yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S I9000 General] li_cal:
Telus Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate 3G+ (SGH-T959D)

Telus Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate 3G+ (SGH-T959D)

According to the Wiki article on the Samsung Galaxy S variants,

my Telus Fascinate 3G+ (SGH-T959D) is close to "T-Mobile Vibrant (SGH-T959)",

NOT to the same name sake Verizon Fascinate.

I have had terrible times with the GPS on my phone ever since purchased it in mid April, 2011. Now on the 2nd hand set with 2 weeks on the first one. For both handsets, GPS worked on the first few days then failed consistently: ON/Off, most of the time Not; would not gain GPS at-all or lost the signal on the way, and may not have regained it before reaching the destinations. For the last 6 weeks or so, only a very few trips (mostly in town) had GPS running properly all the way reaching the destinations.

**** Terrible Time/experience.

After reading this guide, tried dialing *#*#3214789650#*#* and installing the GPS status App to help monitoring, but only to have spent a few days wasting the time to test and watch the empty screens.

Telus agent threatened me a few-weeks trip to the Shop to fix but advised to do a "Factory Reset" which I have done myself twice last Saturday (May 28) to test it out with encouraging results so far that I hope would last.

After the Factory Resets, I have also tried to re-install the wiped-out APPs one-by-one to check any interference of them, if any, to the GPS effect.

My testings also noted that various GPS Apps would also run even with leaving empty the Lbstestmode parameters -- SUPL / Port empty (typing in space(s), otherwise, Lbstestmode would revert them back to the previous values).

For the last 3 days including Monday, Lbstestmode and GPS status would consistenly see up to 8 satellites(outdoors under wide-open sky; Calgary, 51°00'N, 114°10'W.), but may not lock them in until there was an active Network (wifi or 3g) present for Google Map/Navigation to function.

Monday, May 30, for a recorded 9Km-19 minutes testing run in my neighborhood, 3GWatchDog reported a 380kb data usage (1.2Mb/hr?)

My big surprise was that after running one hour of LBStestmode, GPS Status, 3Gwatchdog, Google Maps, Google Navigation, the Battery Doctor App reported the battery had dropped from 65% to 16% for the duration; which obviously required immediate re-charging from the vehicle power source.

My experience of that is the phone battery would become very hot (overworking to compensate for the overwhelming power usage?) that I am not sure about the effect on the long term battery health and its life span.

Will follow up after more testings in the coming days/weeks.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Janis:
It's probably too late in the thread, but....

First thing: I usually test in my house. When I'm out, I'm doing stuff, and forget about my gps until it conks out on me. I'm not ever in the best place for 100% performance when I test.

I was/am having trouble, along with a couple of other users, with Bionix NextGen. (My lock times and accuracy were acceptible 30-60sec/10m on Bionix 1.3.1.) Regardless of the lbsTestMode settings, I was getting lots of sat reads, but no lock. I let it sit for 40 minutes. Nothing but lots of grey bars in GPS Test.

I flashed the Gingerbread driver? fix, and got fewer grey bars, but locked in about 30 minutes.

I then installed FasterFix from Market, which only syncs clocks. I got a fix in three seconds my first try. It took about a minute the next time.

With the settings in the OP, the issue I'm having now is that my signal(s) seems to be bouncing all over the place, and I'll lose the fix, get it again in anywhere from a split second to several minutes, while all the bars are jumping around like nobody's business. I'm also only getting accuracy to a minimum of 30m.

I was an early adopter (not so much anymore), and I did the hardware fix - I also put a cut-to-size piece of thick rubber band inside the bend, just to ensure it didn't get squashed back over time.

So here are my observations and questions: there are differences in gps performance using both various modem images and various ROMs. Outside of overclocking and causing electrical interference, can someone list the ROM files that make a difference? Anyone know what makes a difference in modems (on gps)?

It seems like people who had to resort to solder ended up happier. I'm not so inclined to argue with the foil method, but the improvement does seem extreme in that case. Would more metal attached to the antenna somewhere (where?) improve reception? Any ideas?

