Discovery: Sats must be full green to be in use
Inside I have 27 sats, but 0 in use as usual. So I tried it (with GPSInfo) outside under a clear sky today, and got 7/40.
GPSInfo satellite skyview shows the sats coloured by (presumably) signal strength or quality, from red through green.
I realise that satellites are only in “use” when they are fully green .If they are even one step off full green, they will not be in-use. From what I can see, until there are at least 6 fully green satellites , there will remain 0 in use. As some drop below full green the number will drop to 5,4,3 .
This would explain
- Never works under trees or inside
- works poorly driving
- Often doesn’t really work outside.
If it only is able to get a good enough signal from 7 of 40 sats under a clear sky, it is really very marginal. Note that other GPS will get fixes with 6 weak satellites. Seems that the threshold to use a satellite is all wrong
Please other people test my observation, and see if you have the same.