GPS Tracking a little OT

[Mike Schwartz]

> On Behalf Of Walter Vaughan
> 
>> ivan wrote:
> 
> > We have experimented with a device that records the data and connects
> > directly to the laptop.  We were not successful on getting this
> > information to download to the laptop so we were not able to get it
> into
> > filePro either.  Apparently the code these devices uses is protected
> > with a high degree of secrecy from the vendors of these products.
> 
> NMEA-0183 ?
> 
> This is not rocket science. Really.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NMEA_0183
> 
> I know people using this http://www.gpsdrive.de/
> as well as http://postgis.refractions.net/

     It's not rocket science.  Even *I* did it... <grin>

     When I bought my 2nd GPS, a Garmin Street Pilot III that had a data
connection on the back, I purchased the Garmin data cable and played around
with pushing and pulling data through it.  The thing uses serial
communications, similar to RS-232.  I am a pilot, and was soon able to build
a filePro database (note the filePro tie in) of GPS coordinates of airports,
air navigation aids and other points that I could load into the Garmin.

     I was also able to pull the "bread crumb" trails out of the unit, so
that I could "play back" my flights using some software I found on the 'Net.
I don't think the bread crumb trails have a time stamp on the dots, so I
don't know if they, alone, would suffice for your purposes.

     That was almost 10 years ago, and I still use that Garmin III as my
main GPS to drive the NavGPS software on my PDA.  The GPS still has all the
original 500 points I programmed into it almost 10 years ago, so if I was on
a flight and my PDA died, I could still use just the GPS as a stand-alone
navigation tool.

    (I've been kind of hoping the Garmin would die, so that I could buy a
fancier aviation GPS, but the little thing just keeps on a ticking.
Actually, I don't need a fancier one, because all I would do is plug it into
the PDA, anyway, and use the NavGPS software.) 

Mike Schwartz