====== INITIAL TESTS OF THE GPS UNIT ======


After acquiring the [[http://www.falcom.de/products/gps-modules/fsa03/|Falcom FSA03]] GPS Unit (now available at [[http://www.earthshinedesign.co.uk/|Earthshine Design]]) I decided to do some basic testing to ensure the units work and communicate over serial. After reading the datasheets and getting some advice from Terry ([[http://projecthorus.org/|Project Horus]]) I soldered some wires onto a unit for testing purposes to hook it up to a 3.3v supply from a bench PSU and an FTDI cable to communicate with the [[http://www.u-blox.com/en/evaluation-tools-a-software/u-center/u-center.html|u-Center]] software provided by [[http://www.u-blox.com/|uBlox]].



**The GPS Module soldered (badly - my soldering iron tip was knackered and didn't get hot enough) up to some wires for testing on a breadboard with an FTDI Cable:**

{{http://lh6.ggpht.com/_-icIdqOL4DM/S6k4PXPHMyI/AAAAAAAAAOg/KhyniUM2lUg/s1152/IMG_0627.jpg?600}}


**The Earthshine1 Research 7 Development Centre (OK so it's my kitchen table). Ignore the RoboRaptor, you didn't see it:**

{{http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-icIdqOL4DM/S6k4PrU81aI/AAAAAAAAAOk/VCupD6TCLIo/s1152/IMG_0645.jpg?600}}


**The u-Center software showing valid NMEA data from the GPS Module:**

{{http://lh5.ggpht.com/_-icIdqOL4DM/S7YNv_qzrSI/AAAAAAAAAQM/T7e9um8ScrM/s640/Screenshot1.png?600}}