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mickmills Occasional Visitor
Joined: Dec 26, 2004 Posts: 12
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Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 6:41 pm Post subject: External Antenna - first impressions! |
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I have just recieved my TTG External Antenna and I thought I would make a few points that no-one else seems to have made on this forum.
1) The Antenna itself is tiny... about the size of an old Pentium 2 processor (but three times the thickness). It is much smaller than the GPS Antenna you see fitted production cars.
2) As such it would easily fit on the windscreen behind the rear view mirror (indeed there is a diagram on the packaging that shows this as a mounting point)
3) The Antenna is magnetic... but there seems to be no "Sticky" stuff supplied to stick it to said windscreen
4) Also there is virtually zero instructions... you get just a handfull of diagrams (although its not rocket science)
5) Although you get a new mount supplied to put your TTG on, you don't get the sucker bit (You have to un bolt the sucker bit from your existing mount and put it on the new mount). This is really annoying. For the sake of a £2 sucker saving,... they have prevented me from having two mountiings (one for my car that needs the antenna & one for the missus car that doesn't). What makes things worse... I don't think you can buy the little sucker bit seperately!
7) The above wouldn't be bad if is wasn't for the fact that the sum of parts looks like they are worth £20.... it doesn't look like a £40 - £50 item.
8) Having said all those negitive things, I must say that this antenna works.... and it works very,very well.
For example - The place where I mess about with my TTG (front room by window) gets only a 1 sat signal... and that can take 5 mins to lock on!! Even when I am outside my house the TTG can take 2-3 mins to get a sat lock on. However, with this antenna fitted... I get a 5 sat lock on's in seconds (from my front room).
9) Finally, Was you paying enough attention to notice I left out point 6 ?
As a sum of parts this I don't think this item is worth £50 (especially when they scrimped on a £2 sucker). However, when you consider how effective it is.... then perhaps it is worth £50 ? |
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DavidW Pocket GPS Moderator
Joined: 17/05/2003 02:26:21 Posts: 3747 Location: Bedfordshire, UK
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Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 7:12 pm Post subject: Re: External Antenna - first impressions! |
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mickmills wrote: | 9) Finally, Was you paying enough attention to notice I left out point 6 ? |
LOL. You were another victim of 8) being turned into the 'glasses' smiley - I solved that by editing your post to turn off smileys seeing as you're not using them anywhere.
It's always a good idea to Preview before you Submit to avoid problems like this.
David |
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mickmills Occasional Visitor
Joined: Dec 26, 2004 Posts: 12
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Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2005 10:56 am Post subject: |
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yes, I saw the smilely but I didn't have the option to edit my post.
However, somebody seems to have done it for me? |
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DavidW Pocket GPS Moderator
Joined: 17/05/2003 02:26:21 Posts: 3747 Location: Bedfordshire, UK
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Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2005 10:22 pm Post subject: |
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I did - as well as commenting on the problem.
David |
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gingernut777 Frequent Visitor
Joined: Nov 03, 2004 Posts: 251 Location: Earth where else
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 7:45 am Post subject: |
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mickmills wrote: | yes, I saw the smilely but I didn't have the option to edit my post.
However, somebody seems to have done it for me? |
Just put it down to fingers not working after the long festive holiday
_________________ Using an A to Z
Sextant & Compass |
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jdatkinson Regular Visitor
Joined: Oct 29, 2004 Posts: 63
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Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 8:41 pm Post subject: |
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Just got my external antenna today. Easy enough to set up; i'm using it in my Vauxhall Corsa at the moment so i've just draped the wire along the transmission tunnel, run it under the back seat and threaded it out of the tailgate so it sits on the roof at the rear of the car. The wire sits on the rubber seals and does not seem to get kinked when the tailgate is shut. Seems to stick well, and can easily be taken off and dropped into the back of the car so it can't be seen by interested passers by. I've just done my usual run to work to test it (night shifts :x again) and the signal is a vast improvement. I've consistently found with the Corsa driving into Leeds that the signal goes from 3/5 on the main display to 0/5 as soon as I get to the city centre loop road and then fails to recover at all while in the centre. Today, I lost signal for about 5 seconds going under a bridge and then had 4/5 or 5/5 for the rest of the run which is a clear improvement, and I had 5/5 all the way along the motorway. Neither of our cars have athermic windscreens and both work reasonably well with the Go on its own, but it looks like the antenna will improve the quality of GPS reception considerably.
All I need now is a decent map (i'm an embittered v314 user) and i'll be happy....... |
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