MapForums

Hello,

Our paramedic service has installed MS MapPoint 2009 on our Tough Book computers as it integrates with our ambulance software. We have recently purchased Bluetooth GPS receivers for each ambulance.

Our situation boils down to this. We have 5 ambulances with a GPS receiver in each. Our laptops float from truck to truck. When we pair the receivers it assigns a COM port uniquely to each GPS. When you launch MapPoint it is always looking for which ever GPS COM us used last and you have to go into the settings and change it before you can start using it.

Is it possible to:
1. Give MapPoint a list of ports to search for the GPS receiver like it does when you go into the settings, only have it do it automatically and select the port it gets the response from?
2. Trick Windows XP into mapping multiple GPS devices to the same COM port?
Everything works fine if you take one laptop and pair it to one GPS receiver and then set it up in MapPoint, so at least we know that everything is working on the basic level.

I have found the registry key where MapPoint stores the COM port to use so at the very least we can create icons for "Activate Medic 30 GPS", but I really need this to be as seemless as possible.

Any thought, suggestions, or potential solutions would be greatly appreciated!


- Mike

This sounds like it is more of a problem with your Bluetooth software and how it works with Windows to assign the device to a COM port. You need to tell it to always assign it to the same COM port regardless of the device identifier.

Then MapPoint should see the 'same' device on the same COM port every time.

Richard

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Winwaed Software Technology LLC
http://www.winwaed.com
See http://www.mapping-tools.com for MapPoint Tools
See the Geoweb Guru for online mapping

Hi Mike,

I don't know how much it will help in your situation, but in general the Franson GPSGate product can help with recognizing GPS devices and making them more accessible to various applications.

GPSGate.com

Eric

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I have tried to look at this problem from this approach as well, both with the Toshiba Bluetooth Stack and the Windows XP Bluetooth Stack and don't see a way to get multiple bluetooth IDs to be mapped to the same COM port. Any suggestions?

Thanks Eric, I will read up on GPSGate.com. It looks a little more complicated of a product then I need, but if I can use it in the background to make it work that would be great.

They also have GPSGate Express --

Express License - Franson GpsGate

Also the OEM version might make more sense in your scenario --

OEM License - Franson GpsGate

They talk mostly about sharing a GPS amongst applications, but the functionality I think you might find useful is this

( from GPS splitter, simulator and logger. Serial port splitter. - Franson GpsGate )

Eric

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I will contact them and see if that would be a good solution. Thanks for the lead!