2 units. Does anyone have experience with this? My alternative is to buy a bluetooth GPS unit. Can anyone recommend a unit that offers good value and performance? Thanks

emeryco · Post by **emeryco** » 28 October 06 12:31 pm

Well I now have the cable from Johny Appleseed. All we have to do now is to get the GPS signal from the etrex to be recognised on the PDA. I am working with OziExplorer CE and get pretty close but do not know what the various settings should be. I am not sure which port is active on the PDA, (It says Com 1 is in use) Oh well a bit of surfing the various web sites might be called for.

JackHenry · Post by **JackHenry** » 28 October 06 3:54 pm

Hi

I use a Blue Tooth GPS on my PDA. Have a look under 'Settings - Connections' You may find that the port is listed in there. It is on my HP4150.

One of the issues i found with GPS was that it will only intergrate with one application at a time. To have it talk to more than one (Beeline and Destinator for example) I use GPS gate.

http://franson.com/gpsgate/

I'm not sure if you'll need to do that with a serial connection but I think you will

Beeline is well worth having a look at too

http://www.visualgps.net/BeeLineGPS/default.htm

Good luck

zactyl · Post by **zactyl** » 28 October 06 9:00 pm

I'd guess from my limited experimentation with OziExplorer, that you'd need the etrex in NMEA mode. Go to Setup | Interface | NMEA Out

Ebenezer · Post by **Ebenezer** » 30 October 06 6:25 am

Ozi understands the Garmin PVT. I guess you just need to make sure that the settings you set in your eTrex ("Garmin" or "NMEA") match those for Ozi.

If you use NMEA I think you need to set the COM speed in Ozi to 4800. If you use PVT then you set it to 9600.

zactyl · Post by **zactyl** » 30 October 06 12:51 pm

Ebenezer wrote:Ozi understands the Garmin PVT. I guess you just need to make sure that the settings you set in your eTrex ("Garmin" or "NMEA") match those for Ozi.

If you use NMEA I think you need to set the COM speed in Ozi to 4800. If you use PVT then you set it to 9600.

Thanks for correcting me Ebenezer, good to have someone who knows what they're talking about