Signal Dropout..... Faulty unit?

Sculli · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 13, 2004 Posts: 5

Afternoon All,

I am a (fairly) happy owner of a TomTom Go uit. I think that it is a fabulous piece of kit - except that it seems to lose signal for no apparent reason. My windscreen ('04 Clio) has a coating on it, but I am not convinced that this is the only reason. If GPS signals were unable to penetrate the reflective winscreens then I would expect a consistently bad (or non-existent) signal. But the unit will go from 5 satellites to 0 within a second or so, but then they can jump back to 4/5 again for no apparent reason.

I am considering purchasing an external antenna to prove out this theory, but.....

I have a small area at the base of the windsceen without any coating at all and was planning on mounting the aerial there. But this area is only arount 6" from the back of the Go unit. The aerial has lots and lots of wire, but I only need approx 6 inches - can I simple cut a and splice the cable to the desire lenght

Thanks

Paul

lbendlin · Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2004 4:24 pm Post subject:

Have you tried using the GO outside the car? From your statement I'm pretty sure the coated windscreen is the culprit. Don't forget - the sat constellation is dynamic, and you have other influencing factors like clouds or other electromagnetic fields that - in combination with the coating attenuation - may make the difference between a stable fix and the on/off you observe.

You can shorten power cables but you should refrain from tampering with antenna cables - they are tuned to perform at certain lengths (has to do with the frequency used) and you may end up with no signal at all.
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avi · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 08, 2004 Posts: 29

You may use re-radiate antenna
http://www.gpsw.co.uk/details/prod444.html
Regards, Avi

Sculli · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 13, 2004 Posts: 5

Just a quick message to thank you guys for your advice - the TTG external antenna appears to have done the trick. After playing around with it last night, it seems to be fine just sitting on the dashboard, underneath the area of glass with no coating. Works better actually held against the glass though, but I need to find a neat way of holding it there!

Thanks again.....

Sculli

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