USB GPS Receiver

[justin3085]

I have a USB GPS Receiver that I connect to the USB port no matter which one and it doesn't recognize it at all. It WILL recognize USB flash drives however.

I've bounced around with Google and I may not be searching for it properly but I just cannot get it to recognize this receiver. I am trying to use it with Sea Clear II software to use the laptop as a chartplotter on my boat. The software needs to know which com port the device is on but since it wont recgonize the unit I cannot find it.

I've used lsusb so far and no devices come up.

I've also used a few other commands but I'm at my in-laws house and I cannot recall them off hand. Any ideas? Thanks

-Justin

[dawgdoc]

I use a USB GPS receiver on my laptop. I am using a TangoGPS as a frontend, rather than Sea Clear II.

I had to install gpsd and gpsd-clients packages before I could get the GPS device detected. Before using the TangoGPS software I must start gpsd in terminal. the command I use is

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gpsd -n -N -D 2 /dev/ttyUSB0

I then start tangogps
-n =don't wait for client connects to poll GPS
-N =don't go into background
-D integer (default 0) =set debug level

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gpsd -h

lists the switches and will give you a list of driver types compiled into your instance of gpsd

[justin3085]

Ok I ran that and got this return:

gpsd: launching (Version 2.39)
gpsd: Can't bind to port gpsd
gpsd: Maybe gpsd is already running!

I did try tangogps but might not be using it right as it doesnt "locate' me. I do have clear view for the antenna.

I'm more concerned with Sea Clear for boating and I cannot seem to figure out which 'com port' it wants.

I also checked the drivers and the one i need is installed.

[dawgdoc]

I didn't mean to imply that you use tangogps, only that it also being a GPS program, required me to start gpsd before starting it.

You can check if gpsd is already running by entering this in a terminal

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lsmod | grep gpsd

I don't have my gps antenna with me at the moment and therefore can not show you the exact output when it is running, but it should be something like these:

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ieee80211_crypt        13444  2 ieee80211_crypt_tkip,wl
video                  25360  5 
output                 11008  1 video

only substitute gpsd for any of the modules I cut and pasted.

[dawgdoc]

I just checked the repositories and did not find Sea Clear II. Did a google search and found that it is Windows software that is reported to run well under Wine, I take it this is what you are doing. I see that it received a Gold rating in Wine in August of 2008 running Xandros, which is a debian derivative, and version 0.9.53 of Wine.

I did find this

When I run SeaClear under wine in Linux (my preferred configuration), no external driver is needed (so much for Linux having hardware issues not seen in Windows), and Sea Clear has to look for the GPS on Com 4.

on this page.

This may be of help regarding the port

The gps is a USB device.
First I installed gpsd and then made a link as below to use com3
As root.
ln -sb /dev/ttyUSB0 /dev/ttyS2
ttyS2 is equivilent to com 3.

I can not recall if I did something similar or not.

I did some more searching and found this as an alternative to Sea Clear

As Ralph mentioned, SeaClear II runs under Wine and quite well. MapCal II, an important part of SeaClear II, also works. SeaClear II is able to display both GPS and AIS data via NMEA 0183 through a serial connection (or a serial-USB converter cable). Under Wine there are a few glitches installing the SeaClear II documentation, but otherwise it's a go.

However the real gunslinger (mentioned earlier by Carter and others) is OpenCPN, which is available in a Debian package and installs easily on Ubuntu (the .deb package can be converted to .rpm for installation on Fedora as discussed in the OpenCPN forums on Cruising Forums). OpenCPN (currently 1.3.6 plus a few betas) is truly open source, which SeaClear II is not even though it's "free." SeaClear II has seen little or no development in recent years, while OpenCPN is under very active development. That doesn't mean OpenCPN is full of bugs and clunky. It's quite robust and capable and can display most non-proprietary chart formats including .bsb, CM93, ENC, .HDR, etc. It also displays Grib weather and AIS data, and has good route handling capability with .gpx import and export. I have used it on board since August 2009 running alongside several other packages, including Coastal Explorer, Fugawi, Chart Navigator Pro, SeaClear, MaxSea, Nobeltec Admiral, Capn Voyager, and probably a few others that just now elude me (even moderation can be carried to excess). OpenCPN is truly fine.

Take a look at www.opencpn.org , especially if you have a background in development and want to join the fun

Contrary to what this last post states, I noted that Sea Clear II had updates in 2009.
I found a site that talked about configuring Sea Clear with a Garmin GPS, didn't sea where you said the type you used.
If you are using a USB-Serial Port adaptor check this page on How to enable USB-Serial Port adapter (RS-232) in Ubuntu Linux

[justin3085]

Thanks for the replies. I ended up trouble shooting the antenna and it turns out it was faulty. A new one is on its way so hopefully I can get it up and running. I also pulled away from SeaClear II and yes I was operating it under Wine. all seemed well except for the antenna not working. I'll let you know how the new antenna works out for me!