PC to GPS connection

[biscay]

I have an old Dell laptop with two serial ports, male and female, plus a mouse connector, no USB ports. I also have an Apelco GXL 1100 GPS with a NMEA 0183 output port. I have the Apelco end of the connector, it's a three pin plug.
Can anybody help me with advice on wiring the two together to run a plotting programme?

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[WayneS]

the serial port on your computer will be the 9-pin male plug. the female is probably a monitor port. Do not use it.

you need pins 2,3 5 from the serial port (male 9 pin connector)

you can buy a serial cable from a computer shop and cut one end off and then find pins 2,3 and 5 using a tester. However, I found that the wires in a premade serial cable are so thin that they will brerak under normal wear and tear. Better to buy a female DB-9 connector and solder your own conductors onto the pins. (See a recent thread where I pointed out what to buy "connecting garmin 128 gps to laptop" on 10/2)

Working out what pin is what on your GPS cable may be more difficult. There will be a ground (0V) which needs to connect to pin 5 of the serial cable and the other two are TX and RX. If you can find out which is the ground they use trial and error to work out which is which of the other two. No harm done if you get them reversed. The plotter will just not pick up the info from the GPS.

Good luck

Wayne

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[Guest]

Once you\'ve done that or not ...

Join the growing band of GPS people :

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gps-navigator/


<hr width=100% size=1>Nigel ...
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