PhysicsGuy
Well-Known Member
I'm having trouble with some new GPS modules I recently purchased. I have three new boards with u-blox GPS modules (a mix of NEO 7M and NEO M8L) and none of them will get a fix even when left under an open sky for several hours.
Background: About 3 years ago, I built a GPS transmitter using a NEO-6M module and an Adafruit LoRa radio. It works great. This year, a friend got me thinking about an upgrade to add Bluetooth to my system and then send the received GPS coordinates right to my phone. I decided it would be good to upgrade the GPS modules at the same time. So I purchased the NEO M8L from an Amazon seller and two NEO-7Ms from an eBay seller in China. However, upon powering them up, none of the units will ever get a fix. To my surprise, all of the units seem to be built on the same board. Here's a picture (the NEO 7M is on the left). Other than the GPS module, the only difference is that one board has an SMA connector already soldered on.
Not shown is a patch antenna which is mounted to the other side of the board. My experience with the system I built a few years ago shows me that the patch antenna is more than sufficient for this application. So, I don't plan to use an external antenna.
All of the boards included a USB interface that I found to be enabled. For more testing, I connected them via USB to the u-center software on my Windows pc. I was able to see that the board is sending NMEA sentences but, since the unit never gets a fix, there is no location data. They seem to be recognized as genuine u-blox modules (or very good clones) and the u-center software allows me to review and edit the configuration.
Does anybody have experience with these boards? Did you have to do anything special to get a fix? Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks.
--MARK NAR 65148 L1
Background: About 3 years ago, I built a GPS transmitter using a NEO-6M module and an Adafruit LoRa radio. It works great. This year, a friend got me thinking about an upgrade to add Bluetooth to my system and then send the received GPS coordinates right to my phone. I decided it would be good to upgrade the GPS modules at the same time. So I purchased the NEO M8L from an Amazon seller and two NEO-7Ms from an eBay seller in China. However, upon powering them up, none of the units will ever get a fix. To my surprise, all of the units seem to be built on the same board. Here's a picture (the NEO 7M is on the left). Other than the GPS module, the only difference is that one board has an SMA connector already soldered on.
Not shown is a patch antenna which is mounted to the other side of the board. My experience with the system I built a few years ago shows me that the patch antenna is more than sufficient for this application. So, I don't plan to use an external antenna.
All of the boards included a USB interface that I found to be enabled. For more testing, I connected them via USB to the u-center software on my Windows pc. I was able to see that the board is sending NMEA sentences but, since the unit never gets a fix, there is no location data. They seem to be recognized as genuine u-blox modules (or very good clones) and the u-center software allows me to review and edit the configuration.
Does anybody have experience with these boards? Did you have to do anything special to get a fix? Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks.
--MARK NAR 65148 L1