Handheld GPS, which one?
 

Last week end we were out all night in a steel cabin cruiser.
The onboard navigation equipment worked well. The handheld Garmin GPS did
not work inside. As for the Magellan Gold it did the job good. My friend
had to stay close to the glass windows. My question is if one has to pick
up an handheld GPS which one will it be?

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 20:41:41 GMT, "Denis Marier"
wrote:

Last week end we were out all night in a steel cabin cruiser.
The onboard navigation equipment worked well. The handheld Garmin GPS did
not work inside. As for the Magellan Gold it did the job good. My friend
had to stay close to the glass windows. My question is if one has to pick
up an handheld GPS which one will it be?



One that can see through a steel cabin-top?

Brian Whatcott

Brian is correct .....
NO GPS can 'see' through steel or fiberglass, etc. The antenna MUST
have a clear unobstructed view of the satelites .... no wet sail, no
leaves, no roofs, no dodger or bimini, no steel panels.

In article , Denis
Marier wrote:

Last week end we were out all night in a steel cabin cruiser.
The onboard navigation equipment worked well. The handheld Garmin GPS did
not work inside. As for the Magellan Gold it did the job good. My friend
had to stay close to the glass windows. My question is if one has to pick
up an handheld GPS which one will it be?


begin 666 Denis.vcf

On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 02:23:33 GMT, Brian Whatcott
wrote:

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 20:41:41 GMT, "Denis Marier"
wrote:

Last week end we were out all night in a steel cabin cruiser.
The onboard navigation equipment worked well. The handheld Garmin GPS did
not work inside. As for the Magellan Gold it did the job good. My friend
had to stay close to the glass windows. My question is if one has to pick
up an handheld GPS which one will it be?



One that can see through a steel cabin-top?

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we
assume a GPS can work inside a metal box.

Oh, dear...

R.

You need to get a better GPS if yours won't see through a bimini. My
8 year old GPSMAP 175 works 99% of the time under our hardtop. Every
now and them I'll get a "weak signal" for a few seconds, but its never
enough to affect our navigation.

What I'd like to know is how the nav unit on my wife's new Toyota
stays on track in the Big Dig, 100 feet under ground. It seems to
wander a bit, and then it snaps back into place. Is it cheating by
assuming we stay in the tunnel?




Rich Hampel wrote:
Brian is correct .....
NO GPS can 'see' through steel or fiberglass, etc. The antenna MUST
have a clear unobstructed view of the satelites .... no wet sail, no
leaves, no roofs, no dodger or bimini, no steel panels.

In article , Denis
Marier wrote:


Last week end we were out all night in a steel cabin cruiser.
The onboard navigation equipment worked well. The handheld Garmin GPS did
not work inside. As for the Magellan Gold it did the job good. My friend
had to stay close to the glass windows. My question is if one has to pick
up an handheld GPS which one will it be?


begin 666 Denis.vcf

On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 00:08:12 -0400, rhys wrote:

On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 02:23:33 GMT, Brian Whatcott
wrote:

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 20:41:41 GMT, "Denis Marier"
wrote:

Last week end we were out all night in a steel cabin cruiser.
The onboard navigation equipment worked well. The handheld Garmin GPS did
not work inside. As for the Magellan Gold it did the job good. My friend
had to stay close to the glass windows. My question is if one has to pick
up an handheld GPS which one will it be?



One that can see through a steel cabin-top?

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we
assume a GPS can work inside a metal box.

Oh, dear...

R.

What he said.....
(external antennas are the stock solution,
but who am I to tell hobbyists?)

Brian Whatcott Altus OK

Rich Hampel wrote:
Brian is correct .....
NO GPS can 'see' through steel or fiberglass, etc. The antenna MUST
have a clear unobstructed view of the satelites .... no wet sail, no
leaves, no roofs, no dodger or bimini, no steel panels.

In article , Denis
Marier wrote:


Last week end we were out all night in a steel cabin cruiser.
The onboard navigation equipment worked well. The handheld Garmin GPS did
not work inside. As for the Magellan Gold it did the job good. My friend
had to stay close to the glass windows. My question is if one has to pick
up an handheld GPS which one will it be?


begin 666 Denis.vcf


When our skipper bought a Mirage 33 sailboat, it came with a Garmin 75
(I believe a 1993 model) That thing was expensive in it's day...about
$1k CDN but you could unscrew the stubby antenna and hook up the unit to
a cable attached to a bigger antenna mounted on the stern rail while you
were in the cabin.

Your GPS works underground? Amazing. Normally they shouldnt work
beneath any water saturated soil. I know they dont work in most caves.

My Garmin 48 sees fine inside my fiberglass sailboat's cabin. I always
bring it in at night, and often set it up for anchor watch. It's
always on, and always sees the sky.

Rich Hampel writes:

Brian is correct .....
NO GPS can 'see' through steel or fiberglass, etc. The antenna MUST
have a clear unobstructed view of the satelites .... no wet sail, no
leaves, no roofs, no dodger or bimini, no steel panels.


--

Rich Hampel wrote in
:

Brian is correct .....
NO GPS can 'see' through steel or fiberglass, etc. The antenna MUST
have a clear unobstructed view of the satelites .... no wet sail, no
leaves, no roofs, no dodger or bimini, no steel panels.



Pure hogwash. Any RF-transparent material can be used between the GPS
antenna and the satellites....same as that radome on the radar the RF
passes through coming and going to the target. It CANNOT see through
steel, or any other CONDUCTIVE material. Bimini rails hardly pose a threat
as they occupy so small a footprint on the sky. GPS can see through any
non-metallic bimini material just fine....or our heavily built fiberglass
hardtop.

I've attempted to post a picture taken from behind the helmsman showing off
our redesigned electronics suite. To the left of them console is a little
winch that works lines through the windscreen to haul the mainsheet
traveler back and forth from the helm under the hardtop.

To the left of that winch, there is mounted to the flat surface of the helm
station, a Raymarine Raystar satellite-compensated GPS receiver and the GPS
antenna to our old Garmin 185 backup GPS. These both shoot through the
plexiglass windscreen and the very thick fiberglass hardtop. Because the
solar panel is on the starboard topside of the hardtop, GPS was put way
port to keep from being shielded by the RF-shield of the solar panel...a
conductor.

Hope the picture shows up on alt.binaries.pictures.sports.ocean of this.
I've had trouble posting to it but usenetserver tells me they stopped
identifying my posts to it as spam, blocking them.

--
Larry

You know you've had a rough night when you wake up and you're outlined in
chalk.