GPS info in field test mode on Motorola C343 with Verizona

Interesting stuff. I was playing around with my knew phone tonight.

I upgraded from a very old Audiovox CDM-8xxx series phone to the Motorola
C343. I have Verizon cellular.

First I was messing with WAP, SMS/EMS and Ringtones/"get it now" today.
Nothing great. Not impressed with WAP one bit. The polyphonic ringtones
are cool, but it's rather expensive to get new ringtones.

Then I was trying to figure out what use this aGPS stuff was. I understand
the whole emergency call reporting your location, but why does the cell
phone have the ability to set "location" active for 911 only or all the
time? All the GPS calculations are done at the cell towers and reported
back to the 911 operators. The only thing the phone does is relay timing
information to the towers.

I messed with the phone for awhile and grew tired of it.

I previously managed the 300+ cell phones at work and got used to running
around with my V60 in field test mode trying to figure out why AT&T service
was so crappy in our area. For the hell of it, I switched the C343 into
field test mode to see what it was like on Verizon's network.

Well, the usual menus are there. A little extra information is thrown on
there beyond what the v60 had.

One interesting thing though. It had a GPS screen in field test mode. I
let it try to get a lock, but it wouldn't show any values in the fields. It
appears that it has the capability to show; Latitude, Longitude, Altitude,
Bearing, Velocity, Horizontal Velocity, Vertical Velocity and a whole lot
more GPS information. It even has a "SAT" screen that showed GPS satelite
information (all zeros though) and a "Pilot" screen".

I messed around enabling and disabling location to see if I could get GPS to
"lock". I also tried stepping outside and seeing if I could get a GPS
"lock" but couldn't get any information to display on the field test
screens.


Interesting stuff though. I wonder if it will ever show the GPS
information.