StarWreck's Journal: Hooray

Got the serial connection between the motorolla board and our GPS module working. Turns out the 2 bits which controlled parity in the serial control register were for generating parity bits (i.e. creating new content), not for configuring the serial ports for communication... seeing as the GPS module was already creating a parity bit for odd parity, we were ending up with 2 parity bits - confusing the hell out of the software. As soon as we set both bits to ZERO, we were able to get communication.

Andre received the GPRS modem with the breakout board and antenna in the mail today. The SMA to MMC connector he already had was the wrong size on Antenna side so we were unable to use the Antenna. I put in an order for the correct adaptor and its being mailed to Andre.

Using the same UART breadboard we built to do initial testing on the GPS module, we hooked up the GPRS modem to a serial port on the school's computer. Loaded up Hyper-Terminal: Com1, 9600 baud, etc... typed "AT"... and got the response "OK"... yaay! something finally works right off the bat. The GPRS has auto-bauding, but it says to ensure accurate communication to manually set the baud once you're inside. Typed "AT-BR=9600" to manually set up the baud-rate (I think that was the command anyway) and got the response "OK". My cell-phone's SIMM card was inside and we typed the AT command to determine whether it was password protected... it wasn't so we skipped the password steps and got to the check network status. Even without the antenna it was able to detect a( or several) network(s) but it was not allowed to connect to them. It could be because I don't have GPRS as part of my plan. Tried the same thing with Sophe's and Andre's SIMM card and got the same result each time.

One of us needs to sign up for GPRS access and we need to hook up the antenna once Andre gets the adaptor in the mail.

One small piece of bad-news, Andre ordered the digital thermometer at the same time as the GRPS modem so we went ahead and opened up the casing. Apart from the LCD module which displays the temperature, there's just 1 connector at the bottom... a serial connector. ARGH! Our GPS module uses a serial connector, our GPRS modem uses a serial connector, and now the thermometer is going to use a serial connector. The motorolla board only has 2 serial connectors. Hopefully we can manually wire in a UART and turn a standard port into a serial port but I have a feeling we won't be able to.