Get a little bit more from your GPS

Have you ever wanted to see the status of your GPS in an easy-to-use interface? I recently found a great application for your GPS-enabled Recon or Ranger called Visual GPSce. The program is available via VisualGPS.net, and it’s a free download.

What I like best about this little program is its simplicity. After downloading the application, all I had to do was set the serial port to COM4 (the Microsoft GPS sharing port), and the data started flowing in.

The first screen shows the traditional signal strength indicators:



The second screen shows an advanced satellite plot page with the predicted paths of each satellite:


The third screen shows an innovative dashboard with common cockpit-style indicators for speed, altitude, direction, and vertical speed:


The final screen could be the most useful to some people. It shows statistical averages of position with standard deviation and least squares average:


In short, this little program gives you the information you need from your GPS without being difficult to configure. Out of all the status applications I have tried (including the application that ships with the Holux GPS card), this is the one I keep coming back to because I know it will always work.

If you like this app, Visual GPS also makes a more advanced program, BeeLineGPS, that’s $29.95 with a 30-day free trial.