I read Steve Fords article "Keeping Time Outdoors" August QST page 51,
and ordered a VFAN USB GPS Receiver from Amazon for under $25.
My Windows 10 Pro laptop recognized it and quickly installed the driver.
It came up in Device Manager as COM 3, at 115,200 baud.
I tried to install the software mentioned in the article, but it crashed
before completion. Running as Administrator it still crashed.
I found VK4ADC's free software below worked straight away,
and it's a portable single executable. I kept the default 115K baud,
opened the USB COM port and it quickly acquired 8-9 satellites.
Besides syncing the time at an interval of your choice, it also displays
your present 10 digit grid square. It even worked indoors by a window,
but only saw 7 satellites, so it displayed the 8 digit grid instead.
So now I can run FT8 mobile or portable without the internet.
Thanks to Steve for the article.
73 Ron WZ1V
https://vk4adc.com/web/index.php/software-projects/55-vk4adc-utils/181-gps2time
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