A funny thing happened

[jedi105]

So, sitting around a little bored one night. Playing with the tablet but not wanting to read or play games. I opened GPS test just for S&G's and low and behold, it locked onto 13 satellites, and had a total of 24 in view. Wow. This was deep inside the house. Hmmm... did ASUS do something with the software o boost the GPS receiving signal? Considering when I got the tablet I didnt get a single satellite to lock on, inside or outside, that is just phenominal.... Come on ASUS....what did you do...

[janner43]

Check your roof...

[jedi105]

Lol... maybe I will. Big Brother may be watching what I'm ...err... watching.

[mrumm49]

So, sitting around a little bored one night. Playing with the tablet but not wanting to read or play games. I opened GPS test just for S&G's and low and behold, it locked onto 13 satellites, and had a total of 24 in view. Wow. This was deep inside the house. Hmmm... did ASUS do something with the software o boost the GPS receiving signal? Considering when I got the tablet I didnt get a single satellite to lock on, inside or outside, that is just phenominal.... Come on ASUS....what did you do...

And this is without the Dongle? I wonder how many more owners are now finally getting improved GPS with their Primes?

[janner43]

Lol... maybe I will. Big Brother may be watching what I'm ...err... watching.

They are everywhere...
Haven't you seen Enemy of the State...

[Bob_of_QF]

I wonder if the improved GPS signal has more to do with how the tablet was oriented than anything else.

That is, if it was relatively flat (screen facing up) then the signals could possibly travel through the screen--which is not metal-- to the antenna, bypassing the aluminum back or top-edge.

I know that orientation has an effect on GPS signals with my phone-- a very strong effect in fact. In the case of my phone, it "prefers" either landscape or portrait, but with the screen vertical in either case. If I tilt the screen too much? GPS signal is lost....

... I wonder if anyone has experimented with this before? I've seen loads of write-ups, but most people talk about moving their tablet physically from room to room and such. I've not seen anyone writing about rotating the tablet itself through various angles.

I have no Prime to experiment with, myself.

But when (it's likely just a matter of time and money) I get an Infinity, I'll certainly experiment with it.

[jedi105]

As I am in a quality control field, I ran a few tests when I noticed the improvement. All results were comparable in all orientations. I also actually held a pillow over the device as a sort of cover and it still picked up 9 satellites. The only time it dropped lower was whaen I held it up to my head.... must be that tin foil hat I wear... JK. Good results all around. The only thing was it took a little longer to lock when I held it with the pillow over it.

[Bob_of_QF]

As I am in a quality control field, I ran a few tests when I noticed the improvement. All results were comparable in all orientations. I also actually held a pillow over the device as a sort of cover and it still picked up 9 satellites. The only time it dropped lower was whaen I held it up to my head.... must be that tin foil hat I wear... JK. Good results all around. The only thing was it took a little longer to lock when I held it with the pillow over it.

That is most interesting. Clearly, Asus did some tweaking to the software engine on these, with one of the updates. I would've swore you couldn't fix a hardware issue with just software-- but obviously, the software is integral to the hardware's functioning here.

Perhaps they loosened up the tolerances of the antenna-matching algorithm or somesuch.


... yeah-- I don't have a clue what I just said, other than a blind guess-- I know basically that the antenna has to receive very weak microwave signals from the orbiting satellites, which are geosynchronous, meaning really high up (as satellites go). I also know that in theory, these signals are strictly line-of-sight, but in practice, they (being microwave frequencies) bounce all over the place, including off the bare ground.

I also know that the software that governs the receiver, has to be aware of these multiple-bouncing signals, and try to filter out all but the best ones, ignoring those slightly out-of-phase (as you'd get after multiple bounces).

I know all of this, mainly because I'm old enough to remember TV reception strictly from antennas, and how you'd often see "ghost" images (slightly out of phase signals) from the station, if it bounced off of nearby buildings, etc. Better sets had discrimination circuits that could filter out these, but the old tube based sets rarely had any sort of filtering.

So, at a guess, the engineers at Asus loosened up the discrimination circuits some, to permit more signals through--including bounced ones. Since it would theoretically affect the accuracy of the resultant location reports, that could explain why it was so tight in the first place-- but, under the deliberate military's "fuzzing" of the location information, I doubt that would translate into real-world effects anyway. So, it's a couple of feet of additional inaccuracy. Who cares? That beats the heck outta "no signal" any day-- most folk are happy if it gets you within a block or so anyway, right?

[flhthemi]

So i read this, original post, and just turned mine on. GPS test, no dongle and low and behold, still no sats. Zero, nada...just like it's always been since .28 came along.

[janner43]

As I am in a quality control field, I ran a few tests when I noticed the improvement. All results were comparable in all orientations. I also actually held a pillow over the device as a sort of cover and it still picked up 9 satellites. The only time it dropped lower was whaen I held it up to my head.... must be that tin foil hat I wear... JK. Good results all around. The only thing was it took a little longer to lock when I held it with the pillow over it.