[Qgis-user] QGIS & GPS

[Brent Wood]

Gidday and Happy New Year from New Zealand!

I have spent too many hours on this already, sigh... Hopefully someone can help.

I normally use QGIS with USB GPS units on Linux and don't have driver issues, everything just works. But I now need to re-introduce myself to QGIS on Windows to set things up for other users, and it is proving very painful.

I'm using QGIS dev (3.29), 3.22 & v3.28 at present. Same issue on Windows with all of them.

I have historically used a Globalsat BR-355S4 USB GPS on Windows with no problems. Just install the Prolific USB-serial driver and everything works fine.

My recent Linux work has been using a G-Mouse (U-blox 7) chipset GPS which Linux typically mounts as /dev/ttyACM0 and QGIS is fine with that. Linux needs no additional drivers to be installed for this to work.

Now I'm trying to get this working on Windows... I can install the U-blox VCP (virtual com port) driver. The native driver Win10 finds & installs also  seems to work, but not with QGIS. I can connect to the relevant com port with several GPS monitoring applications & see the NMEA sentences fine. QGIS lists the port OK, but fails to connect on auto or to the port directly. This is not uncommon with the U-Blox 7, but none of the fixes I have found online have worked for me.

I just bought another GPS, a new model Globalsat one, BU-353N5, a replacement for the BR-355S4. This is not sending the $GP sentences, just the $GN ones. My GPS monitoring applications work OK with this on Linux & Windows, but QGIS on both platforms lists the device to connect to, but is unable to connect & use the GPS data. I can't even log the data with QGIS as QGIS won't connect to the port in the first place.

My 3 questions:

How can I get a U-Blox7 chipset GPS (which is working fine on Windows with other applications) recognised by and working with QGIS?

How can I get a  Globalsat  BU-353N or other GPS that does not output $GPGGA or $GPRWC, but provides $GNGGA instead, etc working with QGIS?

Can anyone suggest an alternative cheap, generic USB GPS which simply and reliably works with QGIS on Windows?

Is this something that I should file a bug report for (it does seem to be a fragility in QGIS that is not present in other GPS software)? I'm happy to send a working USB GPS to any dev willing to look into this.


Thanks

Brent Wood

Principal Technician, Fisheries
NIWA
DDI:  +64 (4) 3860529
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Brent Wood
Principal Technician - GIS and Spatial Data Management
Programme Leader - Environmental Information Delivery
+64-4-386-0529

National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd (NIWA)
301 Evans Bay Parade Hataitai Wellington New Zealand
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