Ugly GPS Performance While on Travel

[EskimoPie]

I got a new AT&T Nexus 1 about a week and a half ago and have used the GPS a lot around my home town of Tucson, AZ. I've always been very happy with the GPS performance, both in acquisition speed and accuracy. I've even been using it for geo-caching a few times.

Yesterday however I flew to LAX for business and had a LOT of trouble getting a GPS acquisition. I let the GPS run initially for about 20 minutes in google maps and the icon never stopped blinking and it never gave me anything better than the cell-tower based location. I re-booted it a couple of times and after another 10-15 minutes, the GPS indicator icon finally went solid, but google maps then had me positioned in BFE Arizona! I turned off the GPS and re-booted again and the next time after everything came up, it found GPS just fine in under a minute. All this time, a co-worker in the same car had a solid GPS lock with his Treo running google maps.

After this, the GPS worked normally for the remainder of the day, but then again later that evening just wouldn't acquire for about 5 minutes. Anybody else had trouble with GPS acquisition after traveling from one location to another?

 

[ParishyM]

i've played with the GPS a few times and so far it has worked spot on ! Car Home is very cool !

 

[phositadc]

Any chance the smog is so bad in LA that it has trouble seeing the satellites? haha

 

[Air Force One]

I got a new AT&T Nexus 1 about a week and a half ago and have used the GPS a lot around my home town of Tucson, AZ. I've always been very happy with the GPS performance, both in acquisition speed and accuracy. I've even been using it for geo-caching a few times.

Yesterday however I flew to LAX for business and had a LOT of trouble getting a GPS acquisition. I let the GPS run initially for about 20 minutes in google maps and the icon never stopped blinking and it never gave me anything better than the cell-tower based location. I re-booted it a couple of times and after another 10-15 minutes, the GPS indicator icon finally went solid, but google maps then had me positioned in BFE Arizona! I turned off the GPS and re-booted again and the next time after everything came up, it found GPS just fine in under a minute. All this time, a co-worker in the same car had a solid GPS lock with his Treo running google maps.

After this, the GPS worked normally for the remainder of the day, but then again later that evening just wouldn't acquire for about 5 minutes. Anybody else had trouble with GPS acquisition after traveling from one location to another?

sounds like you may have experienced this issue:

Select LA-area iPhones insist they're in Boulder, Colorado -- Engadget

the thread is about iPhones doing this but oddly enough some of the respondents also reported being placed in Arizona in addition to Boulder, CO by their GPS. The issue seems to center around LA for some people.

Here is a copy of one post:

"a very big side note but my verizon tour using google maps it thought i was in the middle of the desert in arizona for a couple days... today getting a correct signal was been dicey"

 

[Lars]

I assume there is no quickgps program on android like on the WM HTC and other smartphones? It loads satellite data off the web to fastboot the gps.

As a stop gap, turn on wifi and you will get instant positioning in GM until the gps finishes booting. Actually I SUSPECT that GM primes the gps by injecting AT commands in the late WM versions.

 

[EskimoPie]

sounds like you may have experienced this issue:

Select LA-area iPhones insist they're in Boulder, Colorado -- Engadget

Interesting... there was some thoughts there that it was related to the lat/lon coordinates that is associated with individual cell towers and WiFi transmitters. If that data is bad, then google maps could position you somewhere else.

I'm not so sure that was the case for me however, as my WiFi was disabled, and the cell-tower based positioning was fairly accurate... at least it had me within the large shaded area of uncertainty. I suspect it was local to the LAX area however as I drove north out of LA into the high desert, the GPS started acting normally. Later that night when I returned to the airport, the GPS started acting wierdly again. But like I said, my co-workers Treo phone was getting solid GPS results the entire time. Perhaps it wasn't using the additional data and relying on the GPS signal only which prevented the confusion. Still weird.

 

[Air Force One]

Yeah it is weird. Your post reminded me of that engadget story. Not sure it's the same issue at all it just reminded me. Hope it all works out for you.

AF1