GlobalSat ND-105C Micro USB GPS Receiver

Bought this to use with aviation navigation software on my Windows 8.1 tablet and has worked great so far. Acquisition time is very short, and WAAS is enabled by default on the chip. Note that this does not use the Windows 8 location API, but instead creates a COM port for an app to access location, which shouldn't be an issue for most unless your app is newer and designed to *only* use the Win 8 API. In that case, there are a couple different software options available from other vendors that I'm aware of that will send the data to location API. Also, only 1 app can access the COM port at a time (gpsGate can help here). Sensitivity seems to be excellent - I'm able to acquire a full WAAS signal in my house, and in my car as well. Haven't tried it in the plane yet, but I have a feeling it'll work equally as well. I noticed that as long as there is any power at all to the micro USB port, the GPS will continue to run, so depending on your device, it's sleep mode may or may not turn the port/GPS off to save your battery power. UPDATE: Used this in the plane and worked great - actually better than another handheld aviation GPS that I own. Accuracy was excellent, and never had any issue with satellite reception, and this was while I had the unit on my kneeboard where it was somewhat down low and not as good of a view of the sky. Nice to know I don't need to worry about having an antenna sitting on top of the panel. So far, this little GPS has been an awesome value.

Worked fine for two months, until it didn't. Started with "device descriptor failed" message in device manager to not being recognized at all when plugged into any computer. Thinking that perhaps it was the USB pigtail that comes with it, tried plugging directly into and Android device too with no success. It's dead and I'm out 28 bucks.

This GPS module has been used to navigate ocean routes for the last year and a half. It is paired with a $150 Lenovo S31 laptop, with 32G SSD and just 2G of RAM. The navigation program is Coastal Navigator. The processor in the laptop is an Intel N series, which is slow, but draws low power and is still plenty fast enough to run the navigation program. The GPS has an 8 inch USB to micro USB to connect it to the laptop. It velcro attaches to the upper right margin on the screen. The GPS module is very accurate, even below deck. I checked the signal strength of the satellites above deck and found only marginally higher signal strength. The cloud layer and humidity are more important to signal strength than the deck of the boat. Startup is always fast, but I recommend letting it warm up while the boat is being prepared for sailing. When the Speed Over Ground drops to 0.01 knot, the GPS is ready to navigate. Just the size of a large postage stamp, but just as accurate as large dedicated units. While I have not experienced any GPS related problems, I would recommend carrying a spare. For just $30, why not? I also have a dedicated Garmin sounder GPS, but only use that looking for a sandy spot to anchor. Want a larger screen? Just buy a larger laptop. Total cost of the navigation package is only $500. The cost of a 14" screen and a dedicated unit is $5000 !! Cockpit repeaters are connected via Bluetooth, as is the Garmin. With the GPS attached to the screen of the laptop, the laptop is free to move about the boat. With a wireless mouse, the GPS system is much easier to use than any dedicated system. Ideal laptops to use would be an ASUS UX430UA, or a Lenovo 720s, although any low cost, low power (long battery life) laptop would work. UPDATE: Not only is the original device still working just fine, 8/11/2020, just received another one as a backup as the Garmin bluetooth connection has recently failed. MIght be something wrong with the most recent Win10 update. Anyway, very pleased to relay new information on an obviously greatly improved ND-105C GPS module. The original ND-105C, required an hour or more of warmup to reach a low .01 knot Speed over Ground (SOG). This new unit was at .01 knot after only 3 minutes! Quite an improvement!

