Antennas, waste of money????????????

i have one i feel i get better signal, i have yet to lose my sats!

I use one all the time. It works really well to let you put your GPS down off the dash where it only has limited view of the sky.

Even on the dash, it will increase the number of sats "seen" and increases the signal strength by an order of magnitude.

Alright, maybe not that much, but at least a 50% increase.

BTW, the Garmin antenna will work just fine with a Magellan Meridian and I expect most other Magellan models also.

I went from 20 foot accuracy without an antenna to around 10 foot accuracy with an antenna. For some reason I think with the antenna I get my turn by turn voice directions earlier. Nothing pisses me off more when my Garmin tells me to turn right on a street just as I'm driving passed it. errgh..."recalculating"

You can tell when the voice comes on ten feet sooner? :-)

I've seen the antennas, and being a real gadget person I want to get it, but I can't convince myself that its clutter (something I know about a lot) is worth it. Having signals stronger or having more of them is nice, but doesn't seem like it matters at all unless it makes some practical difference, and being 10-feet rather than 20-feet accuracy doesn't really seem to be something I could tell even if I tried. Is there some way of justifying it on a pragmatic actual-use level?

I probably know the answer to this but here goes. Will the antenna improve the strength of the FM transmitter? I know when I hold the unit in my hand the signal is strong and when I let go it is weaker. I was hoping the antenna would improve the FM range.

I personally don't own an external antenna, but I'm fairly certain that it won't improve the range of the FM transmitter.

It will not. The antenna for that is entirely internal and not associated with the GPS receiver or antenna.

That it gets stronger when you hold it means that your body is acting as a radiator.

Ok, here are a couple of examples that should show you what difference an antenna makes. I only let the unit set for about 5 minutes before taking the screen shots. More than likely had I moved further into the yard and let the unit set longer the accuracy, (DOP) would have been better.

The first is on my front porch with the NE sky partially blocked by the house with the antenna connected.

http://www.taborsonline.com/443.jpg

The second is with the antenna disconnected with the unit in the same place.

http://www.taborsonline.com/461.jpg

Incidentally, the device was laying on it's back. I couldn't detect any difference in sensitivity due to position of the unit with the antenna disconnected.

on a nuvi 200?

In a place such as Manhattan it is useful, otherwise a waste of money.

An external antenna will give you better performance when it provides a less restricted view of the sky, therefore giving you at least the opportunity to "see" more satellites.

If I use my GPS in the Jeep, a great deal of the sky is occluded by the metal roof. With the external antenna, mounted in the center of the roof, the "view" is pretty much unobstructed.

In the Mini, the Nuvi is positioned more forward, so the shadowing from the roof isn't as great. Using an external antenna improves performance, but it isn't as big a difference as in the Jeep.

The external antenna I use is an older Trimble unit with a very good preamp in it, and that helps as well.

For some ham radio work, I end up using multiple GPS receivers in the Jeep at the same time -- I use a single external antenna and a specialized signal splitter to drive the two GPS receivers, the Nuvi for the maps, and the other (an old Trimble) for timing and plotting.

I live near NYC and when driving in the city it helps alot with the tall buildings

In one of the Street Pilots (I think 2730 or thereabouts), they had the dead reckoning feature which would continue to direct you even when the sat signal was inadequate. I was about to buy that model when they discontinued it.

It seems to me that a DR feature would be a great option for urban canyon driving.

So why did they drop it?

Just a guess...but my money is on a lawsuit

On another forum, someone took a cheap set of stereo earphones and cut the speakers off. Plugged it into the headphone jack and noted a marked improvement on FM transmitter strength. It's kind of like the body radiator thing when you hold it in your hands.

Thanks for the tip.

It might depend on where you live and the GPs you own. I have had three different Street Pilots and have never seen the need for an external antenna traveling around my home area or anywhere I have traveled away from home.