Thought I'd top post as well as answering my own posts!

It seems that the 'linux drivers' that are downloadable from DS are
raw c code. That's taken the fun out of it!

Still not sure how to check, other than to run it against one of the
internet stratum 2 servers. 

Cheers,

Steve

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 19:39:49 +1300, you wrote:

>On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 18:52:33 +1300, you wrote:
>
>>> >> I note that Dick Smith are offering a GPS receiver that is M$
>>> >> compliant, and is around the NZD250 mark. Is there any support for it
>>> >> under linux
>>
>>These things always have a serial port -> trivial. The protocol they speak
>>is NMEA-0183, http://www.nmea.org/pub/0183/ unfortunately an expensive
>>standard. It's based on the exchange of ASCII lines of 15 - 80 characters
>>(usually). If you get a manual which describes which control messages and
>>info messages are supported by this receiver (should be possible), you're
>>home and hosed.
>>
>>The serial port will give you a time accuracy of around 1 second and a
>>resolution of 1 second.
>>
>>> >I've been looking at these as well.  I'd be curious to see what the
>>> >clock accuracy is like on one of these devices.
>>> 
>>> Allegedly 0.1sec according to the label. I might nip in next time the
>>> boss isn't around (:
>>
>>Ooouuuuuuch, man that's bad. That's 100ms. Not a good NTP source. NTP can
>>synchronise the time over the internet between Europe and America to within
>>5-20ms, and this box is hanging straight off the back of your computer.
>>Cheap though, and you never have to set your watch. (I had this in 1985 in
>>Germany for less money than you mentioned - nahnahnahnahnah... ;))) )
>>
>>Note the accuracy below 1s comes from a pulse signal which the receiver
>>should also supply. You can expect 1ms accuracy here. Good receivers should
>>manage <1us.
>>
>>Some other trivia: GPS runs on neither TAI (international atomic time) nor
>>UTC (which one could call civil time) (no comment). You'll have to
>>compensate yourself. NTP is probably supposed to use UTC, but leap seconds
>>are not implemented. Whenever there is a leap second in UTC, (in the words
>>of David Mills, inventor of NTP) "the behaviour of NTP can be described in
>>terms of a pinball machine". No comment either.
>>
>>Volker
>
>Thanks for the info Volker. According to the blurb on the outside of
>the box ( contents removed! ) it was purely an USB interface, and I've
>not programmed that. Come to think of it, it's the best part of 20
>years since I used ioctl on a serial device (:
>
>Off to google nmea and usb!
>
>Steve
>
>
>

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