GPS connection issue with Panasonic Toughpad FZ-G1 series on ROAM 3.x

[she-weeds]

First off - many, many thanks for the release of ROAM 3.0.6, which has been eagerly awaited 👍

Just looking to get some insight into an issue with GNSS connectivity on Panasonic Toughpad FZ-G1s. The model I've been testing uses a u-blox NEO-M8N receiver integrated as an UART connection on COM3 and is running Win10 2004 (upgraded from Win7 last year).

ROAM 3 (including prior beta versions) does not appear to connect to the receiver. I'm just wondering if it has to do with how it's interpreting the NMEA messages.

We are able to connect to the receiver in QGIS 3.10.6 itself, either directly via COM3, or using gpsd via GPS NMEA Monitor per this answer, using the default or NEO-M8N settings (see below).

However, in ROAM 3 either method doesn't work.

• If I'm using COM3, it just stays at 0,0 (EPSG:4326) with 0 VDOP/HDOP/Sats/elevation etc. (see below), regardless of whether I connect via COM3 or scan (Interestingly, in ROAM 2.7.1 the only option was "scan").
• If I get GPS NMEA Monitor to output to gpsd via the localhost:2947 TCP port, I get the same 0,0 issue if I connect via scan, and if I connect via gpsd it just remains stuck at 'Connecting...'

I have also tried changing the following settings in u-center to manage the u-blox receiver directly, and it hasn't done anything either -

• changed NMEA versions from 4.0 to 2.1 and 2.3 (this caused issues in ROAM 2.x as well so I'm guessing not the culprit)
• changed Main Talker ID from System Dependent to 1 - GP and 3 - GN

I've also updated the COM3 driver using Device Manager (and rolled it back and updated again...) to no avail.

---

Now, it worked perfectly fine in ROAM 2.x and I've also had success connecting ROAM 3.0.6 to an external Bluetooth GPS (Holux M-1000) on a Dell Venue 11 Pro tablet on Win 10 2004 with no modifications at all.

So I'm guessing it's something specific to this hardware and ROAM 3.

I've attached a log of NMEA output from the Panasonic GPS Viewer program if that helps.

Any help would be massively appreciated because it's the one thing stopping us from migrating to ROAM 3! Please, let me finally make QGIS 2 a thing of the past...

Screenshot of ROAM 3.6 when attempting to connect to receiver - says GPS fix but everything is 0. Note coordinates are in EPSG:28355 and translate to 0,0 in EPSG:4326

Panasonic FZ-G1L NMEA log from GPS viewer app, first 10 seconds

GPS NMEA Monitor settings when attempting to connect via gpsd

[robbomatt]

@she-weeds send your details through to us at Chartis Technology and we might be able to help. Can be tricky getting the GPS/Driver combination right sometimes. http://chartistechnology.com/contact
Matt

[she-weeds]

@robbomatt Thanks so much for reaching out, this would really change things for us. I'll be in touch with you shortly

[CoastalGIS]

Hi @she-weeds and @robbomatt

Can you please provide any update to this?

We have rolled over a project to Roam 3 due to camera issues on the Panasonic FZ-G1, but have run into GPS problems. The problem appears to be identical to that shown above.

[robbochartis]

Hi @CoastalGIS

I am not sure what the final outcome was with @she-weeds , however we have seen some recent issues similar to this and it often comes down to making sure you have the right driver combination for your hardware - not always that easy depending on the combination of hardware in use - best to seek the manufactures website and download the driver for your device model also making sure the correct Operating System. Some of the more recent devices have integrated GPS chips - meaning they are built into the network card. So what ever port Roam is using it will require NMEA GPS data coming through. In the past we have had to use tools like “Putty” (https://www.putty.org) and GPSGate Splitter (https://gpsgate.com/download) to understand the NMEA data that is coming through from the GPS port. This helps us to understand if the data is coming through in an expected way.

So a few tips for you that may help:

• If you are running Windows 10, make sure you have the recommended official driver downloaded for your tablet.

• Also make sure you locate the correct com port that NMEA data is coming through on, often helps looking in 'device manager' in Windows to see what they are named.

• In Roam recommend that rather than have the port set to ‘scan’, set it to the correct NMEA port. If you don’t do this, the scan option can pick up a GPS port that the Wifi is running on and its not the correct one – unbeknown to Roam.

Hope this helps, Matt.

[asheen1006]

We found that the Windows 10 location privacy permissions were a factor.
Ensure that Allow apps access to your location is enabled.
If it already was, toggling it off then back on again seemed to trigger the GPS to start working in ROAM 3.

[TonyFMCMC]

Thanks @asheen1006 the Windows 10 privacy permissions fixed this problem for me