[time-nuts] GPS antenna setup: how good?

Brian Kirby kilodelta4foxmike at gmail.com
Wed Mar 24 22:28:03 UTC 2010


What kind of GPS receiver are you using ?  Most of the Motorola and 
Garmin can output NEMA data,
which is comma limited ASCII.  There are data sentences that show the 
elevation and azimuth of the
satellite and signal strength in their arbitrary format.

You could extract the once sentence and bring it into a spreadsheet to 
analyze it.  And then change to a
 different antenna 12 hours later and you will be looking basically at 
the same satellite constellation, with
the other antenna.

Brian - KD4FM

Hal Murray wrote:
> How do I tell which of two setups is better?  For example, how much does 
> adding a pie pan help?
>
> Is there some simple parameter I can look at that tells me an antenna 
> goodness value?  If not, what's a reasonable recipe to come up with a number 
> or compare two antennas?
>
> What's the appropriate time scale to use when thinking about that problem?
>
>
> I haven't (yet?) looked at any of the satellite position and signal strength 
> data.
>
> Can I do something like wait until a satellite is about to go directly 
> overhead and plot the signal strength while occasionally swapping the 
> antennas?  Are the signal strength readings reasonably noise free and/or 
> repeatable from run to run which may be a few days apart?
>
> Assuming it goes high overhead, how long is a satellite within view?  
> (ballpark)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>   




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