GPS Module Fimware Upgrade?

alex123

I just bought the Cirocomm GPS module. I bought a smilar one (size wise and same pinout) about a year ago. They both send slight different format messages. The old one report its version as:

Copyright (C) Sony Corp. 2001-05 All rights reserved.
Software Version 001092

while the new one sends a NMEA message for the version:

PSRFTXT,Version: GSW3.5.0_3.5.00.00-SDK-3EP2.01 *46

There are differences in other NMEA messages that cause my software to fail.

Is it possible to update the fimware on the old GPS module so they both work the same way?

Publison

alex123 wrote: »

I just bought the Cirocomm GPS module. I bought a smilar one (size wise and same pinout) about a year ago. They both send slight different format messages. The old one report its version as:

Copyright (C) Sony Corp. 2001-05 All rights reserved.
Software Version 001092

while the new one sends a NMEA message for the version:

PSRFTXT,Version: GSW3.5.0_3.5.00.00-SDK-3EP2.01 *46

There are differences in other NMEA messages that cause my software to fail.

Is it possible to update the fimware on the old GPS module so they both work the same way?

Where either one of these Parallax modules? You didn't include any part numbers or data sheets for reference.

alex123

Thanks for the quick reply.

Both modules were bought at Parallax. The one I just bought is PMB-648. The old unit doesn't have this Cirocomm logo on the top and the board says GM BOARD Rev 2.3.

Publison

alex123 wrote: »

Thanks for the quick reply.

Both modules were bought at Parallax. The one I just bought is PMB-648. The old unit doesn't have this Cirocomm logo on the top and the board says GM BOARD Rev 2.3.

I believe your older unit is the Parallax 28146 I have two of these, but they do not display the "Cirocomm" logo as the new ones do.

None the less, a NMEA sentence should look the same from any GPS receiver. The only difference that I know of would be the baud rate and update rate of the new receivers.

Can you show a sentence from each receiver that is causing a problem?

alex123

I don't think that the old module is the 28146 one. It's not sitting on this adapter board. Both my units have the same small connector with six bare wires on it.

The differences are in the time field format in all messages that have this field. The old unit sends just a signle value for the time while the new unit sends the regular NMEA format - hhmmss.ss.

$GPGGA,145618,,N,,W,0,00,,,M,,M,,* (old)
$GPGGA,134314.939,,N,,W,0,00,,61.1,M,-33.6,M,,0000* (new)

I already modified my code so it reads the different GGA format. That was trivial. I was just wondering if the older unit can be updated to send the same NMEA format. This way the code wouldn't have to detect what module type it's dealing with.

Publison

alex123 wrote: »

I don't think that the old module is the 28146 one. It's not sitting on this adapter board. Both my units have the same small connector with six bare wires on it.

The differences are in the time field format in all messages that have this field. The old unit sends just a signle value for the time while the new unit sends the regular NMEA format - hhmmss.ss.

$GPGGA,145618,,N,,W,0,00,,,M,,M,,* (old)
$GPGGA,134314.939,,N,,W,0,00,,61.1,M,-33.6,M,,0000* (new)

I already modified my code so it reads the different GGA format. That was trivial. I was just wondering if the older unit can be updated to send the same NMEA format. This way the code wouldn't have to detect what module type it's dealing with.

That's interesting on the different readouts.

It has been very difficult to get info for all the different GPS modules since a are always a moving target. Some people have cracked the Sony SiiRF code and have made some modifications. I believe there was a SiRF II and a SiRF III standard mixed in the product lines.

I'm glad you got it sorted out.