I was told by my installer that the GPS antenna is not suitable for exterior mounting. Any truth to this ?

According to the manual, the GPS Antenna is supposed to go on the ouside, the installer is just lazy like me.

I put mine inside on the rear shelf and it works fine.

I don't think it matters as long as it has a view of the sky.

he could of been lazy. many people have it mounted outside, even i do. and its been thru hot,chilly, and rain so far.

i have mine mounted inside my dash, no problems at all, ive done this with 5 other systems and never had a problem, i dont know why people think that the gps antenna has to be in sight of the sky.

Anonymous said:

i have mine mounted inside my dash, no problems at all, ive done this with 5 other systems and never had a problem, i dont know why people think that the gps antenna has to be in sight of the sky.

Woah, you mean inside the dash as like, in the glovebox for example?

If that even works, that is going to KILL your accuracy. GPS Antennas need a view of the sky and pick up at least 3 satellites to even figure out roughly where you are, and at least 4 to be anywhere near accurate. The more satellites the unit can see, the more accurate it gets. In the planes I fly, we have two antennas for accuracy and redundancy. Not to mention each one is the size of a large book.

Howstuffworks.com has a very good write up on how trilateration (the mathmatical basis of GPS) and the satellites work in general.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gps1.htm

yea ive always thought that was the case before, but yea my antenna currently is shoved behind my glovebox magnetized on the dashboard support. Tracks perfectly, knows exactly where you are at, the sat signal is normal on the setup screen. If you have ever noticed if you are in your garage when you first setup the nav or press reset it defaults you to somewhere in los angeles, but it will find your house thats the signal even going through your house. Ive always had the antenna mounted somewhere within my dash for my cars, 4 runner, civic, audi. Both pioneer and alpine units.

:lol: are you serious? post a picture of your connection status screen. I couldn't get any of the three signal bars when I put this under my rear deck on top of the sheet metal. It would see 6 of the sats, but that just means it's getting the ping beacon, not necessarily able to calculate location very accurately. The good news about these units is that with the VSS wire and gyroscope, after the learning phase is complete, i could unplug the gps antenna entirely and still be *pretty*accurate.

Hyperite said:

:lol: are you serious? post a picture of your connection status screen. I couldn't get any of the three signal bars when I put this under my rear deck on top of the sheet metal. It would see 6 of the sats, but that just means it's getting the ping beacon, not necessarily able to calculate location very accurately. The good news about these units is that with the VSS wire and gyroscope, after the learning phase is complete, i could unplug the gps antenna entirely and still be *pretty*accurate.

How many hours roughly does the learning phase take?

I've had 2 Blaupunkt and one Avic D1 installed in my Passat 05, all with the antenna under the dash. For best reception make sure that you don't have metal above the antenna. Plastic and glass is ok. Also sticking it on a flat metal surface of about 3"by 3" or bigger helps the reception.
Since theft is becoming a big problem with these aftermarket units, it's best not to attract scum by putting the gps antenna in plain site.
OE units have better security built in and in most cases require a unique code to activate.

Mine is on the top of the center of my dash, under the plastic but above the radio. I haven't had a problem with it yet, and it's been like that since last June.

I am using the metal plate underneath, though. :lol:

I don't see any reason to mount it outside. I have never seen a factory GPS antenna mounted outside. I agree with SuperH. Plastic and glass should not affect GPS accuracy. The factory navigation in trucks like mine is mounted just under the upper dash pad. Just make sure there is no metal blocking it and it should be fine. I just drove 900-miles with my GPS antenna mounted just below the dash pad and it was completely accurate the whole time.

For the people that mounted their antennas in the rear of the car- isn't the cable too short? how did you extend it?

I usually install them outside the vehicles. Have never had a problem. However I just installed the latest one inside the car (convertible) in the dash. I put it just under the plastic dash, with no metal above it and all is well.

In another convertible I installed it on the deck lid just infront of the 3rd brake light. Had plenty of cable.

Outside is best for reception, but it works just fine inside so long as you avoid putting it under metal (although I've seen that done and it seems to work even then, but try to avoid it).

i have an n1 and now D2...it always been outside on the hatchback glass. It is much more accurate.

i don't think you need to mount it on the outside at all.. mine is practically buried in my car (it's below the glove compartment and underneath the carpet) and i always get a pretty decent signal and navigation works great

Thanks to everyone for all the great AVIC-Z1 info - especially ducatiboy for the energy and time for putting the site together.

Here's a quick word of advice to consider this if you're in the small subset of folks w/a cabover camper on your truck. On my F-350 and had to put the antennas outside on the front hood to get signal when the camper's installed. I ran the wires through the firewall where there's a nifty foil sticker covering a hole that's just right for pass throughs - the foil can be stuck back over the wires to keep wind out.
Joe