My inclination is to try to scratch a hole in that sticker or something and put some solder and/or wire as close to the battery cover as possible. Maybe stick the wire out the lanyard hole just a smidge (give the hole a purpose, anyway). Is there a design layout of the phone somewhere that might give me a clue about how to get as far away from interference as possible?

As far as figuring out where the antenna is: it's by the volume rocker, just toward the center of the back of the phone. The contact point between the antenna proper and the sticker antenna extension is even with the volume down key. (take a left at the McDonald's.... f* NSEW). So just pretend your volume key is the gps antenna.

Speaking of, I didn't get a difference between the two landscape orientations, but I did get an ever so slight improvement, I think, in portrait.

I'll buy a Samsung TV, but I doubt I'll ever get another Samsung multi-fuction gadget.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] tmanthey:
Works for me

"How to fix:

...apply 2-3 layers of insulation tape or blue-tack (as allotrios suggests) to make sure the cover will press slightly on this magic "G-spot" :)."

Works for my brand new Gingerbread Galaxy as described. I used 5 layers of insulating tape. outside I get now several satellites over 40 with a maximum of 46. Accuracy between 10-5m.

Thanks to all.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] hello..:
that' only because of your wifi connection. try it without wifi and youll never get connection indoors (you cant even get gps connection anyway indoors, car navigation system also losts connection in a tunnel)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] xpcomputers:
Not necessarily true... Depends on the construction of the house in question; the location of the house & surrounding geography; the sensitivity of the gps system used; and your location inside said house (upstairs? near window? Etc).

What you can say is that it won't work as well indoors as the signals will be much weaker... and therefore might well not work at all... And certainly you can say, people shouldn't EXPECT it to definitely work indoors!

In reality, some find that GPS does work in their house, but many others find it doesn't and it never will no matter how good the GPS unit!

Specifically with our SGS phones, on many units the GPS connector inside the phone is not making good contact with the GPS antenna. This is resulting in poorer signal strength in all scenarios. There is a fix which involves bending the connector to make better contact, that works for many.

Some have reported that they never got signal in their house before making the fix, but afterwards do get a signal in the exact same location inside. What they are really reporting is that their GPS now has a stronger signal.

Not everyone making the fix will get a stronger signal, they only will if they had a poor contact previously. Not everyone making the fix and getting a stronger signal will get GPS indoors, but some might.

Mine needed the fix and works amazingly since I did it. It is like a completely different unit now!

Mike

Garbled meaning induced by swype when posting from XDA app on SGS I9000. ;)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Lakshay Sethi:
You can always try using fasterfix app to set up your server. Differnt people get the fix in different times and the post above explains that,for instance outside i can get a fix in nearly 1-2 min,whereas inside i dont get it for 25-30 min so the best way to check is to use the ygps or the gps test app from the market and then check when your outside,and you can also use mytracks app to record the track so that you get to know that you arent loosing the gps signal,im sure you'll get the fix soon.

Cheers!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] amateurninja:
I broke the GPS antenna :|

I read about the hardware tweak and I broke the antenna while trying to lift it up (the gold tab contact to the right of the sim card) and the SNR in LbsTestMode is definitely worse than before.

Do you guys have any idea if the antenna that I broke used for anything apart from GPS reception?

Any idea how I can put it back? Just solder it onto the board?

Thanks a lot.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] xt700:
great write up
[Galaxy S I9000 General] ExDr:
What do following parameters in secgps.conf mean:

SSL=0 or 1

SERVER_MODE=0 or 1

???
[Galaxy S I9000 General] lukesan:
Yup, it is the conductive part towards the antenna.

Think of it as pulling the coax out of your tv.

Any way you can post a picture of it so we can see what might be the best way to get it working perfectly?

---------- Post added at 07:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:34 PM ----------

I posted this in another thread but didn't get a reply.

When checking the back cover you can see that there are 2 places that are contacts. i've checked with the multimeter and both are connected to each other.

Now there is one thing that is strange to me. The contact that is not the one touching the metal 'spring', well on the circuitboard there is this what looks like a piece of conducting foam that would make contact with the other one on the back. Measuring that foam it indeed conducts. It conducts to ground (measured between the coax connector and foam = 0 Ohms).

