Day 109 – Lost | The Philosophical Fish

109/365 (April 19, 2010) – I’m frustrated right now. I bought a new GPS specifically to use with my Mac…and guess what, despite all assurances that it would, on arrival, work…it did not. It happily connects to my old PC via Bluetooth, and my other Bluetooth GPS happily connects to my Mac, but each will not pair with the other. I’ve been fighting with it and the company I bought it from all day.

The GPS doesn’t come with software on a CD, not that it would be useful to me anyway since the software is Windows based, but it is located on the unit itself, which is supposed to be plug and play. However, when I plugged it into the PC running Vista, it said I needed a USB driver…that was located on the GPS. So somehow, I was supposed to install software located on the GPS, but had to install that software before I could mount the GPS? I managed to get around that issue by mounting the GPS as a mass storage Device and dragging the files off. Got the drivers installed, but then when I tried to run the software, the program crashed. I followed the instructions…

- Turn on the WBT-202
- Connect the unit to any USB port of computer via USB cable
- Press the power button longer until the GPS LED and Bluetooth LED go out. It switched to MSD mode now. At this moment, the orange Micro-SD LED will light on
- The inbuilt access tool (WBT_Tool) will be executed automatically and pop up the following dialogue, please choose WBT_Tool and press “OK”

….and when I attempted this, I was given a fancy”Engrish” communications error telling me: “Communication with Host fail! Please Plug out the device and then try again”

On the flip side, the GPS that I thought did not work with the Mac, suddenly does when I made a few system changes. Go figure. But at the end of the day, the Bluetooth system on the Mac does work, but something in that particular GPS unit doesn’t speak to it.

And the retailer was completely useless, sending me tidbits such as telling me to install the drivers on the CD. Um, no CD! And even if there were, it doesn’t address the real issue since it was supposed to work with the Mac and the software is Windows based.

Feeling very cranky at the moment.

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By: Flickr: Soleil is me. . April 21, 2010 . 5:57 pm
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Hi,

I also bought an WBT-202 and tried to get it working with my Mac. The MSD did magically start to work after I made some system changes so this behavior seems to be “normal”.

How did you get the 202 to pair with the Mac ? It cannot even be discovered.
Discovery works on my Nokia and, if I am lucky, it even connects to it for a minute or two.

This is driving me nuts.

John

By: John . September 23, 2010 . 3:48 am
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- Sadly, after a week of trying everything I could think of, I gave up. It simply would not work. I communicated both with the retailer and the manufacturer and neither was any use. I ended up returning it and bought an i-gotU, which works like a dream as both a logger and a receiver, except that you can’t delete tracks from it using the Mac. I just set it up with a PC and set it to circular logging.
  
  But the Wintec WBT-202 never, ever, paired with the Mac. I also communicated with the developer of the navigational software I use out on the water and he took a look at the log files when attempting to pair it…said he’d never seen a BT GPS that acted the way it did (or rather the way it didn’t).
  
  So, sorry, I have no answer. I really wanted this one to work, but it just won’t.
  
  Paige
  
  By: The Philosophical Fish . September 23, 2010 . 8:17 am
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  - Thanks.
    
    Well, I thought I’ll get another logger because my Holux m-241 stopped working reliably after I upgraded to 1.12. 1.13 was no relief. It corrupts the log files (or hangs) which then leads to either no data at all or some sort of interpolated data depending on the program you use to read out the logger. The last thing I want is rotten data after a long trip with a lot of pictures taken.
    
    Well I can still use it as a GPS mouse. Not really the solution I had in mind.
    
    John
    
    By: John . September 24, 2010 . 5:24 am
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    - I feel your pain, I did a lot of research before I bought that Wintec piece and what a disappointment it was.
      
      Paige
      
      By: The Philosophical Fish . September 24, 2010 . 8:28 am
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Day 109 - Lost

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