I tried something this weekend that might have helped with my GPS. Anybody wanna try reproducing the results?
First off, my Captivate's GPS had been deteriorating over the past couple months. None of the usual fixes seemed to help at all. So I started messing with things and eventually came up with this:
1. Get into the LbsTestMode menu (Call *#*#3214789650#*#* on Froyo)
2. Go to Application Settings
3. Set Operation Mode to Standalone, Start Mode to Cold start, Accuracy to 300
4. Back on the main menu, hit Delete GPS Data
5. Put the phone somewhere with decent GPS reception (outside or near a window)
6. Go to Get Position Test and leave it until it locks (could take half an hour)
7. Wait 4 hours and repeat steps 5 and 6
8. Wait another 4 hours and repeat steps 5 and 6
9. Go back to the Application Settings and set Operation Mode to MS Based, Start Mode to Hot start
After doing this, I'm now getting GPS lock within 30 seconds, even indoors. I just took it out for a test drive and, while it drifted a bit a couple times, it never actually lost the GPS lock. This is a major improvement over last week, when it wasn't even sure what city I was in.
So, what's the reasoning behind all this? Well, what I was attempting to do was force the phone to locate each of the GPS satellites on its own, without assistance. The 4-hour repeat thing was to try and get a view of all the satellites. They're all in roughly 12-hour orbits, so 4 hours would work out to 1/3 of an orbit. I'm assuming that roughly 1/3 of them are in range at any given time.
As it turns out, I got about 7 or 8 satellites on each try, so more like 1/4 of the full set. Still pretty decent, though, given that I had the phone propped up in my kitchen window.
Like I said, I think this made a difference but it's hard to tell. I tried something else a few weeks ago that seemed to help too but it reverted bad to crap after a couple days. We'll see what happens this time.
First off, my Captivate's GPS had been deteriorating over the past couple months. None of the usual fixes seemed to help at all. So I started messing with things and eventually came up with this:
1. Get into the LbsTestMode menu (Call *#*#3214789650#*#* on Froyo)
2. Go to Application Settings
3. Set Operation Mode to Standalone, Start Mode to Cold start, Accuracy to 300
4. Back on the main menu, hit Delete GPS Data
5. Put the phone somewhere with decent GPS reception (outside or near a window)
6. Go to Get Position Test and leave it until it locks (could take half an hour)
7. Wait 4 hours and repeat steps 5 and 6
8. Wait another 4 hours and repeat steps 5 and 6
9. Go back to the Application Settings and set Operation Mode to MS Based, Start Mode to Hot start
After doing this, I'm now getting GPS lock within 30 seconds, even indoors. I just took it out for a test drive and, while it drifted a bit a couple times, it never actually lost the GPS lock. This is a major improvement over last week, when it wasn't even sure what city I was in.
So, what's the reasoning behind all this? Well, what I was attempting to do was force the phone to locate each of the GPS satellites on its own, without assistance. The 4-hour repeat thing was to try and get a view of all the satellites. They're all in roughly 12-hour orbits, so 4 hours would work out to 1/3 of an orbit. I'm assuming that roughly 1/3 of them are in range at any given time.
As it turns out, I got about 7 or 8 satellites on each try, so more like 1/4 of the full set. Still pretty decent, though, given that I had the phone propped up in my kitchen window.
Like I said, I think this made a difference but it's hard to tell. I tried something else a few weeks ago that seemed to help too but it reverted bad to crap after a couple days. We'll see what happens this time.
