I have been debugging trackers, or more correctly, making sure that things are working as they should. And they are. Eith the exception of the previously mentioned issue with the PIN number.

Anyway this evening I was testing a unit for a client – part of an order with their SIM card in the unit, and the next thing I notice there is no GPS signal. nothing. I have a light that turns on when there is a GPS plugged in. This light wass off. Totally off. Very strange, since I was sure that it had been lit.

So I restarted the unit. Try again. Hmm… It has GPS… Then I do some other stuff. No GPS. What is going on. Very strange. This baffles me for a while… Then I worked out what was happening. I am connected to a server owned by the client. The client wants to use all the advanced features of the tracker, including turning the GPS off when it is not needed.

And this is what is happening. It is now after hours, so they turn the GPS off as soon as I connect. Of course I could program my tracker to ignore this, but it does not really matter. The software works just as it should. Sometimes software issues are like that for a reason. Sometimes they are not.

In another case, I have been decoding GPS positions, and displaying them to three decimal places in one case. One of my clients rang today, saying that they want more accuracy… Four decimal places if that is OK. But they mentioned that they always seemed to get a 0 in the last position when they used three places. I changed the number of places for them… And compile the code. Then I thought about this last statement, and went looking…

I checked the library which I wrote when my mother was sick with cancer last year, and found that I had cheated decoding the GPS position. I assumed only two decimal places. This is accurate enough for most people. This client wanted more… I improved the library so it allowed for as many decimal places as needed…