Now I actually dont know if it really touches the antenna but it would be odd to create a contact when it would not be touching.

So maybe there are 2 places that should make contact to the antenna.

Does anyone have an actual clue, or even better pictures, of the changes that were made on the models after October?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] amateurninja:
I have given up on the GPS

I have been using the phone without the GPS antenna for a few months now and it doesn't seem to affect anything else apart from the GPS reception. I have given up trying to fix the GPS in my phone, I don't even have a car, so it doesn't really matter. Thanks a lot for your reply though :)
[Galaxy S I9000 General] lukesan:
Well it should be extreemly easy to fix it if you are good with a soldering iron.

All you have to find a piece of suitable wire but most electronic shops will sell it. Wire-wrap wire is the best you can buy I think. It is very thin isolated and has 1 conductor that you can easily solder.

Actually any wire that is isolated but thin will do.

I actually think you can improve the stock antenna. I'm staring at the antenna now and it actually bothers me. If you know that GPS signals are being transmitted at approx 1.5GHz then a quarterwave antenna would be 4.75cm or 1.87 inch long.

What I am seeing is that it is approx 3cm (1.18 inch) long so not the lenght it should be.

Now, if you would isolate the contacts on the back with a couple of levels of tape (to avoid capacitive conductance with the buildin antenna) and hook up a wire on the spring that is approx that 4.7cm in size it should work much better.

Now the best way to place the wire is on top of the cover that you have to unscrew. The gps antenna in the cover will interfere if you place it underneat the cover. There is a hole where you can put the strap on just above the antenna that might work out perfectly.

If they used a part of the electronics board to act as the antenna then yes the actuall piece of wire must be shorter. But don't let that put you down. Since we are talking RF here you can actually fold, or bend the far end of the antenna to make it smaller.

Now I haven't tried this yet but it should work. The only hassle for most people would be to find that piece of wire that is thin.

Tempted to open mine again.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] lukesan:
Ok tried it.

Connected an approx 5cm wire to that contact and went outside.

The best signal I have ever seen on it. In GPS test all above 30snr and 2 or 3 in the 40's always 5m precision. Even indoors I had like 20m precision and my house is like a brick/concrete bunker.

Unfortunately when you put the wire against the phone the signal drops to values that are no use at all.

I then placed the back on and same issue. The moment you put the wire on the cover the signal dissapears in the noise.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] test03:
Hi people.

I have a problem with GPS on my i9000.

The accuracy and lock speed are fine, but I lose the fix as soon as the screen goes off.

I'm on Gingerbread (2.3.5), Simplicity ROM, Semaphore 1.8.0 kernel.

Is there anyone experiencing the same issue?

Thanks.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] peterspears:
Thanks for the helpful post, Dan. It was very informative.

This was the very first issue that I picked up with the Galaxy S, and can confirm most of what you've said about it and other GPS-enabled devices. I have about 10 years experience dedicated to fleet management and vehicle tracking, so I know quite a bit about it.

Very few devices have any trouble in rural or suburban areas, but the issues of canyon effect are very difficult to work around. The choice of hardware that Samsung used for the SGS is the best I know of (Jupiter); they have made some very bad factory choices, though, and fortunately this is easy to fix.

I downloaded a gps.conf file (google "i9000 gps.conf"), restarted my phone and haven't had any problems since. Having subsequently scanned the file in more detail, I see that this pretty much does the same as Dan has recommended, but just in a manner that's much easier to implement.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] laughingT:
Very helpful! Kudos to OP and others for sharing.

Sent via XDA from Captivate GB I897.UCKK4 rooted
[Galaxy S I9000 General] friccc81:
Thank you very much
[Galaxy S I9000 General] IWillExplain:
waste of space this thread

https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=175524459197626

and the GPS_GRK39C.zip file will get you closest to perfect gps

enjoy

---------- Post added at 02:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:46 PM ----------

and ofc true - latest firmware = best gps you can get

you will not make it better then google employee with GPS_GRK39C.zip cwm flashable
[Galaxy S I9000 General] strumpfv:
Great post, thanks
[Galaxy S I9000 General] orje:
Is it possible that these two contacts generate two different long antennas? Like a coil with two contacts? Maybe for different countries?
[Galaxy S I9000 General] lukesan:
Why would you say waste of space?

