GPS Receiver

I've got a 1-year-old Toshiba laptop running XP. It has only USB port connections - no DB9 connections found in the older laptops. This has caused a problem with interfacing the boat's GPS's with the laptop, which is running CMap 4.

On Tuesday I purchased a GPS receiver (No brand, part number BU-353) that is in the shape of a flying saucer about 25mm in diameter. It is heavily magnitised and can also be attached with a suction cup. It has a USB connector.

After two hours of fiddling I got the system to work. The receiver sends NMEA-0183 sentences to the laptop. A driver supplied with the receiver manages the USB port in the laptop. CMap 4 was configured to look for the data at the particular port (com4: in my case).

The receiver performs as advertised. It had no trouble acquiring satellites from inside a house with a tile roof, or on a shelf at the navigation table inside Pachuca. It achieves fixes in amazingly short time.

On Pachuca CMap 4 displayed the location of the boat at the 11th double-boat bay of the NE side of D jetty. We checked and sure enough Pachuca is in the 11th bay from the end.

The unit cost me $129 AUD (i.e. Aussie dollars).

I've also ordered a USB-DB9 conversion cable to attempt to connect the Trimble NT200D GPS to the laptop. I figure that redundancy is worth the $49 AUD cost of the cable.

The next task is to visit the PC shop and get a transformer to allow me to run the PC off the boat's 12V system.