Antenna Position
Mon, 02/25/2008 - 6:58pm
 |
 16 years
|
Hi Everyone,
My owners manual says that I should have the antenna for my nuvi 660 parallel to the ground but would it not reason that I would get better reception if it was straight up and down in the truck? Maybe this is a stupid question but what the heck, you don't ask you don't get. (LOL)
Check Sat signal strength
I dont think it matters. If you want to, look at the sat signal levels by touching the signal bar on the top left (On my 680); it shows you the levels for the signals from each of the sats.
Let us know what you find?
I haven't seen any
I haven't seen any difference at any of the positions.
Charley - Nuvi 350 - Bel STI Driver - Cobra 29 w/ wilson 1000 - AIM: asianfire -
See these threads.
It doesn't seem to matter if it's straight up or 90 degrees. It has been discussed at:
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/9743
and
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/3271
RT
"Internet: As Yogi Berra would say, "Don't believe 90% of what you read, and verify the other half."
Yeah, I saw those other
Yeah, I saw those other posts but it's kind of confusing when the owners manual tells you one thing but common sense tells you another. It seems to work both ways but when I flip the antenna parallel to the earth inside the truck, the antenna is pointing at the center of my dashboard. I figure that can't be the best thing for optimum reception?!
Your Portion Of Light Whether you are a brilliant flame or but a tiny spark matters not-for the world needs whatever portion of light is yours to give.
I don't know ...
while I have seen no difference regardless of postion, come sense could dictate that parallel would give you more surface area facing upwards, towards the signal source .... no?
Same here
I haven't seen any difference at any of the positions.
Really don't notice any change at all on my 660...
....how it works
Antenna performance depends on polarization, beamwidth, and gain, among others. It appears that the beamwidth of the fold out antenna is wide to accommodate varying operating conditions, as commented. Consumer appliances are built to accommodate varying operating ranges.
An example is FM radio - car antennas are mounted vertically, but the signal is transmitted horizontally polarized, to attenuate electrical noise, which is vertically polarized. ...but the transmitted signals are strong, and most radios signal capture ratio is such that performance is satisfactory.
Remember when an antenna rotator was required to point a directional antenna toward a transmitter to eliminate the "snow"?...and the directionality of the antenna design helped eliminate ghosts (multipath).
works
Great explaination even I understood this!!! Thanks
It's those changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes nothing remains quite the same. With all of our running and all of our cunning, If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane.
...Jimmy Buffett - I believe...
"It's those changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes..."
...anyway
"...it's 5'oclock somewhere..." so you know where i'll be....
Subaru Outback
Antenna performance depends on polarization, beamwidth, and gain, among others. It appears that the beamwidth of the fold out antenna is wide to accommodate varying operating conditions, as commented. Consumer appliances are built to accommodate varying operating ranges.
An example is FM radio - car antennas are mounted vertically, but the signal is transmitted horizontally polarized, to attenuate electrical noise, which is vertically polarized. ...but the transmitted signals are strong, and most radios signal capture ratio is such that performance is satisfactory.
Remember when an antenna rotator was required to point a directional antenna toward a transmitter to eliminate the "snow"?...and the directionality of the antenna design helped eliminate ghosts (multipath).
Dear FP,
The radio antenna on my Outback is closer to the horizontal than the vertical. Years ago I had one of those electric rotators for beaming in the signal for the telly. It was fun. Now I have TiVo and satellite.
I am using the antenna on my 650 in the horizontal position (parallel to the ground).
david
nüvi 1490T, V1, Sanyo PRO-700a, maps, sunglasses, hot co-pilot, the open road
But what if the way you have
But what if the way you have your GPS unit mounted has the antenna pointing into the dash cluster of the car / truck when it is parallel to the earth? Would it not make more sense in that case to have it straight up and down so that it is point up through the windshield?
Your Portion Of Light Whether you are a brilliant flame or but a tiny spark matters not-for the world needs whatever portion of light is yours to give.
Antenna Position
But what if the way you have your GPS unit mounted has the antenna pointing into the dash cluster of the car / truck when it is parallel to the earth? Would it not make more sense in that case to have it straight up and down so that it is point up through the windshield?
The direction that the END of a "stick" antenna is pointed is meaningless. No, come to think of it, it's not. A stick antenna receives the LEAST signal when the end is pointed toward the source of the signal........so you've got it backwards. But the difference is probably insignificant!
Magellan Maestro 4250// MIO C310X
The antenna seems to work
The antenna seems to work either way and since the unit sits in a better positions with it parallel to the ground, I'll just leave it that way instead of the antenna stinking straight up and down.
Your Portion Of Light Whether you are a brilliant flame or but a tiny spark matters not-for the world needs whatever portion of light is yours to give.
I found the difference
When i am on the sat page, and move the antenna from the vertical position to the horizontal posit the strength of the signal changes and the amouut of sats i get differ also, this is when GPS is sitting on the dash in a open parking lot,There was a couple of times that i got a screen full of sats, and raising the antenna it dropped up to 6 bars.
Jerry...Jacksonville,Fl Nüvi1450,Nuvi650,Nuvi 2495 and Mapsource.
Well I can mount it in my
Well I can mount it in my vehicle either way and since I haven't noticed much of a difference, I'll leave it in the parallel position for now. I was just curious because the owners manual states to put it in the horizontal position.
Your Portion Of Light Whether you are a brilliant flame or but a tiny spark matters not-for the world needs whatever portion of light is yours to give.
It doesn't make any
It doesn't make any difference at all. I've used it both horizontal and vertical in both pedestrian and car modes.