Home > Consumer Reviews > Powerful External Remote Amplified GPS Antenna Receiver for Garmin Nuvi

After a year or so, my Nuvi 360 was having trouble acquiring and holding the satellites. It got so bad, it wasn't worth using and counting on it.

I bought this little external antenna, and now I'm back in business.

Don't let the low price fool you - it's delivering for me.

Like so many others I recieved the message that said "cannot acquire satellites" or something like that. I hadn't dropped the GPS or otherwise damaged it. I figured the wire that is in the flip up antennae had become compromised and I'd probably terminally screw up the internals to the GPS attempting to correct the problem. For less than $15 the antenna fixed the problem. I'm happy as a clam

My Nuvi 360 always take long time (more than 15 min is common) to lock in satellites when I am using it in the car. Placing it very close to the wind screen did not help. If it ever work, I got 3 bars in average and frequent "Weak Satellite Reception" message. It got worse when I am driving around tall buildings and fly-over, as in a city like Kuala Lumpur. Weak signal also cause many other problems. It sometime found me on the wrong street (and recalculate), keep moving when I stop at red light (predictive movement ha, smart programmers?), and turn to opposite direction when I am not. So you can guess how helpful this Nuvi was to me.

I am living in Malaysia, where we always have at least of 7 layers of clouds, 30" of annual rain, 30-35 deg C day temperature and probably about 70-90% humidity throughout. Adds tall buidings, fly-overs, well grown trees and heat shielding windows film, maybe it is too much to ask from the little Nuvi.

I tried the Nuvi in California and it got full bars all the time, inside the car. Lucky Californian!

I found about external antenna after Googling briefly. Not very convincing (maybe it is no brand?) initially but thought nothing much to lose at $17 (plus shipping) from Amazon. What's a pleasant surprise! Not only the GPS able to lock in within minutes, full bars becomes a norm now. Signal strengths are doubled to almost 80-100% and I can see a lot more satellites are locked. Accuracy improved from 9-15 meters to 5-9 meters. Tall buildings, fly-overs, tall/full grown trees and bad weather would drop the signal to 3 bars at times but it never turn red anymore. All this with simply plug in the antenna to Nuvi and let the receiver lying on the dashboard!

This thing really work and I am buying 2 more as gifts for my friends. I have never tried other more expensive brands such as Gilson and Garmin, but I think this one is near perfect. Why spend more?

I strongly recommend this product.

Pros: Lock satellites much quicker. Improve signal strength significantly. Small, humble looking receiver that blend in with black dashboard and wouldn't draw unintended attention. No power supply needed. Wire is long enough that the GPS unit can be installed anywhere in the car. Excellent value.

Cons: How to route the wire neatly around the car?

First of all, the item in the picture looked large. To me it looks larger than a pack of cigarettes. The image is misleading in size of course. It's really about the size of a hotel matchbook. Little bitty.

I wasn't concerned that the length of the cord would be too long because I planned to hide the wire which would mean I would need lots of extra cord. In fact, in hindsight I wish I had purchased one that was longer but this one will do.

I originally purchased this because I often drive in downtown Dallas and the skyscrapers often blocked my reception. The GPS would "recalculate" just in time for me to miss my turn and then have to recalculate again and wouldn't you know it, I missed that turn too. It was just taking too long to acquire a better signal and since I didn't know my way around downtown, I would get lost until I could get away from the skyscrapers. Not to mention, I couldn't pull in a garage or go through a tunnel without messing everything up. So about 10-15 bucks later (after shipping), the problem is resolved.

This item is awesome. From the minute I turned on the GPS, it acquired a signal and was "ready to navigate" way before I was. I'll say it takes around 5-10 seconds at most whereas it used to take sometimes up 5 minutes to "acquire satellites"...and I live in the city.

I mount it on the top of my car and the cord is pretty thin and this allows me to roll up my window all the way. Too bad it doesn't come with a way to mount it on your dash without just laying it there in hopes that it won't move unless of course your dash is magnetic.

I washed my car today at a drive through car wash at a gas station. No leaks. Though, this is probably due to good weather stripping because my car is only a few years old.

So that's it. You will be pleased with this item. I promise.
If you're going to hide the wire, buy one of the same brand but with a longer cord (you can always hide the excess cord). You don't need to buy a big expensive fancy one to get good reception. It's only an antenna and you don't need bells and whistles.

Garmin nüvi 350 3.5-Inch Portable GPS NavigatorFor the moment; it appears that my nuvi 350 is back in business. Doe anyone know anything about the antenna? The description is pretty week here and it didn't come with any information? Who makes? Does it have a battery that will eventually need to be replaced? I recommend the product!