[matthayichen]

Hi, I have a 5230 Nuron (less than a month old, in India). I have set the GPS to satellite only, with no A-GPS. I have a couple of issues:

1. The altitude is impossibly wrong. I am at least 70 or 80 meters above sea level now, but the phone reasonably consistently claims -65m. I assume that the negative means below sea level. The accuracy is around 50m or so, and wildly fluctuating.

2. The GPS rarely receives more than the bare minimum of satellites and I often get the indoor reception warning popup even when I am outdoors in an open space. It doesn't show any satellites at all indoors or if it's not in the windscreen mount in a car. I never get a location accuracy better than 30-50m no matter where I am. Is this normal?

[farby]

Regarding altitude - Did you ever calibrate the Altitude...

In GPS Data settings there is an option for this... Do this and then see if it shows correctly henceforth..

If you are using Integrated GPS then the signals will solely depend on the small chip within the phone.. Any obstruction to open sky as well as bad  / cloudy / rainy weather will hamper the signals and GPS will not work correctly..Indoors it will not work at all..

--------------------------------------------------​--------------------------------------------------​--------------------------------------------------​--If you find this helpful, pl. hit the White Star in Green Box...
.

[farby]

Oh scoobyman.. posting at the same time it seems..

[scoobyman]

As farby so rightly says if you go to Menu > Applications > Location > GPS Data > Position > Options > Settings you will find this screen: 

5230 Location Altitude

I am currently indoors with very windy conditions outside and 5230 is just holding position showing three blue bars.

You find this post interesting concerning accuracy of 5230: 

5230 Geocache

[noplayback]

I also did calibrate my altitude.

Had 2 Nokia Phones so far, both showing a offset of approximately 50 meters.....

I remember having seen an article talking about a systematic fault in GPS reception which leads to failures in height, but can not recall details.

So .... i think what i want to say is that i assume that almost everybody will see such kind of failure, the altitude is much more off than the long-lat-position....

[farby]

Just to clarify one point in the link pasted by scoobyman

/t5/Maps-Navigation-and-GPS/GPS-signal-strenght-and-accuracy-of-Nokia-phones/m-p/795274/highlight/tr...

 I have not confirmed the Altitude accuracy as it is not always possible to do..

--------------------------------------------------​--------------------------------------------------​--------------------------------------------------​--If you find this helpful, pl. hit the White Star in Green Box...
.

[matthayichen]

No luck. I went to Menu > Applications > Location > GPS Data > Position and then options like you wrote. The four options I have are

Show open apps.

Satellite status

Help

Exit

Either I am missing something or my firmware (latest on ovi suite) is missing something.

Thanks,

Matt

[scoobyman]

---

matthayichen wrote:

No luck. I went to Menu > Applications > Location > GPS Data > Position and then options like you wrote. The four options I have are

Show open apps.

Satellite status

Help

Exit

---

Hi matthayichen

Thank you for bringing to my attention that it appears to be slightly different in 5230 Nuron from my 5230 which shows these options on this screen: 

Settings options

[farby]

---

scoobyman wrote:

As farby so rightly says if you go to Menu > Applications > Location > GPS Data > Position > Options > Settings you will find this screen: 

5230 Location Altitude

I am currently indoors with very windy conditions outside and 5230 is just holding position showing three blue bars.

You find this post interesting concerning accuracy of 5230: 

5230 Geocache

---

One correction Menu > Applications > Location > GPS Data > Position > Options > Settings you will find this screen: 

--------------------------------------------------​--------------------------------------------------​--------------------------------------------------​--If you find this helpful, pl. hit the White Star in Green Box...
.

[matthayichen]

---

scoobyman wrote:

Thank you for bringing to my attention that it appears to be slightly different in 5230 Nuron from my 5230 which shows these options on this screen: 

Settings options

---

Thank you very much for the image! I had gone to GPS Data > Position as you seemed to suggest, which meant I opened the wrong menu. I have found the calibration option now, but I suppose I have to go outdoors and get a lock before I calibrate?

I do have all those options.

Thanks again,

Matt

[cataholic · Accepted solution]

---

matthayichen wrote:

.... 

1. The altitude is impossibly wrong. I am at least 70 or 80 meters above sea level now, but the phone reasonably consistently claims -65m. I assume that the negative means below sea level. The accuracy is around 50m or so, and wildly fluctuating.

2. The GPS rarely receives more than the bare minimum of satellites and I often get the indoor reception warning popup even when I am outdoors in an open space. It doesn't show any satellites at all indoors or if it's not in the windscreen mount in a car. I never get a location accuracy better than 30-50m no matter where I am. Is this normal?

---

Regarding altitude I suggest reading the webpage at http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0703/geoid1of3.html for example. It explains the possibility of errors due to the geoid, the vertical datum, etc and which can be of the order that you have observed. These are not problems of the GPS but are due to the approximations made as to the shape of the earth (which we all know is not a true sphere).

As others have explained you can enter a local altitude correction in the GPS .

For position once you have a proper fix your phone probably has latitude and longitude correct to around 10m regardless of the accuracy that is stated on the phone. One must keep in mind that errors in mapping may be apparant when ones position is displayed on a map but that is not the phone's GPS's problem.

The main difficulty with respect to reception of the satellites on phones is the very small antenna - you can't expect them to work as well as a larger unit. That said my E52 always works fine in the car and mostly so inside light framed buildings (with non metal roofs) with only integrated GPS. It helps to know where the antenna is on your phone and ensure that it is not covered by ones hand or holder (E52's is top left and corner).

[mullered]

Can someone clarify that when calibrating altitude, do I need to enter my location height above sea level or an offset i.e. indicated height - actual height = number to be entered.

I havent manage to work this out yet, plus the received height varies by up to 100 meters whikst waiting in the data screen.

Thanks

[noplayback]

You have to put an offset in.

[matthayichen]

>These are not problems of the GPS but are due to the approximations made as to the shape of the earth (which we all know is not a true sphere).<

I have done a little more research and used the device a while now, and I'm finding that it is probably above average in GPS reception. Thanks for the info. I set the altitude offset, but some programs (Sports Tracker) seem to require their own offset settings.

>One must keep in mind that errors in mapping may be apparant when ones position is displayed on a map but that is not the phone's GPS's problem.<

Of course. I've seen occasional wildly off paths when tracing over the same path again and again in Sports Tracker though.

Thanks again to everyone who helped.

Matt