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Subject: Re: Differences between GPS and WWV time
From: Dan Allen (danallen@XXX.XXX)
Date: Fri Jun 22 2001 - 19:35:03 EDT
From: Rodney Myrvaagnes
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 12:49 PM
To: NAVIGATION-L@XXX.XXX
Subject: Re: Differences between GPS and WWV time
Has anyone tested the fixed-mount versions of popular GPS
families to see if they are better in this regard? I
suspect the answer will be no, but they could take
advantage of the ample power available from the boat or car
battery.
--- Dan Allen replies: ---
The behavior of my fixed-mount GPSes is the same as battery-operated ones.
As long as they use a low-power and hence low-megahertz ancient 80186-based
processor, any GPS will have a hard time doing several of these tasks all at
once. (Garmin handhelds use an Intel embedded CPU that is based on the
80186, or at least early Garmins did.)
I have asked Garmin to add a feature to their GPSes, a time-only mode where
it reads out nothing but accurate time, but they haven't done it.
On the bright side, in the Garmin eTrex they originally didn't even show you
seconds anywhere! Only hours and minutes. This is crazy in a device that
has internally very accurate time from the satellites. I made my case to
them in emailed and amazingly enough, just a few weeks later, a new rev of
the eTrex software was posted on their website which displayed seconds! One
can download the new software and flash the ROM from any PC.
If you have a Garmin GPS you should go to their website and see if you have
their latest software.
Dan
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