The Australian Connection

[Ockhams_Barber]

Greetings to the forum,

I came across this project a few weeks ago and have been following it with great interest. The general idea is similar to some things I have been thinking about for some time now...
Unfortunately the mobile phone ( Motorola C168i AT&T) is not available in this part of the world and AT&T likewise do not exist here. I considered getting a friend to purchase one in the states and shipping it to Australia but then there is the problem of shipping costs, and then trying to get an unlock code to make it usable in Australia (very messy and possibly expensive), to make matters worse the Tyco Electronics A1035D GPS module would also need to be imported by me, (dam more shipping and import costs), so I have decided to try another approach! After some diligent research I have found a locally available mobile phone the LG KP105, which retails for around $US 45.00 and is sold in an unlocked state and a locally available GPS mouse which communicates with the world using RS232. I know this is starting to sound like a completely different project ( open tracker down under maybe?) but at least I am going to try to keep the Atmel ATTINY84-20PU AVR microcontroller circuit the same ( I hope )..

Well I just thought I would inform the group of my plans and if there is any interest generated by this post I will certainly keep the forum informed of any progress ( or lack thereof ) I make..

Regards from Australia
Ockhams Barber

[Mike]

The GPS module will work if it generates 4800 baud NMEA (which is a standard.) I have interfaced a Garmin and it worked. If the module generates RS232 level output (instead of CMOS level) you can just use an NPN transistor and resistors to invert it.

I don't know if the phone will work. Does the phone support serial AT commands?
If you get me one of those phones (and it works on US 850/1900 bands) I will port the code.
Otherwise you will have to figure out the right init string and any anomalies in the phone's
behavior.

Mike