GPS Antenna - repair

Do a search on 1.575 ghz antennas. All gps recievers use the same freq. This is a fairly high freq to cut an antenna accurately, you might find a fit from other manufacturers. Usually they employ a BNC connecter, if your unit doesn't use one, I would rather find an adapter than change the one on the antenna end.

Many thanks and I'll dig into the approach you suggest. I believe I can salvage the actual antenna (the box on the top) with the etched radials so it might be possible to move ahead on this.

From what I can gather there appear to be a couple of capacitors on the connecting board but they appear to be shorted - not surprising having been stepped on. There currently is no external antenna connector so if I used coax to go from the original internal antenna connections to the back of the case to a BNC we might get lucky.

Again many thanks for your time and thoughts.

Brian

Use 50 ohm coax, there are many types, go to an electronics supplier and they should be able to help you. This was kind of interesting:

http://www.cvisproject.org/download/Deliverables/DEL_CVIS_3.1_Reference_architecture_v1.2.pdf

Thanks for that.

I have done some ham radio stuff and feel good about tackling this one. I do appreciate the early cautions and direction for the project. Once completed, I'm certain a certain crew member (sailor) will feel a lot less obligated to dig deep into the pocket.

I'll let you know how it's going.

Brian

Go to EBAY.

Search for GPS Antenna.

Many available for hand-held, auto and marine use.

CHEAP!

Put a matching connector on your Head Unit.

Back in business.

Throw offending crew member overboard.

Brian,

Here is an article from QST magazine on a simple GPS antenna you can build cheaply. Even if you don't build this antenna, the construction tips might help you in hooking up you coax and connectors to the leads of the broken antenna.

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/pdf/0210036.pdf

I built the antenna and it worked like a charm. Locked onto 8 sats very quickly and I believe faster than the original internal antenna. Knowing this works fine I think I'll look into an amplified external antenna, mount as SMA (F) on the gps and we're set to go.

Thanks so much.

Brian

PS: an engineer at Navman told me he hooked an alligator clip onto a quarter, placed the wire into the SMA (F) on the gps and it worked. Guess one could make a few $ on this bet.

"an engineer at Navman told me he hooked an alligator clip onto a quarter, placed the wire into the SMA (F) on the gps and it worked"

If you want a cheap solution, I guess that one really is a "Two-bit Antenna"! <grin>

I have been reading the mail with great interest on this thread and I hope you can help me with my GPS antenna challenge.

About four years ago I bought a NAVMAN 5500I (Internal antenna) for my 27' cruiser. It worked well while I owned that cruiser. However, the two footitis got to me and I jumped to a 1966 36' Christcraft and I immediately upgraded my new toy, one of which was to replace the canvas. It seems that the canvas was such a good quality that the sat signal to the GPS was very weak and at times not existent. I moved the GPS closer to the plastic window where it works fairly well but as you can guess, out of visual range.

I have been seriously contemplating installing a coax connector on the GPS thereby bypassing the internal antenna to an external antenna.

I have reviewed some of the articles that were discussed in the thread, ie QST and encouraged that this is possible.

Can anyone advise, first, is it possible and secondly, if it is, is there any advise or technical data available to guide me?

Thanks,

Maj