[Chris Barron] is getting pretty unnerved by the UK moving to charging for road use based on GPS coordinates. He built this device to prove that GPS data can be spoofed and shouldn’t be relied upon. He promises future firmware updates that will provide two knob etch-a-sketch style path control.
[stok] built this GPS receiver from the ground up. The GPS module he got off of eBay dumps NMEA 0183 data. He combined that with an old Nokia LCD and a PIC microcontroller. I like this project because it shows that you can build devices that the general public assumes are really complex.
Here’s a short guide for converting a Palm III GPS sled into a normal serial GPS receiver. The Palm III is old tech so its accessories can be picked up cheap and modified for other purposes. The GPS receiver needs to be separated from the Palm specific board and a few components need to be transfered between the two. Once that’s done you should have a standard serial GPS receiver. Here’s a cache in case the “Read” link fails.
[thanks nevamore, who has done this hack with success]
this site shows you how to jack in to the gps receiver inside any gm onstar system. it’s as simple as soldering a up a serial cable. you can then connect to it and either run some gps diagnostic software, or switch the device to nmea mode so that you can use it with your gps mapping software in your car pc.
if you’ve got an onstar system but aren’t paying for the service this might be just the hack for you. thanks for the link leo!
if you’ve got a gameboy advance, a gba flash cartridge, and a gps receiver that outputs nmea, then you can turn your gameboy advance into a cool gps mapping receiver.
mikhail sharonov created a nice litle application that assists you in importing and calibrating up to 20 raster maps. the software will then output a gba rom file that you can run on your device. with a few minor software updates, he was also able to get the microsoft branded gps to work (the one which comes with microsoft streets and trips 2005). hot!
if you’re into geocaching, terraserver and google maps can be your greatest allies. well, maybe second greatest, right after your trusty gps receiver. with terraserver, you can pull up hires satellite photos and topo maps of just about everywhere in the continental us. with google maps, you can easily pull up a road map and driving directions.
however, one thing i noticed when google maps launched was that it’s interface is conspicuously lacking a lat/lon entry field. it turns out there are a couple of query parameters that you can use to pull up coordinate based maps. with this info, you can make a simple form to pull up both map results for a given latitude/longitude combination, which should hopefully be a handy tool for your next gps treasure hunt. continue reading to see how this works.
Continue reading “Howto: Geocaching With Google And Terraserver”
“i found it in my cow pasture, buried in the snow. i was riding my 4 wheeler.” that’s what the postcard said when it returned to me after i sent it up with a helium balloon a couple weeks ago. it traveled roughly 100 miles.
but i digress.
james meehan’s story began quite similarly, but he decided to take his balloon fascination to a much more fascinating and hackerly level. follow the link to read about how he designed and constructed his linux powered weather balloon, complete with gps, packet radio uplink, and video camera. he says it’s the coolest thing he’s ever done. i can’t really vouch for what else he’s done, but this project is pretty darn cool.
when you’ve finished marvelling at this hack, make sure to also check out the home brew, high altitude glider we wrote about a while back. i love this high altitude mischief. if you know of similar projects, send ’em in!
