GPS/GSM Tracker

[snoopy]

Hi guys just joined the forum, been following this thread for some time now and decided to get one of the tracker units from ebay, ordered the unit and the same day the supplier "incutex" was removed as a "no longer registered member", but luckily the unit turned up. Bought the vodafone sim card and everything looked like it was going well, but the tracker unit sends the lats and longs in the incorrect format. Normally its degrees, minutes and seconds which look like this "50.47'045 & 001.44'19 but my units is giving the readings as 50.783998 & 001.734968 which doesn't match any GPS coordinates I know. I was just wondering if anyone else has had this problem and is there some way of changing the units programming to give out the coordinates in the normal way, the instructions I have do not mention anything about this, just hope I have not bought a duff one from a unregistered seller in china, any help or advice would be appreciated.

Lew

[Poly]

Originally Posted by snoopy

Hi guys just joined the forum, been following this thread for some time now and decided to get one of the tracker units from ebay, ordered the unit and the same day the supplier "incutex" was removed as a "no longer registered member", but luckily the unit turned up. Bought the vodafone sim card and everything looked like it was going well, but the tracker unit sends the lats and longs in the incorrect format. Normally its degrees, minutes and seconds which look like this "50.47'045 & 001.44'19 but my units is giving the readings as 50.783998 & 001.734968 which doesn't match any GPS coordinates I know. I was just wondering if anyone else has had this problem and is there some way of changing the units programming to give out the coordinates in the normal way, the instructions I have do not mention anything about this, just hope I have not bought a duff one from a unregistered seller in china, any help or advice would be appreciated.

Lew

The decimal representation is correct. if you google you should be able to find a conversion - otherwise post again and I will explain when sober!

[Channel Ribs]

On a slight digression (new thread needed perhaps), how does the Sentinel stack up against the eBay tracker?

www.yacht-sentinel.com

[snoopy]

Originally Posted by Polwart

The decimal representation is correct. if you google you should be able to find a conversion - otherwise post again and I will explain when sober!

Thanks for that info, found a conversion from decimal to degrees but still would prefer the coordinates sent in degrees as my iphone doesn't recognize the decimal format nor does google earth and converting everytime is going to be a pain, the instructions sent with my unit are very basic, I was hoping there was a text instruction you could send to the unit to change the information from decimal to degrees. Leapy who started this thread may have more detailed intructions as he advised how to change the time zone earlier in this thread, this info is not anywhere on my instructions, anyway thanks for the response, at least its giving the correct coordinates but in decimal format.

Lew

[Poly]

Snoopy good luck! I suspect it will be easier to find the setting in Google Earth / iPhone to allow you to enter GPS coordinates in decimal format (I haven't checked but I am fairly sure both will accept it - and indeed almost certainly use decimal coordinated internally within their software).

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Leapy

Who says?

I spoke to Xexun and bought one from them directly. The new one has already proven to be much more reliable and I have not had a single false alarm since I installed it. The clone I had from eBay would not last more than a few hours before sending me a warning text to say it had moved. And as for the Geo fence that never worked at all as the unit would not accept a negative number on the longtitude which is kinda essential in this country.

Also the Xexun allows you to run a battery and a 12v supply which the clone does not. So if my 12v supply fails or is disconnected the unit will still function.

If you just want a unit that texts you when you phone it then the clone will probably be fine and in fact one advantage of the clone is it send you that link that points you at the map. On the Xexun model there is no link, just coordinates.

I wanted something that I did not have to monitor all the time, something that would just txt me when the boat is on the move. THe Xexun one has proved to be much more suitable. I was getting so many false alarms with the clone that I was just starting to ignore the texts which made the whole thing pointless.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by snoopy

Thanks for that info, found a conversion from decimal to degrees but still would prefer the coordinates sent in degrees as my iphone doesn't recognize the decimal format nor does google earth and converting everytime is going to be a pain, the instructions sent with my unit are very basic, I was hoping there was a text instruction you could send to the unit to change the information from decimal to degrees. Leapy who started this thread may have more detailed intructions as he advised how to change the time zone earlier in this thread, this info is not anywhere on my instructions, anyway thanks for the response, at least its giving the correct coordinates but in decimal format.

Lew

Google Earth do accept the coordinates in this format. For example try these in the "fly to" bit.

51.650266, -002.437460

[snoopy]

Originally Posted by Chris

Google Earth do accept the coordinates in this format. For example try these in the "fly to" bit.

51.650266, -002.437460

You're right, thanks to Polwarts advice I tried again on both the iphone and google earth and it works just fine, I was just putting in too many full stops and spaces. I'm not sure which hardware/software version I have but I do not get the link to take it to a a map, just the coordinates, time, speed etc. as the xenun version, also tried the move option which worked fine, it txt'd me when I was about 1km away from home, I have not tried any of the other options yet. I have not connected the hard wired battery charger yet, will play with that later this week, hopefully it will work ok, but so far pleased with the unit.

[Avocet]

Coincidentally, I've just come across the same problem transposing waypoints from the almanac/chart to Google Earth. The default in Google Earth is 'Degrees, Minutes, Seconds' but this can be changed to 'Degrees, Decimal minutes' in the 'Show Lat/Long' option in Tools/Options/3D View. It then corresponds with the nautical figures without having to multiply the decimal by 60 to enter the waypoint into Google Earth.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by snoopy

You're right, thanks to Polwarts advice I tried again on both the iphone and google earth and it works just fine, I was just putting in too many full stops and spaces. I'm not sure which hardware/software version I have but I do not get the link to take it to a a map, just the coordinates, time, speed etc. as the xenun version, also tried the move option which worked fine, it txt'd me when I was about 1km away from home, I have not tried any of the other options yet. I have not connected the hard wired battery charger yet, will play with that later this week, hopefully it will work ok, but so far pleased with the unit.

Soundslike you have the original unit then