[PapstDFrisco]

Thanks guys,
I had already found that.
I just don't want to screw this up - so I've been doing a lot of reading - and now asking questions.
The other thread was about spl2.47 - it says not to use it with non-gps radio/roms. But the numbers given seem to be for sprint based moguls - not the vzw 6800. Now I'm quite sure that the stock 6800 with 2.09 rom and 1.30 radio are both non-gps. I'm just looking for sanity checks here.
There's nowhere I've read that said No2Chems rom programs would do the carrier stuff for you. I've collected quite a few rom images and am trying to figure out which one(s) I'd like to try.

I'd obviously like to get the gps working to try that out. But past that, on my previous phone (pos samsung i730) I mainly just used the phone, voice dialer, and outlook via wireless sync.

I'd like to get a lot more functionality out of this phone. It seems the phone stuff works similar to that on WM5 on the i730 - which to me was just so-so as far as user friendliness. Voice dialer not so much so far. Wireless sync is exactly the same.

So, yes, I'm just trying to learn as much as I can before diving into the deep end. I'm a HW engineer by trade - design ARM based embedded systems - just not smartphone/pdas. And I have experience with CE5 and Platform Builder. So eventually I expect to look at kitchens and the like - although SW is not my speciality.

So please be patient with me as I do what I do and over analyze this stuff to death before I'm comfortable.