Camry Nav GPS Antenna upgrade

[lojeff]

I have the camry nav from OEM installed in my 04 4Runner. I mounted the gps antenna on the front windshield near the rearview mirror. This was what I thought was the best location for the antenna from OEM. Don't get me wrong, it is a great unit but I had a few problems/issues with the GPS antenna as listed below.

1) although GPS was on most of the time, it was only with a limited number of sats.

2) I installed the anytime nav and once disabled, it took a substantial amount of time to "reposition" me.

3) When going on the beach, with fishing rods on the roof of the truck hanging over the windshield, I have some very strange readings until I was back on the paved road for a least 2 miles.

4) I wanted to tint my driver side and passenger side window and the installer said it could hinder the gps reception.


My solution was to get a magnetic gps antenna from an eclipse unit that I could run out the back of my truck and on mount on the roof. It took forever to get it (I had to call a ton of places) and I was about $100. It fit into the adaptor in the back of the nav and solved all of my problems with the other antenna. It has GPS reception 99.9% of the time with stong signals from many sats. It updates my position very quickly when I use the anytime nav and/or spining tires on the beach.

Here are some pics:

 

[lojeff]

and the gps levels:

 

[ZOSO Runner]

What is an anytime NAV? Where did you end up getting the eclipse antenna? What is the model number? I am curious as to why tinting on the side windows would interfere with the GPS reception from an antenna that is mounted behind the windsheild. I wonder because that is where my antenna is, and I want to tint my side windows.

 

[lojeff]

What is an anytime NAV? Where did you end up getting the eclipse antenna? What is the model number? I am curious as to why tinting on the side windows would interfere with the GPS reception from an antenna that is mounted behind the windsheild. I wonder because that is where my antenna is, and I want to tint my side windows.

I think they use the term "Anytime NAV" on another board but basically, it allows "your passenger" to have a full function of the system even while in motion. It is discussed in this forum as well. Many features are blocked once vehicle is going more than say 3MPH. I found it so frustrating that while on the highway we couldn't use the nav to find a local resturant. This mod cuts the speed sensor, tricking the nav into thinking you are actually not moving. Once done, it takes some time to re-establish your position. With the old antenna this took some time. With this antenna, within say 10 seconds, it corrects itself.

I got the gps antenna from tweeter. I never got a part number.

As for the window tinting, I am only going on what the aftermarket installer told me. He apparently had customers with a nav that had a big drop in gps reception after install. Now, he warns his customers before hand. I guess the metal in the tinting blocks the gps signal.