What type of end is needed for this GPS? Omnitech 16878 WinCE5

mstar · Sep 4, 2015

Hi
My omnitech 16878-US has a jack for an external antenna. I have asked around but no one in my area knows what size or type that is to know what antenna might work.
I am doing some NYC gigs and find my TOM TOM fails most of the time in NYC. This older Windows CE unit, side by side, seems to pull in one to two sats more but with an small boosted antenna, I would think it would be even better.
But I cant order one until I figure out the size specs. Oddly it is not mentioned in the literature . Many did not even have this jack based on some on line manuals I found,
Any ideas? I need to know sooner than later.
Thanks

hat

Nuvi-Nebie · Sep 5, 2015

I think this is the antenna you require, it is sold in the UK by Maplin as item A47FH for £5

Click on image for bigger picture

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/sat-nav-external-patch-antenna-a47fh

mstar · Sep 5, 2015

Thanks but I think MCX is too big. Maybe it is MMCX?? The problem is that I would have to mail order the correct end and if it's wrong then I have to return.

Nuvi-Nebie · Sep 5, 2015

I couldn't find any mention of the antenna connector type in the user manual here :-
http://www.manualslib.com/manual/712807/Omnitech-16877-Ca.html#manual
I can confirm that in my pictures above, the connector is MCX rather than MMCX

mstar · Sep 6, 2015

Thank you. Yes I know it is not in the manual but there it is. It is mounted right to a PC board when opened up.
I
Do you know what the numbers mean ? I dont know why there are two numbers and what the measurement is.
I also dont know if I would need a male end or a female end.
At first it appeared to be a male jack on the board. But looking at the drawing, Maybe that is a female Jack?

Nuvi-Nebie · Sep 6, 2015

The numbers (for MMCX Jack) are 0.14 inches which is [3.5mm], I think your photo shows a Female (Jack), but the centre bit may be broken?. Here is a picture of the MCX Female Jack on my Garmin streetpilot i3 with a millimetre (mm) measure, notice there is a white ring around the centre connector, but your picture doesn't look the same (white ring set further back), so I think you may be correct in saying it is a MMCX Female Jack

mstar · Sep 22, 2015

I wanted to confirm it was MMCX
I did purchase a $13 active antenna and it did not add satellites but did boost about 20%in some cases brought some satellites up to 95% or higher. I was not sure if the port was active nor was I sure the inexpensive antenna would even do anything. I will be in NYC Sunday so hope that it helps to keep me from dropping as my tom tom did.
Maybe now I will hold onto just enough to get me there and home.

I did notice it helped with recovery time. About 3 seconds on average which doe snot sound like much but can make the difference in traffic, right?