I'm using it on a Chuwi Hi10 pro Android 5.1 tablet with no internal GPS receiver. For charts Navionics mobile marine charts are installed. BTW, should work on any Android 3.1 to 5.1, and maybe later versions. Setup - here's the scoop: Using "You are Here GPS" free download from Amazon. Prefer this app/driver over "Prolific P2303 usb uart" because it will give you the Lon/Lat fix in addition to just NMEA sentences. !!!!!Important!!!! My ND-105C arrived at a GPS fix only when connected via the USB pigtail it came with. Did NOT get a GPS fix at all when directly plugged into tablet's the micro-usb socket - maybe there's laptop RF interference!! Check for blinking red light on the ND-105 to confirm fix. After "You are here GPS" is installed, shut down Wifi and disable "Scanning always available" under Wifi/Advanced. This makes sure your ND-105 receiver is used and not the Google location service in case you have Wifi or an internal GPS receiver. Now go to "About tablet" click on "Built Number" 7-10 times. This brings up the "developer options". Turn on "Developer options" and "Allow Mock Locations". This will replace the internal GPS (or Google location service in my case) with the external ND-105 GPS receiver. Now start "You are here GPS" and you see the NMEA sentences and LON/Lat. Use the circle icon on your tablet to send it to the background w/o killing it. Now start you maps/charts and you should see location icon on the map. It may happen that "you are here GPS" has stopped. In that case unplug and re-plug the ND-105 and start "You are here GPS " and click connect to the device. Note the baud rate is 4800. Long setup and not documented with Android OS, combined with the flaky receive w/o usb pigtail, it's not plug and play - but it works!

Not very happy with the GPS receiver. It did not work on the Amazon 7" Fire.

you install first the Play Stores 1) "Prolific PL2303 USB-Uart" app and 2) search Store for the "USB GPS" app. Then I rebooted and once up again inserted the unit into the included std size usb to usb micro adapter cable and the popup will ask what program you want to use for it and you select the app. To save hassle, select use once unit you know it works. I also went into androids Developers options in Setup (Google that if you don't know how to make that option appear, it's not there by default) and selected "Mock" Locations and the app should show up as a option that you want to use when this is plugged in, select it. If it doesn't show, find and install a app that does. This "mock" location is for developer testing without a gps so they can simulate locations for software testing, but can also be used to redirect this units output to it , making it a real mock location, tricking android into using the external gps rather than the internal. When done, it may seem like it's not working as many gps apps seem to ignore mock locations and show 0 sats being available. Ignore that. I went to google maps and asked it to find my location and it did within 30' using this unit. Make sure this unit is the one being used by unplugging it and it should lose you. If you still show, might have to force stop or clear cache of old gps. I didn't have that problem. They also would like you to install a terminal program app called "Serial Terminal for PL2303HDX" app to confirm the data is being read. I used a different one in Play Store, didn't see that one right off there. I also noticed the regular GPS program's apps will not see satellites from this unit as they seem to be set up for the internal GPS only, so don't despair, test further, it could be working anyway.

A plus is it is small. However, it is physically very weakly designed. I was unable to test it's functionality due to the excessive force required by the purchased adapter (I was unaware this product included the adapter) the male micro usb broke connection with the circuit board inside.

The product arrived on time, and it was packed very nicely. It contained the USB dongle and a cable USB - micro USB, which was a nice addition. Unfortunately the disk with the drivers and the software was a mini disk, so not much of use on my particular laptop. Since there was no way to install the software from the CD-ROM, I went to the company / product page in order to download the necessary drivers, but unfortunately the download link says "Not available". Luckily the Windows 7 Pro managed to install correctly the driver and recognized correctly the dongle. Next, I needed the software in order to actually test the GPS data, but again no luck. It took me a good half an hour of searching the Internet for a link to the correct software and eventually I was able to have the GPS data flowing to my laptop. Next, I went on to test the dongle on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, since the main purpose of the device was to be used on mobile devices. The software part was a bit more straight forward, since Google Play Store has the utility needed for the dongle to work right away (at least on my Android 4.2.2 version). Unfortunately the accuracy of the GPS dongle is lower than the accuracy of the integrated GPS chip on my tablet. For example, in Google Maps as well as in another 3rd party GPS app, the accuracy of the dongle was reported as 10 meters, while the integrated chip of the tablet had an accuracy of 4 meters. Also, the fix on the satellites appears to be weaker on the dongle (inside the cabin for example it lost the fix on the signal while the native chip of the tablet did not). The reported speed and the altitude were the same though. This test was done while sailing a few miles off the coast of Florida, Miami. Overall, the device works and it does serve it`s purpose if it is used on devices without native GPS chips (like a laptop for example) but it is less accurate than some of the integrated GPS chips on the modern mobile devices.