garmin gps' - Page 2

rerunn · 06-08-2002

The RGM2000 is the sapphire

See here:

http://www.royaltek.com/Manuals/rgm-2000.pdf

or here for google'ized html version:

http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:...&hl=en&ie=UTF8

rerunn

lullabud · 06-08-2002

interesting, and cool. strange that they'd advertise all those chips and have a finished product right in there with them, in the naming scheme and everything. very slick though. perhaps we can get 10 people to go in on these? i'm in.

rerunn · 06-08-2002

digging and comparing specs....

The sapphire's position accuracy is rated a 25 meters without SA. In comparision, the etrex's are rated at less than 15 meters and 3-5 meters if the model has dgps. As well, in the velocity accuracy category the etrex seems better with 0.05 m/s accuracy versus the sapphire's 0.1 m/s accuracy.

Can someone with better understanding provide some opinions on these figures. Is the 15 meters versus 25 meters that much of a difference in the gps world??

How much of a diff does the 1 sec sampling rate in the sapphire versus the 2 sec rate in the etrex make?? Is that such a big deal??

How about SA -- I heard that the US government canned this stuff a while back, does this mean that all gps units can take advantage of this??

Many questions... thanks for your time.

lincomatic · 06-08-2002

i think the RGM-2000 is the guts of the sapphire...
meaning GPS engine board/antenna...not the whole thing w/ case/cable.

interesting that the royaltek spec shows those specs. here are the specs directly from SiRF:

http://www.sirf.com/downloads/collat...t%20Insert.PDF

considerably better than what royaltek quotes. actually this is what i've found for GPS's...wildly varying differences in claimed specs for units using the same h/w.

personaly i've found that accuracy ratings are basically meaningless in practice. i've used quite a few different models and from day to day the accuracy fluctuates quite a bit even when they claim to have a low DOP (dilution of precision).

the 2sec sampling rate doesn't really make any difference for stumbling. but if you want to use it w/ navigation software, it's too slow for accurate realtime map tracking...and the voice guidance will lag too much too. i wish someone could convince garmin to let the NMEA update @ 1sec intervals too...no reason for it not to since the same h/w can update @ 1sec intervals in garmin mode.

SA was used to degrade the signal of consumer GPS's. now that it's off all GPS's are automatically more accurate.

btw, leadtek also has a SiRF-II gps mouse, but i don't know if it's been released to retail yet. the one i have is a preproduction sample.

http://www.leadtek.com/gps/gps9532/9532.htm

the leadtek is a little wider and flatter.
btw, both of them have magnets so you can stick them to your roof.

one thing i really like about the SiRF GPS's is there is a little utility that lets you tune everything from baud rate to what NMEA sentences it spits out to even the interval of each sentence.

rerunn · 06-08-2002

From my earlier post (below), the company was offering the rgm2000 with either the ps2 or usb interface in black and gold.

Black and gold colors just like the casing they have posted on royalteks website here:

http://www.royaltek.com/proditem.asp...g1gpsmouse.jpg

Nonetheless, I've emailed them for more info and clarification.

Thanks for the insight, linco.

rerunn

Quote:

Originally posted by rerunn

Thank you for your interest in Tri-M Systems and the products we distribute,
the item you are speaking is a GPS antenna, it comes with two kinds of
interface connecting cable , PS2 or USB and two colors, black or gold.
Here is pricing :

Embedded GPS modules
GPS MOUSE Integrated OEM GPS receiver/antenna combo unit

1 - 9 $119
10 - 99 $106
100 - 499 $94

[/b]

lullabud · 06-08-2002

you know, i was doing all these mathematical calculations of how fast you'd need to be driving in order to achieve the same inaccuracies between 1 second update time and 25 meters of inaccuracy vs 2 second update time and 15 meters of inaccuracy but i was just getting a head ache and it's not worth it... linc is right, it's not that big of a deal on a day to day basis. i mean, what's our requirement for accuracy here? i'd say that 25 meters isn't incredibly bad for marking where on the globe a wireless signal is coming from. my gpsV is supposed to have 15 meters of accuracy too... how wide are streets? all my maps come up as having my waypoints on the street, and since you're probably going to be driving there you'll get the gist of where the network is anyhow. perhaps if i get the sapphire i'll go for a war drive on a specific route with the gpsV and then repeat it with the sapphire to see the difference of AP placement... all in all i think either the etrex yellow or the sapphire would be perfectly fine for war driving.

lincomatic · 06-08-2002

Quote:

Originally posted by rerunn
From my earlier post (below), the company was offering the rgm2000 with either the ps2 or usb interface in black and gold.