This is clearly a hardware issue on some versions of the i9000. I for example had 2 i9000 which have (had) a bad reception no matter what rom/flash was used while I bought a 2ndhand one for my wife which had very good reception.

After the hardware fix on mine it is on par with my wifes and is almost as good as my S3 (which has Glonas). It is equally good as my N7, HD2 and ZTE blade. Before it was crap and unusable.

---------- Post added at 09:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:39 AM ----------

Antenna's are a very complex thing. Especially in handheld devices and a lack of space their are a lot more variables to take into consideration than to create an antenna in the field where there is non of these variables.

I think, haven't really examined the antenna, they use a quarter wave which does not need grounding so they can minimize the hand effect a little.

If you measure those 2 points on the cover it will look like a short circuit, but that is for DC and not for HF.

GPS is global so when I travel from Europe to Africa or the US it receives on the same freq, so antenna's and design should be exactly the same.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Yeria:
Hold on...so what you're saying is I should get better GPS results in cities if I enable "Use wireless networks" option AND "Wi-Fi"? I always keep my Wi-Fi off so I could save more battery...and I have 6GB of data so I pretty much never use Wi-Fi...
[Galaxy S I9000 General] Yeria:
Oh, and from the market I downloaded an app called GPS Status & Toolbox. Ever since then it seems my GPS is performing better. Basically, since I've installed this application, I've never jumped around on Google maps. Could be a coincidence...or could be a placebo. Nevertheless it has been working flawlessly in Scarborough, Mississauga and midtown area as well as suburbs...will try to test this in downtown some time soon...
[Galaxy S I9000 General] xpcomputers:
Looking at that picture:

I'm assuming that one of the the WiFi antennas is the one connected with the grey lead from the top of that picture heading out of shot towards the bottom of the picture.

The exposed black and gold connector (very left edge of photo) which protrudes through to the back of the phone is presumably the method of connecting an external mobile phone aerial. Presumably the mobile phone aerial itself is somewhere near this connector (or is it in the back of the phone that was removed)? Is that all correct?

Therefore are you saying that the GPS antenna is the little curved section on the PCB that surrounds the screw hole?

If this is so, then whilst the phone might still get best GPS fix when it is in landscape mode (rotated clockwise)... due to this putting the location of the antenna underneath the screw, there is a possibility this might not be best after all, even though it puts the antenna at the top! This is because with the phone rotated to so left edge is upwards, this curved aerial is then underneath the screw which might interfere with the signal reception.

Seems to be a naff place to put the antenna, but then I am no antenna designer, so what do I know (it could be pure genius for all I know!).

However due to the screw, real world performance might actually work best with the phone in portrait or even in the anti-clockwise landscape (with the home button on the right hand side), although this last position is unlikely... I think!

We really need to do some orientation tests to establish which way round gives strongest signal.

Anyone got suggestions of a suitable testing methodology that we could all try out on our own phones?

I'm assuming we would want to try out portrait, rotated anti-clockwise (home button on right), and rotated clockwise (home button on left).

We'd be looking for comparative data between the three orientations. But what? Number of satellites in view? signal strengths? etc. This is the bit I don't know!

Once we have some results, we can update the section of the OP's notes in the first post, concerning "location in the car", to give the best chance of getting a strong signal... but we need to work out which it is first!

Other factors to reduce signal, might be phone cases, or the car holders themselves that block that part of the phone, so we'd be wanting to make sure that that area of the phone was as visible to the sky as possible during tests!

Mike
[Galaxy S I9000 General] henriquesb:
Hi guys,

Settings from original post work wonderfully and it became almost acceptable for city use.

One last thing, however. Add "GPS optimization" free on the Market, needs to be run before every GPS use. Also available from same developer is "GPS Booster", trial and paid, same code but triggered by every GPS activation.

