gy-gps6mu1 will not find satellites

Other Hardware Sensors
1

hey guys, this is my first post on here, as well as my first actual project besides making LED's blink.

i am using a gy-gps6mu1 gps module with an elegoo UNO R3 arduino board. the board is seeing data come over software serial, so i know ( or at least am pretty sure) that it is not a communication issue between the board and the module. I have left it out in the middle of my yard for 15-20 minutes connected to an LCD to display satellites connected, with no luck.

here is a debug program i wrote to show what the arduino is seeing, can anyone confirm that the issue is not on my end from what I have provided?

and the TX pin from the GPS unit is connected to arduino pin 9, the RX pin from the GPS is connected to arduino pin 8

#include <TinyGPS++.h>
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
SoftwareSerial ss(9,8);
TinyGPSPlus gps;

void setup() {

ss.begin(9600);
Serial.begin(9600);

}

void loop() {

gps.encode(ss.read());
delay(3000);
Serial.println("LOCATION");
Serial.println(gps.location.lat(), 6);
Serial.println(gps.location.lng(), 6);
delay(3000);
Serial.println("Satellite count");
Serial.println(gps.satellites.value());
delay(3000);
Serial.println("Time in Minutes");
Serial.println(gps.time.minute());
delay(3000);

if (gps.charsProcessed() == 0)
{
Serial.println("No Connection");
Serial.println("Characters Processed");
Serial.println(gps.charsProcessed());
}

else
{
Serial.println("GPS Recognized");
Serial.println("characters processed");
Serial.println(gps.charsProcessed());
}
}

2

tylorwashere:
here is a debug program i wrote to show what the arduino is seeing, can anyone confirm that the issue is not on my end from what I have provided?

That program is no good at all for debuging your problem. Although you seem to have forgotten to give us the output it produces.

You need to run a GPS Echo program that displays on the serial monitor the actual output from the GPS.

See here for a tutorial and echo program;

GPS Tutorial

3

srnet:
That program is no good at all for debuging your problem. Although you seem to have forgotten to give us the output it produces.

You need to run a GPS Echo program that displays on the serial monitor the actual output from the GPS.

See here for a tutorial and echo program;

GPS Tutorial

maybe debugging wasnt the best word, i wrote it to see if it would spit any data out. the output it produces is zeroes, everywhere, except for under characters processed, which counts upwards by one each time it runs through the loop.

ill check out that echo program, just to make sure. thanks

4

srnet:
That program is no good at all for debuging your problem. Although you seem to have forgotten to give us the output it produces.

You need to run a GPS Echo program that displays on the serial monitor the actual output from the GPS.

See here for a tutorial and echo program;

GPS Tutorial

after running the echo program it looks like it might be a bad module

5

tylorwashere:
after running the echo program it looks like it might be a bad module

As you have not posted the output of the echo program, can you say why you suspect a bad module ?

6

srnet:
As you have not posted the output of the echo program, can you say why you suspect a bad module ?

there was no output. I checked the wiring twice, and also tried a few different baud rates. according to the Tutorial, if you don't see any characters displayed on your serial monitor then

"If the serial monitor is blank then either you have a faulty GPS or its connected wrong, its also possible the GPS baud rate is wrong. "

7

for anyone interested I switched the input from pin 9 to analog pin A3 and that seemed to solve my problem

8

tylorwashere:
for anyone interested I switched the input from pin 9 to analog pin A3 and that seemed to solve my problem

Since both pin 9 and A3 support software serial, you either had it wired wrong or your UNO has a faulty pin 9.