Black and gold colors just like the casing they have posted on royalteks website here:

http://www.royaltek.com/proditem.asp...g1gpsmouse.jpg

rerunn

hmm. i guess i was wrong. well, the pricing is only a little higher than what i paid for my evals. talked to our purch guy...he thinks they don't do retail...only dealt w/ us because we are developers.

i have them w/ ps2 and PDA cabling (jornada/ipaq/casio w/ lighter plug).

rerunn · 06-08-2002

Quote:

Originally posted by lullabud
you know, i was doing all these mathematical calculations of how fast you'd need to be driving in order to achieve the same inaccuracies between 1 second update time and 25 meters of inaccuracy vs 2 second update time and 15 meters of inaccuracy but i was just getting a head ache and it's not worth it... linc is right, it's not that big of a deal on a day to day basis. i mean, what's our requirement for accuracy here? i'd say that 25 meters isn't incredibly bad for marking where on the globe a wireless signal is coming from. my gpsV is supposed to have 15 meters of accuracy too... how wide are streets? all my maps come up as having my waypoints on the street, and since you're probably going to be driving there you'll get the gist of where the network is anyhow. perhaps if i get the sapphire i'll go for a war drive on a specific route with the gpsV and then repeat it with the sapphire to see the difference of AP placement... all in all i think either the etrex yellow or the sapphire would be perfectly fine for war driving.

Agreed. This basically takes this thread full circle... I was wanting to know if I should hold on to my etrex legend... I think iam going to take it back... either fot the yellow or wait for the sapphire

lincomatic · 06-08-2002

Quote:

Originally posted by rerunn

Agreed. This basically takes this thread full circle... I was wanting to know if I should hold on to my etrex legend... I think iam going to take it back... either fot the yellow or wait for the sapphire

btw, i know yr in canada, but for the US guys, i saw them @ fry's for $79 (etrex yellow). i agree w/ you about the legend. it sounds kool at first but then you realize the tiny b&w screen and cumbersome controls make the advanced features kind of useless. for mapping/navigation, a pocketpc is better.

lullabud · 06-08-2002

definitely. i'd say for anything non-outdoors a PDA GPS is best. only reason i have a gpsV is because i do mountain climbing and the PDA solutions i've seen don't handle mountaneering very well. however, i'd still considering forking over the dough for a PDA instead of a proprietary GSP only device......
<embed inspirational soundtrack>
::gritting teeth:: still not sure if i did the right thing, but there's no looking back, that bridge has burned.... gotta move on and think about the future...

lincomatic · 06-08-2002

yeah, i agree w/ you..for hiking/mountaineering, the handheld gps is the way to go. a pocketpc w/ CF GPS is nice until the li-ion batteries die after a coupla hrs and yr left in the cold.

blackwave · 06-08-2002

Quote:

Originally posted by lullabud
i'd say that 25 meters isn't incredibly bad for marking where on the globe a wireless signal is coming from.

Luckily the .gov/.mil do not accept these inaccuracies...

lullabud · 06-09-2002

luckily? how is that so luckily? i don't see anything on a day to day basis that requires a GPS signal to be within 25 meters. if i'm going to drive to a WLAN i think i can find my way there within the last 25 meters...

agentgrn · 06-09-2002

Quote:

Originally posted by rerunn
How about SA -- I heard that the US government canned this stuff a while back, does this mean that all gps units can take advantage of this??

SA is pretty much disabled, though the government can fire it up any time it so desires. I heard that it was engaged with just a wee bit of error on 9/11...but since I wasn't using my GPS at the time, I can neither confrim nor deny that.

Another item I can neither confirm nor deny is that you can cook your GPS if you get within one square mile of the White House. However, I'm not in DC and don't quite have the means to undertake that kind of test.

apoLLon · 06-10-2002

If there are some interested guys in germany out there who would love to buy one of the royaltek gps mouse, here are to resellers:

http://www.landolt.de/ (LC-RGM 2000 USB GPS-Maus einschließlich 16% MWSt Euro 229,-)
http://www.hr-tews.de/ (Neu RGM-2000 - USB Euro 233,-- incl. 16 % MwSt. Fracht)

as you can see, the price is quite high, but i thought it might be worth to know where you can by it in germany.

06-08-2002	#16 (permalink)
rerunn rerunn run run Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: way up north Posts: 70	The RGM2000 is the sapphire See here: http://www.royaltek.com/Manuals/rgm-2000.pdf or here for google'ized html version: http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:...&hl=en&ie=UTF8 rerunn Last edited by rerunn : 06-08-2002 at 04:29 PM.

06-08-2002	#17 (permalink)
lullabud Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Silicon Valley Posts: 261	interesting, and cool. strange that they'd advertise all those chips and have a finished product right in there with them, in the naming scheme and everything. very slick though. perhaps we can get 10 people to go in on these? i'm in. Last edited by lullabud : 06-08-2002 at 04:33 PM.

