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3.74 miles, 27.03 mins (I’m out of shape!)

The past few times I’ve used it I’ve had a bit of an ordeal getting the GPS signal to work with the excellent (and free) Nokia Sports Tracker application on my N95. Now, though, I think I’ve got it sussed. Here’s what I do:

1. Turn off positioning via Bluetooth and Network by going to Settings/General/Positioning/Positioning Methods (only ‘Integrated GPS’ should have a tick next to it)
2. Go outside to start my stretches/warm-up.
3. Start the Nokia ‘Maps’ application with the keypad showing (the GPS chip is located behind the keys).
4. Wait for GPS fix whilst stretching and warming-up.
5. Whilst Maps application is still running, start the Nokia Sports Tracker application.
6. Whilst both the above programs are still running, start ‘Running’ playlist on random in Music Player application.*
7. Go back into the Nokia Sports Tracker application, press ‘Start’ and begin your run.

* You may get an ‘insufficient memory’ error at this point. Just persevere!
If it’s working, you should see your location as a blue dot on a black screen and the stats should start changing. Also, if you don’t move much it should automatically pause.

Whilst I’m running I keep the keypad showing (i.e. the multimedia keys hidden) to retain a good GPS signal. When I want to change track I simply temporarily slide the screen down to show the multimedia keys, then slide it back again!

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When I get back into the house, after I’ve warmed-down and got some liquids onboard, I export the data from my run to Google Earth with the ‘Altitude Mode’ option as ‘Relative to ground’ and the ‘Altitude Data’ as ‘Speed’. This means that I get a nice picture like the one at the start of this post when I bluetooth the file to my Macbook and load it up in Google Earth.

Posted: June 17th, 2007
Categories: Technology
Tags: Google Earth, GPS, Nokia Maps, Nokia N95, Nokia Sports Tracker, running, That-thing-they-call-exercise