Thread: good/cheap GPS with external antenna?

Originally Posted by Punky

is the newer gps worth the upgrade? Mine is working fine, but it does jump around a bit in area with lots of high rise (downtown) or large trees.

A newer unit won't help with that.
The trees and/or buildings are blocking the GPS signal from one or more satellites, so you see your position jumping around.

my current system has 12 satellite max, which i thought cause the weak signals.
newer ones seems to have something like 32 satellite? you don't think that'll fix the problem?

i've been using the Ambicom GPS-USB.. it's been working for me far almost 2 years now.. i think i only paid 25 at frys electronics

Originally Posted by Punky

my current system has 12 satellite max, which i thought cause the weak signals.
newer ones seems to have something like 32 satellite? you don't think that'll fix the problem?

From what I've read, about the max number of sats in the sky at one time is about 12, and the gps wiki has a nice animated globe with sats in view and it's usually max 10 with blips of 11 or 12.

Sooo, a 32 channel receiver sounds cool, it's probably not much practical use.
(it would be of some use for the next sat coming up after the last heads down, but don't think it'd help that much)

Now, what may be of some use is receiver sensitivity.
You'd have to look up the specs on your current unit, and the specs of a current chipset to see how much better.
But....
You're talking about tall buildings... Doesn't matter how sensitive the chipset is, a full block of concrete N steel, nothing is going to get through that.
A busy downtown will get you a street wide peek forward/back of your car and tiny peeks to the side. Not many sats will be lined up exactly right to get to you.
Trees on the other hand, a sensitive receiver will help. The trees are cutting down the signal, but there's probably still some left to be found.

(overly) long story short: Check the specs and see if the new chipset is alot better than the old.

Sky

I wonder if having a GPS with the newer SiRF chips would help? Usually, I only get about 6-8-ish satellites with my iGPS-500 (from the MS Streets and Trips), but it's always accurate and Ive never had my GPS position jump even when driving downtown past all the tall buildings.

i'll definitely keep that in mind, cuz mine jump left and right in downtown.
I know its due to multipath issue when it comes to the signal, but maybe they figured out how to solve the issue.

i use this- http://cgi.ebay.com/Royaltek-RGM-360...d=p3286.c0.m14

i think its just a clone of the famous Globalstat 353. same specs, and it works awesome. magnetic base and waterproof too...