Category: Techie

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Nissan GTR!!

*Pics Courtesy of Larry Chen

Dang… This car is going to be sooooooooooooo sweet!! Hey Dad, can you buy me one?!! 😛

Seriously, weighing in at 3800 lbs and with a price sticker of under $80,000, this reminds me of the first ime NSX came out to the public!! Very nice usage of retro look with sharp edges and corners.  Click on the link or the picture to see more pics of this beautiful car!!

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GlobalSat BT 328 Bluetooth GPS unit Review

So… I found GlobalSat BT 328 for $35 shipped off www.buygpsnow.com thanks to Hong!

It is a Bluetooth GPS unit that is about the size of a lighter!
Here’s the listed spec:

Electrical Characteristics (Receiver)
Chipset SiRF GSC2
Frequency L1, 1575.42 MHz
C/A Code 1.023 MHz chip rate
Channels 12
Tracking Sensitivity -155 dBm
Accuracy
Position Horizontal 10m 2D RMS
WAAS enabled 5m 2D RMS
Time 1 micro-second synchronized to GPS time
Velocity 0.1m/sec 95%
Datum
Datum WGS-84
Acquisition Rate
Hot start 8 sec., average (with ephemeris and almanac valid)
Warm start 38 sec., average (with almanac but not ephemeris)
Cold start 42 sec., average (neither almanac nor ephemeris)
Reacquisition 0.1 sec. average (interruption recovery time)
Protocol
GPS Output Data NMEA 0183 protocol, and supports command: GGA, GSA, GSV, RMC, VTG, GLL (VTG and GLL are optional)
GPS transfer rate 38400,N,8,1
Dynamic Condition
Acceleration Limit Less than 4g
Altitude Limit 18,000 meters (60,000 feet) max.
Velocity Limit 515 meters/sec. (1,000 knots) max.
Jerk Limit 20 m/sec**3
Power
Voltage Built-in rechargeable battery (1300 mAh) and 5V DC input charging circuit
Operation Time 16 hr. After fully recharged, in continuous mode
Physical Characteristics
Dimension 67.5mm x 45mm x 17mm
Weight 65g
Temperature
Operating -20¢X~ 60¢XC
Humidity Up to 95% non-condensing

Bluetooth Specification

* Bluetooth: V1.2 Compliant
* Supply Voltage: 2.8V ~ 3.3V
* Frequency Range: 2.402 ~ 2.480 GHz
* Receiver Sensitivity: -80 dBm
* Transmit Power: Class 2
* Transmitting Range: 10 m
* Power Consumption: 45 mA (Typical)

I’ve had my Samsung i-730 for almost a year now and since I got Google Maps for it and with unlimited data package with Verizon Wireless, I decided to give this GPS thing a try. My PDA phone has Windows Mobile 5 so it was a bit different to setup.

There was a addendum to setup your GPS wit WM5 and I was more or less on my way! Basically, you have to set it up like any other Bluetooth device detection method. Turn on GPS first, have your WM5-device search for a BT device, and select it and assign it a COM port.

You then assign a new Outgoing COM port to it. Then in “Settings” –> “System” –> “GPS”, make sure you set it up for same COM port in “Hardware” port setting and set it for 4800 baud setting.

I have Google Maps 1.2.0.18 installed and once I clicked “Track Location”, I began to see blue dot on the map and as I drove home from work last night, I saw my location moving!! It is the best $35 I’ve spent!

There’s a car charger so you can charge it and placement doesn’t seem to be too sensitive as I left it in my center console.  This would also work on a laptop with Bluetooth and a mapping software…  Overall, I give it

9/10 for no-nonsense awesome GPS!