Use non-std antenna with DL-1?

Mats · Joined: 10 Oct 2006 Posts: 19

Is it possible to use a non standard antenna with the DL-1? I found a nice combination antenna on a car on the carpark the other day, GPS and radio/GSM, looked like a sweet antenna to mount on my roof which some previous owner already drilled a hole in.

So is it possible or is there no antenna standard interface in the GPS industry?

Mats · Joined: 10 Oct 2006 Posts: 19

No-one knows? Confused

jlucas · Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 304 Location: Delaware, OH

email support@race-techonology.com
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Jeremy Lucas
Fast Tech Limited - a Race Technology Dealer

David Stewart · Joined: 02 Dec 2005 Posts: 22

I found these two... first one looks like our stock antenna, the second one is a nice small easily concealed unit.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=464

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=177
(I may pick this one up if I ever hardwire the DL-1 into my vehicle permanently)

Hope this helps!

Enjoy!

Mats · Joined: 10 Oct 2006 Posts: 19

So as long as the connector is the same it's no problem? Are there any problems using adapter cables?

GrahamB · Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 17

About 18 months ago I cartwheeled my bike at Phillip Island and the GPS stopped working. Rather than send it back to the UK, I bought a cheap antenna off Ebay, cut the cable and crimped on the appropriate connector, and away we went.

BUT... it's still not working 100%. I suspect the replacement antenna is not quite as good... but it may be the mounting. On the old bike it was mounted on an aluminium ground plane under a fibreglass panel. On the new one, the corresponding panel is carbon fibre, so it is mounted on top, without a ground-plane and sloping to the rear. One of my holiday projects is to make a better mount for it.

Aside from losing lock occasionally, the biggest irritation is that it doesn't seem able to work out the time & date in time to label the run files properly: I just came home from a weekend of racing with 35 files all claiming to have started at 1am, 1 Jan 2004...

RTUSA · Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:29 pm Post subject:

The default timestamp typically means that logging was started prior to getting a good GPS lock. Could be that a poor antenna (or mounting arrangement) is causing lock to take longer, could be procedure.
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Al Seim
Race Technology USA

GrahamB · Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 17

Yes, it turned out to be a compounding of errors. Because of getting a poor lock, I was missing parts of runs because my auto-start condition was GPS speed > 30km/h.
So I changed that to a supply voltage condition which meant that it started logging immediately... and hence couldn't get a lock.
Then I forgot I'd done that Very Happy

Since then I've made an aluminium bracket to mount the old antenna horizontal on top of the duck-tail. Last time out the logger worked almost perfectly (still some issues with rpm pick-up via spark-in on some runs).