Travelling on Via Rail Canada

[revrnd]

I just did a trip from Toronto to Winnipeg & return on the Canadian & wasn't able to use my Legend Cx. A fellow passenger tried his Nuvi & it was useless too. My Legend works perfectly in my vehicles, so I assumed it was the glass tinting on the dome car. I did a search & saw a few folks mentioned an external antenna, are they available for the Legend Cx?

 

Luckily I had my scanner w/ me so I was able to listen to the head end crew call out the signals @ night, so I knew where we were.

[+PDOP's]

As the eTrex line do not have an antenna port you would need a reradiating antenna (link). My question is even if you had it where would you mount it? Does the dome car have windows that open?

 

Did you try it in the regular coach? I know folks that used their Vista on the Siberian Express.

[+GPSlug]

Some kinds of window tinting have a mylar film that's pretty darn good at blocking GPS. Airports and corporate buildings with big glass walls often have it.

 

Maybe the dome has this kind of tinting to keep it from being too hot up there.

[+Red CBX]

Years ago I had taken The Canadian several times, between Vancouver and Toronto. I spent much of the time in a dome car, and had great success capturing track logs in all but the deepest chasms of the Fraser and North Thompson rivers. Even these data gaps were fairly short.

 

My receivers on those trips were Garmin eMap and GPSIIIPlus. I also remember using an external antenna (GA26, I think) suctioned to my window in the sleeper. My most recent trip was December, 2000.

 

Given my seemingly good luck with this older equipment, I wonder if Via Rail have made some change to the windows in the dome cars. It seems like todays chipsets should have no problem at all.

[+cwhlam]

I have traveled between Montreal and Toronto several times, and I can get GPS signals if I am next to the window. The trains are different though. They do not carry dome cars.