Configuring Serial GPS Ports

GPS receivers are connected through a computer serial port (RS232 or USB).

To add a new GPS port, click the Add button on the Configure Ports tab. The port editing dialog will appear. Set the port type to Serial_GPS.

Serial GPS Configure Dialog

The other parameters you will need to specify for the GPS receiver are:

The "Test Port" button provides a means of verifying that you have connected to the correct place; it opens a terminal window connected to the configured serial port so that you can manually test the GPS receiver for the desired operation. To complete testing, close the terminal window.

Once you have the settings the way you want them, click the Save button.

You can check how well your GPS receiver is performing by selecting the menu choice View -> Show GPS Status.

If you want to create a Serial_GPS port on a new installation of YAAC using the -createport option, the port_description is of the format:

Serial_GPS,comportname,baudRate,callsign,,;remote-APRS-symbol;;;waypointchoice;;flags

where comportname is the name of the serial port on your operating system, such as COM3 or /dev/ttyUSB0, and baudRate is the serial port speed; this must be specified even for USB devices that don't have a configurable baud rate. The flags are a decimal number of 0 for a local GPS, 4 for a remote GPS, and 6 for a remote GPS that should be transmitted periodically to the APRS network as an APRS Object. If the GPS is remote, the callsign field will identify the name the remote GPS will be plotted on the map and transmitted as the APRS Object name. If the remote GPS is to be transmitted, then the remote-APRS-symbol must be specified as two characters of the symbol table ID ('/' or '\') or overlay character followed by the symbol code (note that symbol code ';' cannot be used because of the syntax of the port_description string). If the connected GPS has a map screen of its own, received APRS stations and Objects can be plotted on the GPS as waypoints by specifying the waypointchoice as 0 for no transmission to GPS, 1 for transmission as $GPWPL sentences, or 2 for transmissions as $PKWDWPL sentences (only understood by the AvMap GPSs).