SkyDemon Mobile Documentation: Installation
This documentation is for people who have a Windows CE or Windows Mobile device onto which they wish to install the SkyDemon Mobile standalone software. If you purchased a SkyDemon handheld GPS device, you can skip this section as the software already forms part of the device.
The SkyDemon Mobile Installer
Once SkyDemon has been installed on your PC, you will have the tools available to install SkyDemon Mobile to a device. Go into the Setup menu and choose Device Connectivity Options, then click on the blue hyperlink entitled Install SkyDemon Mobile on a new Windows CE Device.
The installer presents a list of all devices onto which SkyDemon Mobile can be installed. If you have a device connected by ActiveSync (this is ideal) it will be the first entry in the list, and you should select it. If you need to install SkyDemon Mobile on to an SD card which will then be inserted in your device, choose the SD card drive letter from the list.
When you click on an item in the list to select it you can specify the install location in the box below. Normally it is fine to leave this as the default, which SkyDemon will suggest.
Press OK to begin the installation, which could take a few minutes. Once installation is complete SkyDemon Mobile will be started on the device if it's connected via ActiveSync and an entry will have been created on the device start menu (not all devices support these features).
Troubleshooting
When you attempt to start SkyDemon Mobile you receive an error message similar to "skydemon.exe or one of its dependencies could not be found."
This occurs when the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework is not installed on the device. This free framework is a prerequisite and can be downloaded from Microsoft directly.
GPS Setup
You may need to configure your GPS device. You only need to do this if the GPS icon in the lower left corner is purple, which means that GPS services are stopped because more configuration is needed. To access the GPS configuration, open the Settings menu and select GPS Setup. The window will open on the Hardware page. If your device is running Windows Mobile 6.0 or later, the first option "Use Microsoft GPS Driver" will be enabled and selected. This is almost certainly the correct setting for you, and you can click Start GPS and then Back, finishing the process.
If the option to use the Microsoft GPS Driver is not enabled, you must select the hardware port to which your GPS device is connected and its baud rate. This information may be provided in the manual for your device, or if you're already using another piece of GPS software you can often look in its configuration to determine the correct settings.
In the event that you are unable to determine the hardware setting for your GPS device, you may have to proceed using trial and error. The approach most likely to work is to pick a low baud rate such as 9600, and try each port one by one. Select the port, click Start GPS and you will receive an error if the port could not be opened. If the port is successfully opened, switch to the Satellites page and see if any satellites appear within the circle. Once you can see satellites, your configuration is complete and you can press Back, though it may still take a few minutes for your GPS to actually lock on to some satellites and achieve a position fix.
Troubleshooting GPS
The Satellites and Output pages are designed to help you view the raw data received from your GPS device.
Satellites shows the position of the GPS satellites relative to your location. If all you can see if a blank circle, then either there is no data being received from your GPS device or the device does not know about any satellites. Where satellites are present they are numbered, and drawn in a colour ranging from red to green depending upon the strength of the signal. In general the more satellites in view and the stronger their signal, the better a fix you will get.
Output shows the raw fix data being received. This is fed to the instruments in SkyDemon as long as the DoP (dilution of precision) is within an acceptable range for aviation navigation.
