Thread: How to improve signal in Big Cities like Chicago/NY

Try to position the GPS where it will have the clearest views of the horizon to minimize signal blockage from your vehicle.

Try another GPS receiver too. I have a Garmin 35 and it works really well. The Earthmates are often thought of as crap. I have my Garmin located in the back window and it works fine.

I’ve also found crappy GPS software can also cause you to miss turns. I tried a few and settled with CoPilot.

Good luck.

well i may have to try some different gps recievers, i do not want another situation like this again, thats the reason i got gps in the first place, so i dont get lost.lol.

thanks

Well liquid, I'll tell you this much, Cities like NYC are well known terror zones for GPS signals and receivers. Different units will cope differently, thats for sure. You didn't specify a receiver, so can't say much in that department But Zip-Lock said it well. Earthmate has a lock issue when there is a lot of "noise" arund. I'm running an OEM Garmin and reception is really good.

Being that you have a VW, do some research, you may find out that on the roof of the car it could be a very easy conversion to go GPS. SOme cars have GPS antenna's in them already, so to add for example a Garmin GPS15H would be extremely simple in such a setup and would retain you really good signals.

Originally Posted by liquid_smoke

and the reciever is behind the middle rear head rest, usb earthmate. Just to give an idea of exactly where i have it placed.
Would sticking it on the dash (bad place cosmeticly) be any better?

For me it was exactly the other way around.

At first I put the Earthmate on the front dash in my 03 Mustang, and was very disappointed with the GPS; it seems like I just couldn't get a signal. I was extremely frustrated, thinking the unit was broken, but then tried the rear window/deck.. bingo! Now it works like a champ with very quick warm-up times.

Perhaps the shallower angle of the rear window did the trick, or perhaps the front windshield has one of those solar-glare coatings.. or a combination of both. My 96 Impala SS had some solar coating on the front windshield, so I couldn't use a regular EZPass, I needed the license-plate-mount version.