It has done wonders for my locking speed on JM9 (gps booster paid), also tested today in a colleague's JPO (gps optimization, free) and also with your settings. Clear difference before and after!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] DamianGto:
On 2.1 there is a bug in original settings. If you change to original froyo settings it works also.

I would never buy a gps fix program. They are all fake on the market. They only do things that you see in this tread.

Things you can easy do yourself.

But they earn money on all people that has bad gps.

Sent from GT-I9000 jpo. My own kernel for z4mod and with 342MB Ram
[Galaxy S I9000 General] cantIntoCode:
It's a simple scam taking advantage of the consumer who really doesn't know much about how these problems occur and are looking for an easy fix.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] jutezak:
On JM2 I had good experience with running an app that keeps the GPS busy. I used GPSTracker Lite.

This is because otherwise the GPS would sometimes stop and restart, even when Navdroyd for example was running continuously. And that interferes, because it takes time before all sats are locked onto again. And during that time the GPS is less accurate.

With Froyo I do not see this problem any more, so no need to keep the device busy.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] henriquesb:
Well, my colleague with the JPO firmware flashed the night before, had never even tried the GPS before that.

We changed his settings and tried a position test at the same time, after cleaning GPS data, and mine (JM9) was clearly faster at locking.

After installing the FREE "gps optimization" (same developer", deleting data again and testing, his was as fast as mine.

Locks in seconds now, it's free, test it yourself!
[Galaxy S I9000 General] DamianGto:
You can use almost any free gps tool and get same result that you have to pay for.

It's no magic with them. They just ask more often than the navigation software you use. If your software already has lock and it work. Don't use this fake gps Program. You waste battery and you can get worst result with your navigation software.

Sent from GT-I9000 jpo. My own kernel for z4mod and with 342MB Ram
[Galaxy S I9000 General] FadeFx:
all lousy assumptions

Sorry for proving you wrong, but i can tell you one thing

our GPS actually works well

The problem we do have is not really GPS, the root of the problem actually is the shaky compass sensor. With not knowing where exactly north is, the best navigator can't tell you where exactly you are. The problem also is nothing general to Samsung devices, as it works in the i5800 of my girlfriend and it did work in the i7500.

So we can either blame sensorserver_ya or the magnetic sensor itselves but not GPS at all. That is why all efforts to exchange drivers for GPS just don't have any effect.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] smaragdhk:
Has anyone tried pairing a bluetooth GPS dongle to their Galaxy S?

I used to on my previous non-gps Nokia phones and even an ipod Touch 3G. Most Bluetooth dongles out there have SIRFIII chips that are much more sensitive than the phone's. Agreed it's not ideal using 2 devices instead of one but at least it may improve the gps experience for those who already have a gps dongle...
[Galaxy S I9000 General] pijastomig:
Thanks!!!

I was very annoyed by the gps performance on my SGS: my old HTC Polaris was much better with his integrated sirf star III sensor.

But yesterday I applied your settings and today I tried again the SGS' gps with google navigator, and it was perfect.

Fix in 5 seconds, and always very accurate, no matter of the heavy rain and the narrow streets of the center of Rome

God bless You!!

Alessandro
[Galaxy S I9000 General] leoon:
I had all those settings by default,

But still I can only see 1 satellite and it doesnt even lock at it :(
[Galaxy S I9000 General] andrej.marinic:
what i would like to know is following: how come my device is always able to SEE satellites, but fails to LOCK on to them? even when the signal is pretty strong, i.e. > 25, it just won't lock on to them (not always obviously, sometimes i get a pretty nice fix).

if the antenna was borked, wouldn't it be more plausible for the device not to see any satellites? i am no expert, so i apologise if i'm talking rubbish.
[Galaxy S I9000 General] bilboa1:
antennas are not all or nothing. that said the SNR reported should tell you how well the antenna performs. if you have all above 20-30 SNR sats and it doesn't lock, the issue probably isnt the antenna.. although it's always hard to say. Could just be interferences that aren't reported by the SNR value (aka it sees satellites fine but the data gets corrupted on the way)

it could also so be so many other things.. ;)