8830 GPS learnings
 

I thought I'd share some interesting learnings about how the BB 8830 GPS works from my own recent good/bad experience:

Observation 1:
I have a TELUS 8830 - which of course comes GPS enabled. I've always noticed that anytime a GPS location is requested you can see the device communicating with "something" (given away by the fact that the data transfer arrows flash in the top right). This, and the fact that the GPS does NOT work when there is no cell coverage, is pretty much a dead giveaway that this is some form of assisted GPS. It does use satellites to determine a position, but it gets the satellite ephemeris and other data via the network. This server is called a PDE (position determining entity) or MPC (mobile positioning centre).

Observation 2:
I recently saw on this forum that Verizon Navigator was released. I thought I would give it a try (fully realizing that it was unlikely to actually work, but I wanted to see what it looked like). I installed it, it didn't work (as expected) and I deleted it. Later that day I fired up Google Maps (which I have always had and has always worked) and it said "Signal too weak to determine location". I thought: "That's odd - never seen that before." I went outdoors and tried again. No dice. BB Maps didn't work either. I started to sweat. Reinstalled GMaps. Still no workie. Wiped the handheld and reinstalled the OS from scratch. No dice. I realized I was scr*wed. My internal GPS no longer worked. :cry:

Now what?
After fruitless calls to TELUS tech support I came to the sad conclusion that I had done something horrible to my phone and would need a handheld swap (still under warranty of course).

But still it bothered me: how could the GPS have worked before, and yet even reloading the OS did not fix it!? What could VZW Nav have done to my device that is stored somewhere other than the flash memory?!

After a couple of days I had an inspiration: I fired up QPST 2.7 and read the service programming configuration from the CDMA chipset (fortunately I have my MSL). I browsed through, and stopped when I came to the "gpsOne" tab. I noticed that while "Allowed" was checked off, the PDE IP address was set to "127.0.0.1". The loopback address?? "That can't be right!" I thought. But what should be there?

Fortunately, I had a saved QPST configuration from an earlier HTC S720 handset - I checked that and found that sure enough there was supposed to be a real address in that spot: 216.198.xxx.xxx (I'm not including the actual address here). "No - it couldn't be that easy! Could it?"

I entered the new address, wrote it to the phone and rebooted. Surprise, surprise - my internal GPS worked again! 8-)

Conclusion:
VZW Nav appears to wipe out the PDE address stored in the CDMA chipset. Why? Presumably to help VZW enforce their block against third-party software using the internal GPS. Maybe, just maybe - if the appropriate address of the VZW PDE was entered in that field on a VZW 8830, then maybe it would unlock the internal GPS. I have no way of knowing (not a VZW customer) and leave it as an exercise for the reader.

Disclaimer:
Messing around with any of the above may brick your phone and I accept no responsibility if you do so. Also, don't ask me for a copy of QPST or your MSL - you are on your own for locating those.

Good luck...

I would be surprised if it were that easy. However, good job in figuring out your problem. That 216.198.xxx.xxx. address sounds like a RIM address.

Welcome to the forums, BTW.

What's QPST 2.7? I tried to research, and all that comes up is "full version downloads" stuff. :P

I found lots of info from a Google search of "QPST"

8130 GPS problems
 

Looks like you have a lot of experiance in adding/removing applications. I noticed that there was a lot of data communications every time I use BB Maps as well. thought I would be smart and download the maps app again to see if it would store the map data sets on the phone of my 1 gig Sd card. I can't get the app to complete the download (99%) from the BB web site. Looks like it's doing it but USB/PC connection resets 3 time, phone reboots and does a security check which is on, lots of hour glass spinning but no download AND now I have lost the original app. Now no GPS of course.

Re your observation and connection to PDE server. I don't think your connecting to the PDE. I am a GPS application service provider (GPSPrusuit) and we are certified on the Bell PDE and LSB servers. You need a special IP address to access PDE and yes it is assisted GPS using triliteration from cell tower GPS to give you a location if you have less the 4 GPS satillites visable. LBS locaction uses cell towers only and is much less accurate. If you turn on LBS on the phone and have a plan added to your account you can us this feature with Bell or Telus from their web app. We provide the full gamit with our iPurusit application and are tring to intgrate the BB GPS into it. Thats why we bought a couple of them. Except now mine is messed up big time.

Do you have any solution to getting my app reinstalled? You seem to be an expert.

As John mentioned, QPST is software that allows you to manipulate the low-level programming of the Qualcomm chipset (which ultimately every CDMA BlackBerry is based on). BitPIM is not a replacement for QPST in this application -- it doesn't support the ability to twiddle the necessary bits.

The 216.198.xxx.xxx address is definitely in the TELUS Mobility domain and resolves to one of their MPCs (there are a couple).

Ahh thanks. I don't think I will go hardcore phone hacking, however. ;)

What do you have in the PDE Port Number, PDE Transport, and Position Calculation entries on the gpsOne screen QPST?

Thanks!

PDE Port number = 8889
PDE Transport = IP
Position Calculation = PDE

The "Allowed" and all "Capabilities" options are checked.

And to Iare Tosevite: sorry - I never said it would be easy! ;-)

Thanks for the info. I've always wondered if this info was what is keeping my Verizon 8703e from utilizing the GPS. Now if I only had a valid IP address to use that would allow a connection....

Oh my GPS is working just fine, that's why I'm not changing anything. ;-)

Righto - I didn't notice that you were on Sprint (not VZW)...

So, yes - by all means - don't even think about messing with any of this ;-)

This looks like a thread I will be watching closely. The two things I'm not a fan of with my bb is the lack of a camera, and the disabled GPS.

So, who wants to be the first to install VZNav and see if the PDE IP gets changed to something specific?

Sounds like a blast!
 

I'm game.... VZNav is already installed however, so I can only compare against what a non-VZNav'd device has in that field. Now to find the software......

bump

Something to ponder. If a BES server can log all IP traffic from a BB attached to it, I wonder if someone could log the traffic initiated when VZNav polls for data. There might be an indication of what the PDE IP/Port is. Anyone with BES want to try it and see?

Has anyone with VZNav run QPST on their phones yet?

I've got VZNav installed, and I get the following info running QPST:

PDE IP Address:
0.0.0.0
PDE Port Number
4911
PDE Transport:
IP
Position Calculation:
Blank (could choose either "Mobile" or "PDE", but none selected)

Tried changing to Mobile. BBMaps and Google Maps still didn't work, and VZNav stopped working. Tried changing to PDE; nothing worked. Had to reload from saved file to restore the "blank" option. VZNav still didn't work initially after the reloaded blank option, so I uninstalled it (version 2.9.8) and reinstalled it (version 2.9.9). Now QPST is saying that the value is no longer blank, but is set to PDE. Interesting.

What version of QPST did you use?