[time-nuts] Do ordinary clouds adversely affect GPS reception?

[Dana Whitlow]

A friend of mine living in SE lower Michigan recently bought
a Geppetto GPS clock, and swears that it tends to lose
satellite lock on cloudy days but does OK on sunny days.

He is admittedly using a very poorly-sited antenna,
placed in a window because his house has aluminum
siding.  He reports that his Garmin handheld GPS
has much less trouble acquiring and maintaining lock
on cloudy days than does the Geppetto, but still tends
to show higher levels of probable position error on
cloudy days.  I don't yet know if he takes the Garmin
outside for these comparisons.

Is this a real phenomenon, or is my friend just imagining
things?

Meanwhile I think I have finally persuaded him to install
the antenna outside on the roof.

Dana    (K8YUM)