A reader of my site named William H sent me a great tip on looking at the raw GPS data on the Blackjack 2. Here's the nutshell version. I was able to run these instructions on my AT&T BJ2:
- Dial *#9999*0# (don't need to hit the TALK button)
This displays some debug information about the BJ2. Mine looks like this:
WCDMA: Idle
Rx CH: 512, R: -73
Tx CH: 112, Tx Pwr: 0
EcIo: -4, RSCP: -79
SpeechVER : AMR EFR FR
RF: Rx
L1: PCH_Sleep
Drx cycle: 128, PSC: 353
Temp: 89 Batt: 98 LNA: 0
I select the Back button once, and a whole menu is displayed. Hitting the Back button again, I see a menu where option #9 is called "Common", and under there hit #9 for "GPSone test mode". There, you'll see a menu with 4 options:
[0] Enter Standalone GPS
[1] Finish GPS session
[2] Show GPS info
[5] Reset
Anyhow, I hit 0 (zero), then hit the back button twice, hit 9, 9 again to get back to the GPS menu, then hit 2 to see the "show GPS info" menu. At the moment, I'm indoors and GPS won't work. I'll try to play with it again soon. In the meantime, thanks very much for the topic, William H.
As a follow-up ... I had hit the [0] option to start a new GPS session, but forgot to hit [1] to end it after my indoor testing didn't do anything (obviously) -- forgetting to end the session drained my battery from full too zero in about 5 hours. D'oh.
Wanted to find out if anyone else has noticed that after manually starting the GPS and using it with Google maps, or Live maps just long enough to establish a connection, I can then go back into the settings and end my GPS session, however my phone for the remainder of its power up cycle(restarting the phone seems to reset) will still allow me to connect to google maps and initiate GPS that way. I have been able to test this as long as 24hours out and it still works. Was wondering if anyone else has seen this?
If you look in the windows directory with a LOCAL 'real' explorer program (such as Resco Explorer) youwill see all the test an setup programs for everything, GPS included.
1) navigate to the windows directory
2) select menu > view > sort > by Type
then as you scroll down below the .dll's you'll see all the .exe's.
For the GPS in paerticular, look for
GPSLogging.exe
GPSTest.exe
GPSVerification.exe
The reason to do this locally is you can then 'run' the program. If you were to view these files via windows explorer (from your desktop, for example) you couldn't then run the program.
enjoy...
Do you need a data plan to use the GPS?
You'll need a data plan if you're using Google Maps with the GPS. Alternately you can purchase GPS map software (I hear Garmin Mobile XT works great with the BJ2 -- the maps come on a microSD card).