New to GPS jargon? Start here.
Vectosat shows the same raw data professional GPS equipment uses, so some of it can look cryptic at first. This page explains what each screen shows and what the trickier terms mean — no technical background needed.
What Each Screen Shows
Vectosat has five tabs at the bottom. Here's what you'll find in each one.
📍 Overview
Your current position (latitude, longitude, altitude), plus speed, heading, and the date/time — straight from the satellites, like a detailed GPS printout.
🚗 Dashboard
A big, glanceable speed and altitude readout styled like a car dashboard — built to check at a glance while driving, cycling, or on a boat, without squinting.
🛰️ Satellites
A radar-style sky map showing every satellite your phone can currently see, color-coded by network (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou...), plus a list with each one's signal strength.
💻 Console
The raw text your GPS chip sends, line by line (NMEA sentences). Mostly for the curious — you never need to read this to use the rest of the app.
🧭 Track
Start recording your route (it keeps going with the screen off), then export it as a GPX file (opens in Google Earth, Strava, Garmin Connect...) or as the raw NMEA log.
⚙️ Settings & About
Behind the menu at the top: units (metric or imperial), UTC or local time, how many sentences the console keeps, and an option to keep the screen on while recording. About has the safety notice, this guide, the legal pages, and a way to write to me.
GPS & GNSS Glossary
Plain-English explanations of the terms you'll run into.
GPS vs. GNSS
GPS is the American satellite network. GNSS is the umbrella term for all of them combined — GPS, plus Russia's GLONASS, the EU's Galileo, and China's BeiDou. Your phone usually listens to several at once for a better fix.
Fix
A "fix" means your phone has successfully calculated your position from satellite signals. "No fix" means it hasn't locked on yet — usually because you're indoors or the sky is blocked.
NMEA sentence
The plain-text language GPS chips use to report data, one line at a time. Every line starts with a code like $GPGGA or $GPRMC.
In view vs. used in fix
"In view" means your phone can detect that satellite's signal. "Used in fix" means the signal was good enough to actually help calculate your position.
Elevation & azimuth
Elevation is how high a satellite sits above the horizon (90° = directly overhead). Azimuth is its compass direction (0° = North, 90° = East). Together, they tell you where to "look" for it in the sky.
SNR (signal strength)
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: how strong and clean a satellite's signal is, roughly 0–50. Higher is better — above 35 is strong, below 20 is weak and unreliable.
HDOP / PDOP / VDOP
"Dilution of Precision" — a number describing how good the satellites' geometry is for pinpointing you (H = horizontal, V = vertical, P = combined 3D). Lower is better: under 2 is excellent, over 10 is poor.
RTK fixed / RTK float
Advanced, centimeter-accurate positioning modes used by survey-grade equipment. Ordinary phones almost never reach these — seeing "Fix type: GPS" on the Satellites tab instead is completely normal.
Dead reckoning
When your phone briefly loses satellite signal (say, in a tunnel), some chips estimate your position from your last known speed and direction instead of showing nothing.
GPX file
A standard file format for GPS routes, readable by almost every map and fitness app. It's how you get a recorded Track out of Vectosat and into something else.
Constellation
Which satellite network a satellite belongs to: GPS (USA), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (EU), BeiDou (China), plus regional ones like QZSS (Japan) and NavIC (India).
PRN
A satellite's ID number within its constellation — think of it as that satellite's name tag. It's how Vectosat tells satellites apart on the list and the radar.
Doze
Android's battery-saving mode for a phone that sits still, unplugged, with the screen off. After a while it can pause the GPS for every app, which is why a long recording at rest is best made plugged in, or with the screen kept on.
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