Cell phone GPS... easy fix

[pfarber]

My Galaxy S4's GPS reception went to hell.. it was useless... never getting any satellite locks. I was at the point of actually being on ebay ready to click the 'buy it now' button on a new (used) S4.

But then I remembered that you can google shit and fix it. This Internet stuff is amazing!

Turns out that the contact pads for the GPS antenna molded into the case are NOT gold plated... ie they will corrode. The spring loaded contacts on the circuit board are gold plated, but not the contact pads on the case sied. So as per the youtube video I took the case off, cleaned the pads, re-bent the contacts, put it together... freaking 12 satellite lock in less than 30 seconds whereas before I couldn't get a fix at all.

A used phone was only $80 but still... $80 in my pocket is better than not having $80 in my pocket.

[pfarber]

Here's the video I used to fix my GPS.

I didn't add any foil as that's not the issue. The issue is the corrosion on the non-gold plated contacts. The only reason they use gold plating is because gold doens't corrode... yet the GPS pads are not plated.

https://youtu.be/kMNb8BVr540?t=2m42s