EMTAC Sleeve - poor performance

geralddavison · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 19, 2004 Posts: 2

Hi all,

I have had very poor results since I bought my copy of TTN with an EMTAC GPSJAQ. It has rather disappointed my wife and I, especially as I got it for her so she wouldn't get lost when we weren't in the car together. The lack of a reliable lock means she gets all sorts of mad prompts coming out of the speaker which means she tends to ignore the 'GPS ladies' advice.

I am using an Emtac Sleeve with a Compaq iPAQ 3870 PPC2002, running TTN 3.03. I have set TTN to use 'Emtac GPSJAQ'.

Frequently when looking at the GPS monitor screen I see the little line of dots that should scroll between the picture of the Dish and the Handheld has stuck. This requires a soft (sometimes hard) re-boot of the iPAQ.

I have significant TTFF delays followed by regular loss of all satellites. It does come back after a while, without intervention, but while it gets a proper fix we start getting all sorts of wrong advice coming out of the speaker. This appears to be the case both inside and outside both of my cars (03 Smart Coupe and 02 Audi A4 Avant).

I can only usually see a very small number of satellites (max I have ever had is 5).

Is this likely to be :-

a) problem with set up
b) faulty unit
c) both !
d) the stupid user (me !)
e) none of the above.

Thanks for your help with this very annoying problem.

Brandon · Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 7:17 pm Post subject:

Hello,

What are your sat levels outside of the car? Maybe the solution is an external antenna.

Best regards,

Brandon

geralddavison · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 19, 2004 Posts: 2

Thanks for the swift reply Brandon.

It doesn't appear that I get a very good signal even outside of the car.

Long TTFF and frequent loss of position data due to loss of sufficient satellites to keep a lock.

What type of external antenna will work with my kit and where could I get it in the UK (mail order or from a shop) ?

Dave · Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2004 6:59 am Post subject:

It's because you have an athermic windscreen (UV Coated). This dampens GPS signals. You either need to look at an external patch antenna which plugs into the side of the sleeve, or go for a re-rad 45 antenna.

For re-rads, check out these reviews:-
http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/menu_rerads.php

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