Ok, this was what I interpreted as meaning that the Sirf Star II receives signals from GSM networks:<br>
<br>
<blockquote>
"With its
rapid time-to-first-fix and high sensitivity, the SiRFstarIII
architecture is designed to meet the rigorous demands of wireless
and handheld LBS applications, and provides superior location
performance, both indoors and out, for 2G, 2.5G, 3G asynchronous
networks."<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Thats taken from <a href="http://www.sirf.com/products-ss3.html">http://www.sirf.com/products-ss3.html</a><br>
<br>
Nick<br>
<blockquote><br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 7/5/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Nick Black</b> <<a href="mailto:nickblack1@gmail.com">nickblack1@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><br><br><div></div><div><span class="e" id="q_10c3f787ca9a87e1_1"><span class="gmail_quote">On 7/5/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">J.D. Schmidt</b> <<a href="mailto:jdsmobile@gmail.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
jdsmobile@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Nick Black wrote:<br>> On 7/5/06, Andy Armstrong <<a href="mailto:andy@hexten.net" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">andy@hexten.net</a>> wrote:<br>>><br>>> On 5 Jul 2006, at 10:24, Dan Karran wrote:
<br>>> > - it's rather large compared to my eTrex (though it's relatively
<br>>> > light)<br>>><br>>> Huge, innit? :)<br>>><br>>> > - it didn't manage to get a lock on 3 satellites whilst walking to<br>>> > work, whereas I think my eTrex does... I should really have waited to
<br>>> > let it get a lock before walking, but I was late already :)<br>>><br>>> Mine took nearly half an hour to get its head together - I thought it<br>>> was faulty. Eventually it worked where everything was and now it gets
<br>>> a fix within < 1 min from power up and gets a +/- 4m 3d fix shortly<br>>> thereafter.<br>><br>><br>> GPS units can't actually locate themselves anywhere on the Earth. They<br>> need<br>
> to know at least which quater-sphere they are in to be able to carry out
<br>> the<br>> regression necessery to determine their position. That's why the first<br>> time<br>> you use a unit (or if you turn it off, travel a significant distance and<br>> turn it on again) it takes a while to sort itself out. My Garmin GPS 60
<br>> took a good 15 mins to determine my position the first time I turned it on,<br>> and I even told it I was in London.<br><br>If your GPS takes 15 minutes for a first fix, something is wrong with<br>it, especially if it is a newer GPS. What you might be thinking of, is
<br>the fact that it will take about 15 minutes to get a complete ephemeris<br>and almanac down. But the GPS should be able to provide a first fix and<br>be able to provide navigational data long time before that.</blockquote>
</span></div><div><div><br>
First fix from a totally cold start? The last time it was turned
on was in Taiwan, then in London. Do you have a Garmin unit?<br>
</div></div><div><span class="q"><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> > Units with teh Sirf Star III chip<br>> shouldn't have this problem as they using GSM cells to locate themselves as
<br>> well as GPS satellites.<br><br>Oh ? Thats a new one. The SiRF III chipsets are NOT GSM enabled, and do<br>not contain any logic that allows it to pick up GSM cell transmissions.<br>Some multifunction devices that use SiRF III chipsets for the GPS
<br>functions contain additional logic in order to communicate via GSM for<br>updated trafficdata/use as a cellphone, and they might be using the GSM<br>cells for additional locationpositioning.<br>But saying that "Units with the Sirf Star III chip" are using GSM cells
<br>is not correct.</blockquote></span></div><div><div><br>
Thats what I thought until I someone pointed out this article to me:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.sirf.com/Downloads/Collateral/GSC3%28f%29_6.20.05.pdf" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.sirf.com/Downloads/Collateral/GSC3(f)_6.20.05.pdf</a><br>
<br>
and another that I can't find at the moment, think it was on Sirf's website.<br>
<br>
Its about all the documentation I could find about Sirf Star III, the
mention of GSM is a *bit* flakey - the chip must at least be compatible
with GSM receivers then?<br>
<br>
</div><br>
Nick<br>
<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">J.D. "Dutch" Schmidt<br></blockquote></div><br>
</div></blockquote></div><br>