Mounting of external GPS
 

For those of you running an external GPS with your lap timer/data recorders, where are you mounting said devices. Especially cars without a roll cage.

Thanks

Justin

I have to deal with that myself this season, first time not using the GPS in my HTC droid. I have the Qstarz 818xt (I think thats it). Its small, I may just put it in the ashtray behind the flip-up door.

On the bar on top of the passenger airbag. That's where I had the best signal.
Check my video with the onboard starting at the 2 minute mark. I have both a Contour and a QStarz GPS on the bar.

I put my Qstarz818 in the cup holder and close the lid. No issues with signal.

I used some heavy duty 3m Velcro and mounted it inside the windshield, behind the mirror.

One place where to not put your GPS or phone is the center console. It gets so hot on top of the tunnel that I fried a GPS by leaving it there during an Autocross.

I had assumed the even an external gps needed a view to the sky, so that's not the case?

Only the one built into a phone needs the view?

Please explain all this to me.

The basic GPS triangulation will not work without line of sight (or at least rebounds through windows). Accuracy is going to be affected when the view is obstructed.
Now modern external GPS have DGPS/WAAS support that relies on stations on the ground to refine the position. That's what really giving you an accurate position and that's why it usually works better than your GPS in your phone. But still, if you bury your external GPS behind metal in a glove box, the quality is going to be marginal at best.

There is a good read here: http://gpssystems.net/no-gps-signal-satellites/

That's what I figured. So putting it in a glove box / console is a sacrifice of accuracy for convenience I suppose.

Thanks!

:thumbs::thumbs:

As lefrog said, line of sight is key. Put it in the middle of your roof. Ideally with a 6" metal disc beneath the GPS unit. GPS accuracy isn't that great even with ideal mounting and putting it inside the car will give marginal results at best.

Can't really tell from the vid ... is it just sitting on the bar with velcro straps wrapped around it?

On the C5, I had my Chasecam GPS antenna mounted on the forward part of the dash on the passenger side, as far as I could get it up there with a piece of the good 3M velcro holding it on.

Worked great and made it easy to run the wires to wherever you wanted them.

Yes, the QStarz 1000 comes with a pouch and a velcro strap. The scrap goes through the pouch and around the bar to secure it in place.

wondering if I could fabricate something to work with the gopro suction mount?

If you have a suction mount for the phone, you can strap the GPS to the back of it. I used that setup in my C4 with good success.
I don't have a picture but there is a 5 second shot between 1:45 and 1:50 in that video: