Reaching out to the Satellites

To continue my journey of trying to make a Reverse Geocache Box, I purchased a small NEO-6M GPS module (disclaimer: Affiliate link).

I tried looking around a lot at what GPS module to purchase, and decided on this one because of the video by Binary Updates that walked through the setup process. I’d seen a few other modules available, but this one seemed like a reasonable price and the tutorial video by Umesh Lokhande is really what sold me.

The header pins I have are a bit loose (I’m a far ways away from trying soldering), but with a little wiggling around… I was able to see GPS information showing up via the Serial Monitor. Which, I have to tell you… was MEGA exciting.

I saw the LED start flashing on the module, an indicator that it’s gotten a position and enough satellites have been seen/contacted. I am not ashamed to say that I squealed more than a little bit, on seeing this.

Sadly, the NMEA Decoder mentioned in the video is no more. So I’m left to try my hand at using TinyGPS++ to parse out the long and lat.

Ultimately, I think I want to combine what I’m doing here (getting GPS coordinates) with the ability to output some kind of message (you are X miles away from a destination) to the LCD display. Piecing those two together seems… viable, but I’m still just doing a lot of baby steps.

Seeing satellite data, even though it was mostly gibberish to me, was very exciting. Looks like I’m going to be putting a little more time towards code, soon.

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The Liquid Crystal Shortcut