GPS seems fairly pedestrian now but my dad had one of the early Garmin models in the 90s and it was a kind of magic back then. Even outside of the actual location info, just seeing this thing in your hand listening to satellites up in space felt incredibly powerful. Later on you could get units compatible with Windows CE and mobile devices and it was easy to see why it would be a killer app on smartphones. It’s sad t…
A 6 channel GPS receiver from 1993
31–40 of 79 posts
Re: A 6 channel GPS receiver from 1993
#32GPS seems fairly pedestrian now but my dad had one of the early Garmin models in the 90s and it was a kind of magic back then. Even outside of the actual location info, just seeing this thing in your hand listening to satellites up in space felt incredibly powerful. Later on you could get units compatible with Windows CE and mobile devices and it was easy to see why it would be a killer app on smartphones. It’s sad t…
Re: A 6 channel GPS receiver from 1993
#33The original GPS receivers in the late 80s and early 90s did not have maps. And they used LCD screens. The one I owned by Lowrance required 6 AA batteries. Not AAA. Not rechargeable. Optional power through a cigarette-auto cable, but that's not helpful when on foot. It burned through batteries like crazy. I owned this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20231104153749/http://retro-gps.... (Lowrance GlobalNav Sport) 160…
Re: A 6 channel GPS receiver from 1993
#34GPS seems fairly pedestrian now but my dad had one of the early Garmin models in the 90s and it was a kind of magic back then. Even outside of the actual location info, just seeing this thing in your hand listening to satellites up in space felt incredibly powerful. Later on you could get units compatible with Windows CE and mobile devices and it was easy to see why it would be a killer app on smartphones. It’s sad t…
Also kids these days don’t know the pain of GPS taking 3-10 minutes to get a position fix without almanac data.
Re: A 6 channel GPS receiver from 1993
#35The original GPS receivers in the late 80s and early 90s did not have maps. And they used LCD screens. The one I owned by Lowrance required 6 AA batteries. Not AAA. Not rechargeable. Optional power through a cigarette-auto cable, but that's not helpful when on foot. It burned through batteries like crazy. I owned this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20231104153749/http://retro-gps.... (Lowrance GlobalNav Sport) 160…
Garmin handheld unit in the early 2000’s still had an LCD screen. I still have and use mine as a backup.
Re: A 6 channel GPS receiver from 1993
#36The original GPS receivers in the late 80s and early 90s did not have maps. And they used LCD screens. The one I owned by Lowrance required 6 AA batteries. Not AAA. Not rechargeable. Optional power through a cigarette-auto cable, but that's not helpful when on foot. It burned through batteries like crazy. I owned this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20231104153749/http://retro-gps.... (Lowrance GlobalNav Sport) 160…
Which model was yours? This page appears to show every model of handheld GPS ever made, and Lowrance has 4 entries. Thanks for sharing this, I never had the chance to see one of these units. It's so weird now to imagine GPS with no map! P.s. What does a six-channel GPS receiver even mean? Is more channels more better?
The operating principle of GPS is more complex than I can usefully summarise in a comment, but essentially the satellites are continuously broadcasting an extremely accurate time signal that the receiver uses to calculate the time-of-flight to each satellite. GPS receivers need signals from a minimum of four satellites to provide a location fix.
There are usually more than four satellites visible, so additional channels allow for more than the minimum number of signals to be received. this can provide improved accuracy, faster time-to-first-fix and better resilience to interference. If you're receiving five or six signals, you don't lose your positioning fix when one of the satellites moves below the horizon or is obstructed by terrain. Reflected signals can cause error, because the time-of-flight of the signal will be greater than the actual distance to the satellite; extra channels allow these errors to be compensated for.
For a long time, GPS receivers typically had no more than 12 channels, which was the maximum number that would actually be useful given the limited number of satellites in the original GPS constellation. Since then, many other navigation satellite constellations have launched, so between 40 and 60 navigation satellites are typically visible at any moment. Receivers have commensurately improved, with even basic receivers often having upwards of 48 channels.
Re: A 6 channel GPS receiver from 1993
#37GPS seems fairly pedestrian now but my dad had one of the early Garmin models in the 90s and it was a kind of magic back then. Even outside of the actual location info, just seeing this thing in your hand listening to satellites up in space felt incredibly powerful. Later on you could get units compatible with Windows CE and mobile devices and it was easy to see why it would be a killer app on smartphones. It’s sad t…
Also kids these days don’t know the pain of GPS taking 3-10 minutes to get a position fix without almanac data.
Re: A 6 channel GPS receiver from 1993
#38Re: A 6 channel GPS receiver from 1993
#39Re: A 6 channel GPS receiver from 1993
#40The original GPS receivers in the late 80s and early 90s did not have maps. And they used LCD screens. The one I owned by Lowrance required 6 AA batteries. Not AAA. Not rechargeable. Optional power through a cigarette-auto cable, but that's not helpful when on foot. It burned through batteries like crazy. I owned this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20231104153749/http://retro-gps.... (Lowrance GlobalNav Sport) 160…
My first GPS receiver was an old Magellan. I can't recall the model, but mid 90s, very basic features. Eventually after turning it on it would get a fix, and give you coordinates / speed / bearing. No names of towns or anything like that though it did have support for some number of waypoints.
I typically used it for multi week hikes through the rockies where I was navigating primarily with topo maps & compass, and about once a day I'd turn on the GPSr to validate my location. It was too much of a pig on batteries to use it any more often, but, it was a reasonable size for hiking.
Totally different world vs the Garmin GPSMap 66i I currently use, but, I'd probably trust the old Magellan more than I do 66i on week/longer excursions.