how long does it take for your gps to pickup the satellites? My pocket pc takes up to 5minutes or more and same with my handheld magellan. I want to get a cheap one around $300 range. Hoping less than a minute.

 

Alot of them claim 2 minutes to get a fix when cold. The thing is that if you are trying to get a 3D fix it will take longer than if you set it up to get a 2D fix first if the GPS allows you to fo that.

 

2 minutes is better than 5 minutes, but still too long. Also I would want that fits in the navi compartment.

 

I have a Garmin nuvi 660 that's ready to navigate within seconds. By the time I back out of the driveway and get it into second gear it's captured 8-12 satelllites and has better than 20 feet worth of accuracty. The newer SiRF receivers are very fast.

My Pioneer AVIC N2 takes about 30 seconds.

 

Hey Paul do you think the garmin nuvi 660 can fit in the little cubby ? I havent seen one in person but i was going to pick one up soon and it would be cool if it fit in there semi decently.

 

I can measure it but I have to find my cubby in the garage as I replaced my '05 with an '03 cubby for the DVD screen. Alternatively I could measure the Garmin. I have no doubt that the antenna is sensitive enough to work from down that low on the dash. It receives plenty of data to lock even in my home office, in the garage, and work ... the thing is amazing.

 

My OEM nav is instantaneous; no measurable time lapse.

 

Globalsat bu-353 on a car comp is near instantaneous. Without clear view of the sky (like in my garage) between 2-4 seconds. I have it mounted inside one of the plastic panel on the rear strut bar, with heavy tint on the rear window.

 

Garmin 200 in cubby, less then 10 seconds!

 

I use a GPS receiver and my cell phone. Once everything is turned on, it's damn near instananeous.

 

My kenwood dnx7100 with garmin is instant

 

The DNX7100 takes 15-20 seconds to "boot up" after you start the car but once it's ready, navi is there and running along with everything else.

 

“Startup-location-time” can vary significantly on a GPS device, and that’s true with devices from the same manufacturer, or even the same device. Your startup time depends upon Satellite access, current orientation/location (if you‘ve moved since the last time the device was ON), and active features (e.g., WAAS). A slow access time doesn’t necessarily mean your GPS is slow or defective. In fact, the same device may find your current location within a few seconds; or it might take a few minutes. The question is why it takes different times.

Manufacturers of GPS devices use different paradigms for startup location and operation. For example; if you live in Chicago and take a cross-country drive to Colorado and never have your GPS turned ON during the trip: When you reach Colorado and turn your GPS on, the device must do a re-orientation; and that takes a few minutes since the device was “blind” for 16 hours and wakes-up in a completely different location. In fact that can happen even when moving only a few miles and the device does not capture the same satellites it was using the last time it was ON.

Most of the latest GPS devices use an internal battery (charged by the yellow/constant power wire connection in car GPS or the removable batteries in hand-held devices) to store your last location, route (if that is active and a feature, and was interrupted), and additional features (e.g., WAAS-enabled, driving/walking statistics, etc.). If the device “remembers” your location and captures the same satellites (that it expects from it’s last ON state), you’re up and running within a few seconds.

If it takes a long time (more than 3 or 4 minutes) for the device to gain position, it’s likely that your device’s internal battery has lost power and the device is unable to store historical data requiring a new orientation.

--Spike