GPSOut and USB

[Wildfire563]

Hi,

I'm wondering if anybody has any suggestions for me. My computer does not have any dedicated com ports on the motherboard. I'd prefer not to have to use my last PCI slot to add one.

I have a Garmin 396. It uses a USB connection. My computer has lots of USB connectors.

Is there a program which routes data from a serial port to a usb port virtually?

I have seen a couple of people saying you are connecting your Garmin 396 to GPSOut. How are you doing it? A com port (on computer) to USB (on 396) converter? Any thoughts for how to get the data out through a USB port?

I have MapSource and nRoute.

Thanks,

[Pete Dowson]

I'm wondering if anybody has any suggestions for me. My computer does not have any dedicated com ports on the motherboard. I'd prefer not to have to use my last PCI slot to add one.

I have a Garmin 396. It uses a USB connection. My computer has lots of USB connectors.

Is there a program which routes data from a serial port to a usb port virtually?

USB ports are simply the "new" serial ports. The name isn't "COMn" that's all, but something more complicated and longer. There's an example someone provided me in the GPSout docs.

I think the main problem with GPS's is that the USB connection connects to some sort of Active Sync driver which you will have already installed. It is not easy to disable that to free the connection for other programs.

On top of that, whilst the 396 may be okay (I don't know), very few GPSs actually provide any way to feed in positional values to override their in-built GPS system -- and many of those that do do so for external antennae systems which have a totally different type of output. The few GPSs which do allow NMEA positional or Aviation input are specialist aviation GPSs.

There seems to be a general misunderstanding that my GPSout system is designed to drive GPS's. It isn't. The very opposite is true. It is designed to make the whole of the PC running FS look like a GPS for those programs, moving maps and the like, which are designed to take their input from the OUTPUT of a GPS -- hence the name "GPS OUT".

I have seen a couple of people saying you are connecting your Garmin 396 to GPSOut.

Ah, well, in that case it will be a matter of uninstalling or otherwise disabling the Active Sync program which insists on grabbing it as soon as you plug it in, and finding the correct port name for the USB connection. It'll be something like "\\.\WCEUSBSH001", as far as I know.

Good luck!

Regards

Pete