Where can I get a GPS Aerial like this.

[Lofty]

I have a GPS Aerial fitted to my boat and I have never seen one like it before. Please see photo attached. I should like to find a similar fitting for my back-up GPS. Anyone know where I can find another like it. Or is this perhaps the usual bollard shaped aerial, normally clamped to a rail, which somebody has modified.

 

[lw395]

I have one much like this, it is either a Philips or Magellan item. However mine is very old now, perhaps >15 years, (it doesn't work too well either) so you may find it hard to get a good one of this design.

You can use the cheap ones on ebay, but they need about a 6 inch diameter ground plane to work properly and need to be sealed for marine use.

Let us know if you find a source as I like the fact that the wire is indoors so to speak.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[SimonD]

Looks like my Magellan one and no, it doesn't work either and I can't find a replacement. Doh!

 

[Goldie]

I have one - Icom I think - linked to my VHF. I'm pretty sure I've seen them by Garmin too. Have you tried the manufacturer of your GPS?

 

[dukes4monny]

A friends 'marine' GPS antenna died a couple of years ago.........I opened it up and removed the innards, then put a £10 waterproof antenna from GPSBitz inside the 'shell'. It works perfectly.
Give them a call, I've always found them very helpful.
No links, just a satisfied customer.

 

[P4Paul]

A few years ago I bought a Cobra plotter (MC-600CXEU) and it had a GPS aerial which could be flush fitted like that, it worked well.

Try speaking to Marathon Leisure to see if it is available as a spare part.

Marathon Leisure Ltd
Teal Building
Northney Marina
Hayling Island
Hampshire PO11 0NH
United Kingdom
T:+44 (0)23 9263 7711
F:+44 (0)23 9263 7722
E: sales@
marathonleisure.co.uk

 

[lw395]

A friends 'marine' GPS antenna died a couple of years ago.........I opened it up and removed the innards, then put a £10 waterproof antenna from GPSBitz inside the 'shell'. It works perfectly.
Give them a call, I've always found them very helpful.
No links, just a satisfied customer.

Take care with this approach, a system like GPS can work 'perfectly' with very little margin. You need some margin for things like rain, lower satellite power, interference etc etc.
Most of the water proof antennas I have seen are designed to go on a car roof, without that sheet of metal they are tuned off frequency, often resulting in blind spots, significant loss of sensitivity. bad polarisation etc etc. When I bodged mine onto a circular plate, I did have the luxury of many thousands of pounds worth of Hewlett Packard toys to check it out with.
The helical Garmin antennas that mount onto (e.g) GPS-V handheld models are very good if you can keep the water out.

If you know of some cheap waterproof antennas intended to mount in free space or on a plastic structure, I'd be really pleased to know.

My view with GPS is that I want to be sure that it will work in adverse conditions, e.g. when the salt spray and rain are really flying about. I have an aversion to plotters with built in antennas down below. It is pushing your luck to expect them to work well when the deck is running with water. When conditions are nicer I tend to do more 'old school' nav and pilotage.
Maybe a good antenna is not really overpriced?

 

[Juggler7823]

I have used similar looking aerials from Simrad and Lowrance but not with other manufacturers equipment. They usually give out NMEA.

 

[Bilgediver]

I have a GPS Aerial fitted to my boat and I have never seen one like it before. Please see photo attached. I should like to find a similar fitting for my back-up GPS. Anyone know where I can find another like it. Or is this perhaps the usual bollard shaped aerial, normally clamped to a rail, which somebody has modified.

You need to determine what type of antenna is in that case. They come divided broadly into two groups and are easily identified by looking at the connection to the GPS/Plotter. It is pointless getting the wrong type just cos it is in the right bit of plastic.

Type A....as used by Furuno and others is an active antenna for the GPS and only has two connections usually in the form of coax IE a BNC or TNC connector. They are powered by a low voltage sent up the coax.

Type B... These are usually used with plotters and the whole GPS system is in the antenna which sends NMEA data down one pair of antenna leads to the plotter. This type my have a 5/6 pin connector.

Spare antennas are found on EBay and Maplin also stock them.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

So Can Any Antenna Be Plugged Into Any GPS (assuming identical leads)

From the posts here you can use other manufacturers antennas with a GPS. So I could basically buy any antenna, wire it up to the old antenna cable and plug and play? I guess the antennas all do the same thing anyway as the signal that all antennas receive is identical. I am probably missing something here!

What's the catch?

POST POSTING NOTE: BilgeDiver posted the answer a minute before me. See above.

 

[bitman]

we have the same kind of gps antenna from raymarine. works fine till some one sits on it then all alarm bels go off

 

[lw395]

From the posts here you can use other manufacturers antennas with a GPS. So I could basically buy any antenna, wire it up to the old antenna cable and plug and play? I guess the antennas all do the same thing anyway as the signal that all antennas receive is identical. I am probably missing something here!

What's the catch?

POST POSTING NOTE: BilgeDiver posted the answer a minute before me. See above.

Most active antennas have a filter and some gain in them powered by +5v up the coax.
Some are 3v or 3.3V though. Some are current biassed so will not be damaged by 5V.
If you can connect to the coax you are generally away OK, but it's often horrible stuff to work with so pay a bit more for a recogniseable connector and use an adaptor to BNC or whatever is on your receiver. A smaller connector such as sma is nice when installing the unit.

As has been said, other units are an integrated receiver which has power and data lines.
These may or may not interchange, they can have all sorts of firmware and options set, even if they are the same chip set. Some times you need to connect to a PC to set up the outputs to what you want....

You may find an odd case which is neither of these, including old professional units. Leave well alone!

Then there's usb and bluetooth gps 'dongles' which probably need something nearer to a pc or pda than a plotter to process the data... probably not impossible....

 

[Bobobolinsky]

I built my system using a cheap marine Evermore gps receiver, cube computer for a car and a touch screen 10" monitor

 

[Lofty]

Thankyou

Thanks for the help everyone. I know this aerial was originally on a Magellan GPS. Now I have it on an MLR and it is working very well. I also have a Furono and am tempted to modify the aerial to suit. I shall make inquiries of the experts before I start meddling.