up501 GPS

hello, does anybody have a sketch that works with the fastrax up501 to display position? i cant seem to find any that works. i found this sketch that is really nice, but i cant get it to work as well, i have tried switching the rx and tx pins.

/*
  6-8-10
  Aaron Weiss
  SparkFun Electronics
  
  Example GPS Parser based off of arduiniana.org TinyGPS examples.
  
  Parses NMEA sentences from an EM406 running at 4800bps into readable 
  values for latitude, longitude, elevation, date, time, course, and 
  speed. 
  
  For the SparkFun GPS Shield. Make sure the switch is set to DLINE.
  
  Once you get your longitude and latitude you can paste your 
  coordinates from the terminal window into Google Maps. Here is the 
  link for SparkFun's location.  
  http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.06477,+-105.20997
  
  Uses the NewSoftSerial library for serial communication with your GPS, 
  so connect your GPS TX and RX pin to any digital pin on the Arduino, 
  just be sure to define which pins you are using on the Arduino to 
  communicate with the GPS module. 
  
  REVISIONS:
  1-17-11 
    changed values to RXPIN = 2 and TXPIN = to correspond with
    hardware v14+. Hardware v13 used RXPIN = 3 and TXPIN = 2.
  
*/ 

// In order for this sketch to work, you will need to download 
// TinyGPS library from arduiniana.org and put them 
// into the hardware->libraries folder in your ardiuno directory.
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
#include <TinyGPS.h>

// Define which pins you will use on the Arduino to communicate with your 
// GPS. In this case, the GPS module's TX pin will connect to the 
// Arduino's RXPIN which is pin 3.
#define RXPIN 2
#define TXPIN 3
//Set this value equal to the baud rate of your GPS
#define GPSBAUD 4800

// Create an instance of the TinyGPS object
TinyGPS gps;
// Initialize the NewSoftSerial library to the pins you defined above
SoftwareSerial uart_gps(RXPIN, TXPIN);

// This is where you declare prototypes for the functions that will be 
// using the TinyGPS library.
void getgps(TinyGPS &gps);

// In the setup function, you need to initialize two serial ports; the 
// standard hardware serial port (Serial()) to communicate with your 
// terminal program an another serial port (NewSoftSerial()) for your 
// GPS.
void setup()
{
  // This is the serial rate for your terminal program. It must be this 
  // fast because we need to print everything before a new sentence 
  // comes in. If you slow it down, the messages might not be valid and 
  // you will likely get checksum errors.
  Serial.begin(115200);
  //Sets baud rate of your GPS
  uart_gps.begin(GPSBAUD);
  
  Serial.println("");
  Serial.println("GPS Shield QuickStart Example Sketch v12");
  Serial.println("       ...waiting for lock...           ");
  Serial.println("");
}

// This is the main loop of the code. All it does is check for data on 
// the RX pin of the ardiuno, makes sure the data is valid NMEA sentences, 
// then jumps to the getgps() function.
void loop()
{
  while(uart_gps.available())     // While there is data on the RX pin...
  {
      int c = uart_gps.read();    // load the data into a variable...
      if(gps.encode(c))      // if there is a new valid sentence...
      {
        getgps(gps);         // then grab the data.
      }
  }
}

// The getgps function will get and print the values we want.
void getgps(TinyGPS &gps)
{
  // To get all of the data into varialbes that you can use in your code, 
  // all you need to do is define variables and query the object for the 
  // data. To see the complete list of functions see keywords.txt file in 
  // the TinyGPS and NewSoftSerial libs.
  
  // Define the variables that will be used
  float latitude, longitude;
  // Then call this function
  gps.f_get_position(&latitude, &longitude);
  // You can now print variables latitude and longitude
  Serial.print("Lat/Long: "); 
  Serial.print(latitude,5); 
  Serial.print(", "); 
  Serial.println(longitude,5);
  
  // Same goes for date and time
  int year;
  byte month, day, hour, minute, second, hundredths;
  gps.crack_datetime(&year,&month,&day,&hour,&minute,&second,&hundredths);
  // Print data and time
  Serial.print("Date: "); Serial.print(month, DEC); Serial.print("/"); 
  Serial.print(day, DEC); Serial.print("/"); Serial.print(year);
  Serial.print("  Time: "); Serial.print(hour, DEC); Serial.print(":"); 
  Serial.print(minute, DEC); Serial.print(":"); Serial.print(second, DEC); 
  Serial.print("."); Serial.println(hundredths, DEC);
  //Since month, day, hour, minute, second, and hundr
  
  // Here you can print the altitude and course values directly since 
  // there is only one value for the function
  Serial.print("Altitude (meters): "); Serial.println(gps.f_altitude());  
  // Same goes for course
  Serial.print("Course (degrees): "); Serial.println(gps.f_course()); 
  // And same goes for speed
  Serial.print("Speed(kmph): "); Serial.println(gps.f_speed_kmph());
  Serial.println();
  
  // Here you can print statistics on the sentences.
  unsigned long chars;
  unsigned short sentences, failed_checksum;
  gps.stats(&chars, &sentences, &failed_checksum);
  //Serial.print("Failed Checksums: ");Serial.print(failed_checksum);
  //Serial.println(); Serial.println();
}

thanks in advance!

I have never worked with GPS-modules and can't give you examples. But maybe it's a good idea to check whether the GPS-module itself is functioning by checking it without using the arduino-controller.
As far as I understand, you can do that by disabling arduino's serial port or removing the arduino-controller.

/*
  Disable serial communications 
*/
 
void setup() {                
  // initialize the digital pins as inputs.
  pinMode(0, INPUT);     
  pinMode(1, INPUT);
}

// next, do nothing...
void loop() {
}

After you've disabled serial communication with the microcontroller, you can connect tx-pin of the module to the tx-pin of the arduino and rx-pin to rx-pin. This may seem strange since tx is usually connected to rx, but we're more or less replacing the microcontroller with the gps-module, internally the tx-pin is still connected to an rx-pin enabling you to talk to your PC and vice versa.

By opening the serial monitor and choosing the right baudrate next, commands entered should be sent directly to the GPS module and any info from the GPS-module should be shown on screen. Hopefully it will now respond.

After this check you can simply upload a new sketch/place the controller back in it's socket.

hi, i cant even get that to work, as in i do not know how. tried googling and people say that i can use tiny GPS library to run the fastrax up501, but my experience tells me otherwise. if anybody has some experience it will be great help =) thanks