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External Antenna


FGV

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Hi everybody.

 

I use a Garmin 60C on my car and I'm thinking about buying an external

antenna from Garmin. I would like to know what are the diferences you

noticed using an external antenna. Greater accuracy, better reception

on bad conditions? What's your experience?

 

best regards

Francisco

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An external antenna stuck to the roof (by the built-in magnetic mount) will provide an unobstructed view of the sky and enable reception from all but the lowest satellites. Using a large number of satellites will provide better estimated position accuracy.

 

There are less expensive alternatives to the Garmin antenna, such as the GAST3X from pc-mobile.net. The patch-style external antennas seem pretty generic in their performance, so I don't think you can go wrong with whichever supplier you choose. Just make sure that the antenna cable has a MCX connector.

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The Gilsson antenna at GPSGeek.com gets a lot of praise from forum users. I have one and I am pleased with it.

 

I'll second that. I actually have 2 of them. One with the 16 ft. cable for those occasions when I want it on the car roof and the other with a 3 ft. cable which I alternate between the dashboard and velcro'd to the top of my backpack when hiking.

They work great and sat. lock is much stronger and more consistent. On the backpack allows me to carry my GPSr in a pocket rather than walking through the deep woods looking like the statue of liberty trying to regain signal loss. :o

 

Cheers, Olar

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I purchased the GPSGeek antenna with the 16' cable for work; I run the engine room on a Lower Mississippi River towboat and the 60c means that I never need to ask the wheelhouse where we are anymore. ;) A gps will only work about half the time sitting in the window without an external antenna; I haven't used it at work yet (just got it), but based on what I've seen in the car so far, it will be great. (It will sit on a second deck handrail outside.) I don't think that anyone mentioned the fact that this is actually an amplified antenna, it uses a tiny amount of power from your unit to boost the recieved signals.

Tom

 

P.S. A short cable antenna with a windshield bracket is a near term possibility, as the antennas improve accuracy. BTW, GPSGeek offers a suction cup bracket for the windshield for the antennas for $5.95.

Edited by BilgeRat
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The GPSGeek antenna (Gilsson) and the window suction plate both work great. You'll never again loose signal if you put it on your lap or between seats. Another good addition is the cigarette lighter four pin power adapter. The 60C back light stays on all of the time and save a lot of batteries (not that the 60 series is hard on them). All three accessories only cost 40.00 total.

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PC-Mobile sells a re-radiating external antenna. It uses a wire loop strapped to the GPSr cover in the area of the internal GPSr antenna to re-radiate the signal received from an external antenna. My personal experience was that it didn't work well if the internal GPSr antenna could still receive signals. I was sufficiently disappointed that I upgraded to a GPSr that had an external antenna connector. However, others were apparently more successful with this re-radiating antenna concept. So, as the saying goes, your mileage may vary.

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I got a 60CS yesterday and it seems to work just fine in the car without an external antenna.

Even though the reception seems quite good it does not mean that it is every second of your travel. Often you can look back on a track that you just went over and see that when you were traveling 80mph down the highway around corners that the track did not follow the highway. This is because the accuracy gauge on most GPS units does not respond quickly enough to let you know that you have lost tracking for a brief second which at highway speeds is a huge distance. Without an external antenna the GPS can have a difficult time keeping a long on sattelites directly behind you due to the metal of the roof.

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