Alright, here’s where the real fun starts. In the time leading up to this, I was looking online to see my options in terms of making this work. I’ve got a good idea (yet not solid) of what I need, and I suppose I can officially start working on this as I have received my USGlobalSat BU-353 GPS in the mail. A preliminary analysis of the situation follows.
Now that I’ve gotten the BU-353 in my hands, I’ve been able to make a couple of (but not solid) conclusions, even without trying it in the car. The unit itself is much smaller than I expected, slightly smaller than the circumference of my index and thumb together. The cord is a generous 5 feet, which even though the Dodge is pretty wide, would have plenty of length to reach outside of the car if attached through a small USB hub. That is, if I were to simply mount it on the top of the door near the window or something similar to that effect.
I’m not quite sure about the placement yet, but the unit is so small and the mounting system (a magnet) don’t lead to its credibility as a permanent attachment. Therefore I think it should be stored on the inside and easily attachable on the out. I’ll think about it a lot more later.
On the virtual front everything seems peachy, given that I never actually went outside and the readings I took were form one side of the house to another. Taking a hint from the KisMAC wiki, I downloaded Prolific’s USB I/O drivers, got the OS X GUI port of gpsd, gpsdx, and the latest copy of Google Earth. A little field testing, and the positioning branch of the operation should be complete.
