Things to note.

Connector-that-looks-like a Mini-USB is not. It is a 3.3v serial port. However, the outside pins are for incoming power and are laid out matching USB, allowing charging with any normal USB cable.

The unit was supplied with Euro-AC and auto adaptors. This both have cables with mini-USB connectors on end.

The battery is a Nokia compatible one, should you get caught short.

Pin-out

Some PDF documentation can be found at the Holux download centre.

Protocol

The wire protocol is the same over both the Bluetooth (a dumb Bluetooth/serial transceiver) and the 3.3v serial port exposed via the Mini-USB like connector. The unit speaks NMEA0183 by default, plus some proprietary Starfire extensions and the SiRF binary protocol. Some commands (WAAS enabling) requiring switching to the binary protocol, running the command and switching back to NMEA.

Bluetooth is a plain bluetooth-serial device. The GPS is not discoverable if it is already associated with another device (computer/PDA/phone). The PIN to associate is "0000". If it is available, you'll see:

$ hcitool scan | grep GPS
        00:0B:0D:85:31:xx       HOLUX GPSlim236

Proprietary NMEA commands

These start with $PSRF . There's a list of some on a GPS Passion forum post.

Proprietary SiRF binary mode

This can apparently be entered using: $PSRF100,0,<baud rate>,8,1,0<<CR><LF>. eg.

$PSRF100,0,38400,8,1,0*0C

http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=53657

Great problems with pairing

A bit of l2ping 00:0B:0D:85:31:xx seems like it helped, even though it shouldn't.

It actually "patch in" the serial port, you need: rfcomm bind 0 00:0B:0D:85:31:xx 1. (The first '0' is /dev/rfcommX, the '1' at the end is the endpoint (think TCP port) number from sdptool browse 00:0B:0D:85:31:xx0. The bind can be replaced with connect for an instant connection; otherwise you run 'cat' or 'gpsdrive' or something afterwards.

On well, it works now.

Symbian, WhereAmI

Currently I'm using whereami written by my friend Adam Boardamn who has been kind enough to put up with my whinging and even add an extra couple of features to the software. The places where it doesn't work now mostly seem to involve Symbian itself and the prototype Nokia 9300 Communicator I'm running it on.