maestro/trekker updatige :)

[rdfreak]

So I've had an interesting twelve hours of trekker/maestroness! well, not really as I did actually sleep!
but after finding out the tutorial on CD was exactly the same as the online one I had downloaded from the humanware site, I was listening to that yesterday afo and familiarizing myself with the layout of the keys, etc.
then i actually connected to trekker and was attempting to get signal inside (as I'd heard some people can do if they're lucky.) not for me! I went outside near my front door, but still nothing. I moved a few inches towards my steps and all of a sudden, it announced it had six satellites - kept on going back and forth between five and six.) then I started to walk down me drive and it told me I was facing Main street!
anyway I came in and did some more mucking around, then, phone rang, and after the call, I turned it on but nothing happened. (this is where I copy an email I just wrote to the aus list to save me some repetition.)

Hi again all,
just an update. I was using it a lot yesterday naturally, and all of a sudden, it stopped working. wouldn't turn on. I didn't think it was the battery at all, because it had kept reminding me prior (eg. every time we go into trekker, etc) that it was at 52%. mind you, I guess it kept going down 1% every time it made the battery status announcement.
so, I had thought I should reset it, but I hadn't even figured out where the stylus was.
anyway, this morning I looked at the unit again, and I happened to find the stylus, so I reset it (as I'd also figured out where the reset hole was). nothing happened. then I thought I'd plug it in and reset it, nothing, but then as I went to do other things, i heard a chime (the quick reference made out this would happen straight away, or that's how I read it). anyway so it reset itself. But then I found out it wouldn't turn on again after turning it off without another reset. I gathered maybe it needs a bit of charge in it before it will turn on properly without the reset.
so, without all that babble, I guess it was the battery, and the gage was wrong!
so now I have it on charge, and after about five mins of leaving it on charge, it beeped, which i guessed may have meant it was fine to turn on normally, so I tried and sure enough it worked.
does anyone know how accurate the battery status announcements actually are? (cos in my case, that wasn't.)
sorry to babble; just pleased that I finally figured out what was going on.
Cheers!

so even before humanware people have called me back, I figured it out. (I called R this morning but it divertted to Syd. :)
so I guess, since stupid me could have been charging it last night and didn't ahve the powerpoint switched on (grrr) it would have been fine otherwise, but I will have to wait now! oh, am also charging the GPS receiver as well from that splitter.
Maybe I should actually go and install activeSync. And I'm thinking of changing over to outlook at home as well as work, as that's what PDA uses obviously; always outlook! but eudora crashes a bit so maybe it's a good thing.
Oh we all had a good time last night celebrating Dad's b/day. we went to Zigami's, but as usual for there lately, I ordered a non-pleasantish meal - a rizotto-polo. the rice was all gluggy! *grr! anyway I figured I couldn't force myself to eat that! so, I kinda had bits of other meals and I was OK. -- the other time i had ordered Lasanya and didn't like that too much; plus it was cold! -- but I should have ordered chicken snitzel or something I knew I would have liked; just love trying new things! .. But we had some really awesome prachetta (excuse spelling) for entrae) and that was to die for!
then when we were about to leave, I went to grab ang's arm but her and parents decided to embarrass me un-necessarily and tell me it was someone elses. ah well! my heart-rate just went up for a while!
then we went back to parents place and chilled for a while and had some chocolate biscuits etc, (cartwheels - just the same as minny wagonwheels.)
til next time, RdFreak

Comments

battery gauge

[khoath.livejournal.com]

Battery gauges are not accurate for various reasons. If you plot the voltage of a battery over the lifecycle of the battery the voltage will start at 5.6v for 10% of the lifespan, fall to 5v for 80% of battery life then fall off for the last 10% of the battery's life. This is why a mobile phone stays on 7 bars for what seems like forever then falls rapidly to 6 5 4 3 2 stays at 2 or 1 bar for ages and goes flat. If the gauge is time based; you need to fully charge the battery to reset the gauge then it should track accurately unless the battery goes completely flat. GPS should run for at least 10 hours on a full charge, which is awhile if you turn it off when not in use. as for no signal indoors, it depends what roof material you have; gps signals don't get through concrete well. A gps fix takes 47 seconds from cold start, assuming a view of the sky. 32 seconds from warm start, and <1 second from hot start if the aphemeris from the satelites has not changed. For best results you should get your initial fix with a direct view to the sky; and stand still until you have the fix. If you move around; the unit will take longer to lock onto a minimum number of satelites. Once you have the fix the unit will calculate your possition using dead reckning if necessary. 3 satelites are required for minimum fix; you need 4 satelites for altitude. This is because you actually are calculating the intercection of 4 spheres. I'll shut up now. As you can tell gps is a hobby of mine. If you want to talk about gps and accuracy behaviour, functioning and the like, I am familiar with pdas and gps so happy to help. Enjoy your trecker.

Re: battery gauge

[rdfreak.livejournal.com]

wow, i had always wondered why my phone behaved as you described. it's so misleading, cos I'm of course thinking 'right, it's still got all its charge" then it will fall big time!
and thanks for the info on battery gage. I guess maybe I should have charged from the start though obviously I thought "maybe it's OK".
and yeh, I did hear three or four was the minimum for it to work! "they" say we could get away with keeping the GPS receiver in our pocket but I'd guess that wouldn't exactly give us the maximum results. I'll have to see. :)

Re: battery gauge

[khoath.livejournal.com]

I keep my gps in my top pocket; and it will work in my pants pocket. You can also put it in a mobile phone holder and clip it to the strap of a handbag. If you hold the unit up and allow it to fix; you can then stuff it in your pocket once it has the fix.

Re: battery gauge

[rdfreak.livejournal.com]

what system do you use? one in the mobile phone?

Re: battery gauge

[khoath.livejournal.com]

I use loadstone, http://www.loadstone-gps.com runs on all series 60 mobile phones from the 6600 up. You mark your own points. I also run nokia maps on my n70 but it is a bit slow and clunky.