06-08-2002	#19 (permalink)
lincomatic Squaaawk! WiFi! WiFi! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Tinsel Town Posts: 1,682	i think the RGM-2000 is the guts of the sapphire... meaning GPS engine board/antenna...not the whole thing w/ case/cable. interesting that the royaltek spec shows those specs. here are the specs directly from SiRF: http://www.sirf.com/downloads/collat...t%20Insert.PDF considerably better than what royaltek quotes. actually this is what i've found for GPS's...wildly varying differences in claimed specs for units using the same h/w. personaly i've found that accuracy ratings are basically meaningless in practice. i've used quite a few different models and from day to day the accuracy fluctuates quite a bit even when they claim to have a low DOP (dilution of precision). the 2sec sampling rate doesn't really make any difference for stumbling. but if you want to use it w/ navigation software, it's too slow for accurate realtime map tracking...and the voice guidance will lag too much too. i wish someone could convince garmin to let the NMEA update @ 1sec intervals too...no reason for it not to since the same h/w can update @ 1sec intervals in garmin mode. SA was used to degrade the signal of consumer GPS's. now that it's off all GPS's are automatically more accurate. btw, leadtek also has a SiRF-II gps mouse, but i don't know if it's been released to retail yet. the one i have is a preproduction sample. http://www.leadtek.com/gps/gps9532/9532.htm the leadtek is a little wider and flatter. btw, both of them have magnets so you can stick them to your roof. one thing i really like about the SiRF GPS's is there is a little utility that lets you tune everything from baud rate to what NMEA sentences it spits out to even the interval of each sentence. __________________ ~lincomatic Last edited by lincomatic : 06-08-2002 at 05:24 PM.

06-08-2002	#26 (permalink)
lincomatic Squaaawk! WiFi! WiFi! Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Tinsel Town Posts: 1,682	yeah, i agree w/ you..for hiking/mountaineering, the handheld gps is the way to go. a pocketpc w/ CF GPS is nice until the li-ion batteries die after a coupla hrs and yr left in the cold. __________________ ~lincomatic

06-10-2002	#30 (permalink)
apoLLon Olymp's Stumbler Join Date: May 2002 Location: /dev/null Posts: 64	If there are some interested guys in germany out there who would love to buy one of the royaltek gps mouse, here are to resellers: http://www.landolt.de/ (LC-RGM 2000 USB GPS-Maus einschließlich 16% MWSt Euro 229,-) http://www.hr-tews.de/ (Neu RGM-2000 - USB Euro 233,-- incl. 16 % MwSt. Fracht) as you can see, the price is quite high, but i thought it might be worth to know where you can by it in germany. __________________ \|<€€þ !ŧ ®€4\|_, apoLLon ..:: All your 802.11b are belong to us ::..

06-08-2002	#18 (permalink)
rerunn rerunn run run Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: way up north Posts: 70	digging and comparing specs.... The sapphire's position accuracy is rated a 25 meters without SA. In comparision, the etrex's are rated at less than 15 meters and 3-5 meters if the model has dgps. As well, in the velocity accuracy category the etrex seems better with 0.05 m/s accuracy versus the sapphire's 0.1 m/s accuracy. Can someone with better understanding provide some opinions on these figures. Is the 15 meters versus 25 meters that much of a difference in the gps world?? How much of a diff does the 1 sec sampling rate in the sapphire versus the 2 sec rate in the etrex make?? Is that such a big deal?? How about SA -- I heard that the US government canned this stuff a while back, does this mean that all gps units can take advantage of this?? Many questions... thanks for your time.

06-08-2002	#21 (permalink)
lullabud Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Silicon Valley Posts: 261	you know, i was doing all these mathematical calculations of how fast you'd need to be driving in order to achieve the same inaccuracies between 1 second update time and 25 meters of inaccuracy vs 2 second update time and 15 meters of inaccuracy but i was just getting a head ache and it's not worth it... linc is right, it's not that big of a deal on a day to day basis. i mean, what's our requirement for accuracy here? i'd say that 25 meters isn't incredibly bad for marking where on the globe a wireless signal is coming from. my gpsV is supposed to have 15 meters of accuracy too... how wide are streets? all my maps come up as having my waypoints on the street, and since you're probably going to be driving there you'll get the gist of where the network is anyhow. perhaps if i get the sapphire i'll go for a war drive on a specific route with the gpsV and then repeat it with the sapphire to see the difference of AP placement... all in all i think either the etrex yellow or the sapphire would be perfectly fine for war driving.

06-08-2002	#25 (permalink)
lullabud Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Silicon Valley Posts: 261	definitely. i'd say for anything non-outdoors a PDA GPS is best. only reason i have a gpsV is because i do mountain climbing and the PDA solutions i've seen don't handle mountaneering very well. however, i'd still considering forking over the dough for a PDA instead of a proprietary GSP only device...... <embed inspirational soundtrack> ::gritting teeth:: still not sure if i did the right thing, but there's no looking back, that bridge has burned.... gotta move on and think about the future...

06-09-2002	#28 (permalink)
lullabud Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Silicon Valley Posts: 261	luckily? how is that so luckily? i don't see anything on a day to day basis that requires a GPS signal to be within 25 meters. if i'm going to drive to a WLAN i think i can find my way there within the last 25 meters...

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