From mujibur.inmind.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!comp.vuw.ac.nz!auckland.ac.nz!news Wed Sep 6 15:22:02 1995 Path: mujibur.inmind.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!comp.vuw.ac.nz!auckland.ac.nz!news From: Cameron Thorpe Newsgroups: sci.geo.satellite-nav Subject: Re: Eagle AccuNav Sport (vs. Garmin 45) Date: 3 Sep 1995 20:47:15 GMT Organization: Computer Science, University of Auckland Lines: 31 Message-ID: <42d48j$63@net.auckland.ac.nz> References: <41ti9n$kuk@news.indy.net> <420c1l$qdc@news.indy.net> <424dhe$ns0@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: gate.cs.auckland.ac.nz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.1N (Macintosh; I; 68K) X-URL: news:424dhe$ns0@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu Sailing on a yacht on which we have a Eagle acurnav sport and a Garmin 40 (same as 45 but with internal antenna) I have had the opportunity to test both units side by side. I find both units are quick to pick up satellites from startup with the Eagle about 30 sec faster. The eagle does pick up satellites easier in marginal conditions like in a cabin locker but I believe the Garmin 45 would be as good with an external antenna. Any way the Garmin is only slightly worse and causes no problems. The Eagle has given several problems with it's antenna connection. If the unit gets knocked it can affect the connection and cause it to cease to gain a fix. This has now happened 3 times (with 2 different units) and it is difficult to adjust the connection to gain a fix again (3/4 hour of stuffing around). When racing I find this infuriating and therefore we brought the Garmin with an internal antenna which has been 100% reliable. As someone said a GPS without a fix is worthless. If I was tramping and couldn't get a fix with the garmin (very rare) I would head to the nearest hill or clearing where the unit would quickly aquire a fix. At times I believe the Eagle would suffer the same problem but any problem with the antenna connection could disable the unit. Therefore for reliability the Garmin wins hands down. Battery life The Garmin uses 4 batteries to the Eagles 6-8 (can't remember) but the Garmin has 10 times the battery life. Because of the way the Eagle chews though batteries we hook it to a external power source. As far as acurracy of tracking etc. I can find no noticable difference however I prefer the Garmin's built in datum options to the Eagle which require's corrections to be found and manually dialed in. Cameron Thorpe ctho02@cs.auckland.ac.nz