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

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?

After reading reviews, I ordered this antenna hoping it would enable my Nuvi 350 to acquire satellites. It did not help. The Garmin Nuvi 350 still does not work at all.
However, the product seems well made, and it did connect easily.

My Garmin Nuvi 350, after about 20 months of use, suddenly became incapable of tracking satellite signals. This attaches an external antenna and now the signal is better than it ever was, including in cities where even in the best of days it would constantly lose signal. In open roads I have no less than 10 simultaneous satellites being tracked.

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.