My initial suspicion was wrong. The antenna design (and its feedline) between v1.0.3 and v1.0.6 is considerably different, and customers should not alter the impedance matching circuit that came with their v1.0.3 device to match v1.0.6’s values.
Here are the values which are used in v1.0.3:
R256 = ERJ-1GN0R00C, 0-Ohms 0201 resistor
L3 = ERJ-1GN0R00C, 0-Ohms 0201 resistor
L12 = NC
C53 = GJM0335C1H2R2BB01D, 2.2pF 0201 capacitor
C85 = 7447840047, 4.7nH 0201 inductor
C86 = NC
If you have a v1.0.3 phone, you may play around with these matching component values if you so wish, since you are the owner of your device, but we do not recommend it.
I am sorry that we are unable to share further details regarding the specifics of the antenna design.
It is shame for Purism that it does not provide clear hardware revision documentation for backers and it seems that not to found easily even for people inside Purism developers group as well. Sound PCB assembly houses provide spreadsheet for each PCB assembled with list of actually placed components with their production lot number - I am no to big fan of all iso9000 bureaucracy, but these parts belongs to good practice. Same for the variant number of aluminum frame/display/touchscreen antennas sandwich. There should be at least table with each variant of the setup and information from which serial number or production date is given combination applicable. There is mismatch between advertisement, price belonging to industrial high-tech systems and customers treatment typical for consumer/disposable grange of products. This is something for response by @todd-weaver or somebody else from the Purism officials.
Probably only solution to check match between PCB and mechanics is to go to our colleagues from LVR and ask for X-RAY imagining. By the way, X-RAY images has been promised for anti-tamper measures by Purism in the past… If they exists for each revision, it would be easy to check what is inside the sack.
Anyway, if I know now, that tuning my piece will help limited number of users with devices around 1.03 main board revision, then my motivation to invest the time considerably decreases.
Anyway thanks for all good you have done for GNU/Linux ecosystem. it has great value, but I will not mask or hide criticism in areas where I consider behavior harmful for backers and even more for Purism company recognition and future.
I am wondering what people feel the state of GPS/Location tracking is?
My opinion: it is still bad and does not work. Can someone point me in the direction of their particular “solution” or possibly a “fix” for this issue? I have read many posts about this issue here and I don’t easily find a “fix”.
I truly miss having a GPS app. I tried offline maps. I tried Gnome Maps. I tried PureMaps. I uninstalled all of them and then installed them again. Many times. As of today, I have no map software installed and simply use a browser - which isn’t great.
I asked Purism support once, and they gave me a quick response on how to try to connect the antenna better, but I did not dare to take the L5 that far apart. So maybe, I’m suffering a hardware issue, but also for me GPS/Location tracking is still never functioning. For me missing navigation is one of the main issues that I still have to carry my Android device with me too often.
This is what support at Purism wrote to me:
Hello,
Thanks. I spoke to our engineer, she suggested to check first if the GNSS antennae spring contact has proper contact with the frame - this to her is the most likely cause of the problem.
Detailed steps to perform this:
1. take of the back cover 2. open the three screws to open the cover of WiFi / modem 3. disconnect antenna cables and remove modem and WiFi card 4. open all six screws of the frame plus the two screws in the M.2 card compartments 5. before lifting the frame the antenna cables must be removed from the guides in the frame 6. then start in the battery compartment and carefully lift and click out the frame
The GNSS antenna spring contact is a tiny metal part on the top edge of the PCB, close to the rear camera. This metal spring contact must have firm contact with the metal frame.
Yes, they offered that. I’m not sure if it is still valid (I have my Librem 5 now for over a year). But I did not want to put an extra burden on Purism as long as I was not sure if the software would even work.
Here are instructions how to disassemble the Librem 5:
I’m not so sure. A friend of me also has a Librem 5. That Librem 5 does get way better a GPS fix, but I did not read a clear post on this forum from someone who could really use the Librem 5 for navigation.
It can take a long time (e.g. 20 minutes) outside to get your first fix but thereafter it should be quick - or you may indeed have poor connection on the antenna - but best to eliminate other possible issues first.
The other thing to confirm is that, assuming you are using geoclue as the source of location information for the applications, you have configured geoclue to use only the GNSS as the underlying source. You need this anyway for any kind of sane troubleshooting, but you also really really don’t want geoclue using e.g. WiFi for location information (since that involves leaking information, including your location, to the online service that maps WiFi MAC addresses to physical locations) and e.g. most people wouldn’t want it using mobile tower for location information (since that is not very accurate).
I will give that a try as soon as we have a clear day over here.
Hope it does work (never had a phone that needed to be initialized in this way), otherwise that part of the phone is pretty much useless.
Perform what @Zimmy it saying, let me help too a little, i have 2 fancy librem 5, one Librem 5 do not have the gnss fix, the other L5 is has the gnss fix, so in my test both phones get work and precision at same time. If that Zimmy recommend do not work i will helping you a little to troubleshooting.