Sprint’s Motorola Q9c features a fully open GPS receiver – the first Windows Mobile smartphone to rock integrated GPS on Sprint’s network. The Moto Q9c’s “open” GPS means that the receiver’s COM ports are visible and accessible to external programs – not just the programs (like navigation software) that the carrier wants you to use. Applications like Google Maps and Microsoft Live Search are free to leverage the GPS receiver – the way it should be.
Unfortunately, the GPS unit in the Motorola Q9c is set to acquire positional data from satellite only – making the device essentially a stand-alone GPS receiver. Sprint apparently didn’t think aGPS (assisted GPS), which uses cell-tower location information to help get a position-lock, was necessary on the Moto Q9c.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could add aGPS location information to the Moto Q9c’s open GPS receiver? Of course it would. GPS and aGPS could work together to return a faster position-lock in most situations.
Sprint Users‘ member StarmanDX apparently saw the need to add some aGPS goodness to the Sprint Motorola Q9c. He’s come up with a cool little trick to get the Moto Q9c to take advantage of Sprint’s aGPS servers while maintaining that awesomely-open GPS receiver’s functionality.
Keep reading to find out how to make your Motorola Q9c a better GPS performer.
From WMExperts:
Preliminaries
One caveat: you need your MSL, which stands for “Master Subsidy Lock” and is a 6 digit code to program your phone. Remember when you called Sprint to activate your phone and they had your program in your number in that “special menu”? To get there you had to enter your MSL. Some of us tricksters now know to write that down for future use. But you probably haven’t done this, so here’s the trick: you need to call Sprint and get it. It’s technically not a big deal and are supposed to give it to you if you ask, after all it is your phone not theirs. So here are some things to say to the Sprint CSRs or better yet, try Tech Support:
- Just ask, sometimes they give it. Worked for me!
- Say you took your phone to a Sprint store and they need your MSL to reprogram part of the phone
- Tell them that you are trying to change your user name within the settings on your phone and the phone is requiring the MSL code
- Say you are developing application for the phone
Yeah, it’s a wee bit of a white lie, but it’s worth it. Now once you have that number, store it somewhere safe and remember to do this for all your WM devices in the future, you may never know when you need it.
One other note before the actual hack: you have to trust the settings are saved. If you go back into this menu, it’ll all be erased, but once entered it’ll stay. So have faith that they stuck.
And now for the trick and thanks again to StarmanDX!
Enable aGPS Sprint assistance servers for Moto Q Q9c
- Dial ##073887*
- Hit Send/Green Key
- Enter your MSL
- Hit H (GPS Settings)
- Enter 68.28.31.49 for the IP address
- Enter 5017 for the port number
- Save/Exit
(ps Nope, I do not know how to do this for AT&T Q9h’s or Verizon’s Q9ms. Sorry, Sprint only!)
[Via: WMExperts]