Home > Consumer Reviews > Garmin GA26 Remote Vehicle Antenna for StreetPilot II+ and III+

This product lets me keep my Garmin 2820 on center council of my SUV and I get great reception. I highly recommend this product.

After exhausting shopping for my Garmin the need for this antenna was somewhat uncertain. Since it was offered at a discount associated with my G 2730 I bought it. I don't need the antenna. The G 2730 has a built in antenna that even on WAAS does a supurb job on sitting on the slide-out cup holder from the dash of my F-150.

The antenna works well and obtains more satellites than the GPS units internal antenna. This easily solved the issue of poor reception when the GPS is inside of a car; however, the best accuracy I am able to obtain is 13 feet with this external antenna vs. the 9 feet using the GPS's internal antenna when in an open area. Garmin's external antenna connector plug does not attach very firmly and can disconnect easily when the units are moved around (on my GPS). I feel the antenna was worth purchasing.

I bought the additional antenna for around $60 to improve the signal for my Garmin iQue M3 combination PDA and GPS. The antenna seems to help a little, but not significant. I needed any help I could get as I use the M3 heavily for work with lots of multi-state driving, and hearing "satellite signal lost" just when you need to make a turn, etc. is very aggravating. I found that locating on driver side, near edge of windshield helped in areas of dense trees (overhanging from passenger side of road). I use suction cup mount, I don't know if magnetic would help (though someone else commented exterior mount was much better), but wasn't sure how to route/connect "neatly" outside of vehicle or if I wanted to do this way.

As most of the other reviews state, this antenna works well with cars. What they don't say is that it (or similar) is essential for GPS use when hiking under heavy vegetation or in steep canyons. It has proved to be an excellent aid to navigation, providing good satellite reception in places where the internal antenna of my GPSMAP 60CS was hopelessly lost.