Customer Reviews

Garmin 18x PC GPS Navigator Unit

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Bought this for our truck's APRS ham radio. Selected this model for ease of connection, wired a db9 plug to a 1/8" stereo plug and connected the GPS 18PC to the Kenwood TM-D710a radio.

Turned on GPS fx in radio and bingo! GPS icon started flashing in corner of radio's faceplate and we're sending packets with our location data.

We decided to try it on the dash instead of rooftop for two reasons. The cable was just a little short to extend out to the roof and provide me the inside routing I wanted. And, our Garmin Nuvi has always worked from the dash without any problems. Sure enough, the GPS 18 PC has worked perfectly for two weeks sending location info to our ham radio.

We dissected the cigarette lighter plug and removed the spring and button, replaced them with a pair of wires to an Andersen power-pole connector. This maintains the 5.7 volts to the gps 18, and allows us to plug into the switched accessory supply we added to the truck.

This Garmin gps looks nice, does everything it's supposed to. No surprises, no problems, works perfectly for the job.

[...]

Bought the Garmin 18x PC GPS unit to hook to my Uniden Scanner to allow it to turn on and off Systems as I travele across the country. Works great and I have mounted it inside the dash cavity out of sight of prying eyes and this allows me to not have to worry about taking it in or out of the car daily.

Didnt get em from Amazon, but they do the trick. The serial port way is a bit dated...but its what our systems needed.
If you connect these to your PC, and the mouse starts jumping around- unplug the gps power and it will come back- go to device manager, mice and ponting devices- it shows up in there as Microsoft serial ballpoint. disable this and plug it back in- should work.

This unit is MUCH improved from its predecessor, the GPS 18. This unit is 100 times more sensitive than the GPS 18. I use it inside my home for setting the time on my PC.

The old model seldom locked more than 3-5 satellites and frequently could not even get 2. This newer model locked 8 at first try, all with good signal strength. I've almost never noticed it fail to get a fix indoors (it happened only once, for a very brief period of time).

Well worth throwing the old unit out and replacing it with this one!

I bought this unit to hook it up to my Kenwood TM-D700a to use as GPS recever
for APRS. The main thing is the separate serial connection and power which already
includes all the components to convert 12V into 5V. All one needs to do is rig up
a connector to the rig and off you go with APRS on the D700a. As usual cables could
be a bit longer but other than that, works just fine.

I've had 2 of these units and they last just about one and a half years. Not well made I'm sorry to say.

I was able to do the repair myself. Loose connection inside of unit. Its ok now.

I bought this unit for use with my Kenwood TM-D710A dual-band radio for use with the APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) mode.
The unit I purchased was the one that already has a cigarette plug adapter and DB9 serial connector factory installed.
Since this is an OEM unit I didn't expect much in the box, and as expected the only thing in the box was the hardware. The Manual was easily found on the Garmin web site and had clear instructions on how to integrate the unit with your application. Programming software was also easily located and was easy to use.
No programming of the GPS receiver was necessary as the default settings were perfect for my application. I did a health check of the unit using the downloaded software and everything checked out.
Building a cable to connect the GPS receiver to my radio was easy. And when I plugged the GPS receiver into the radio, the radio recognized the unit and displayed the GPS data. Integration of the GPS receiver with the radio was completly painless.

This is a great unit. Not many GPS receivers still come with a serial port, most have converted to USB. I needed a GPS receiver that would connect directly to a serial port and the Garmin unit was the best value for the price. It typically locks up on a satellite fix in 30 seconds or less from a cold start. I am using the receiver in my vehicle and it tracks perfectly, even in metro areas with building obstructions. I would definitely recommend the Garmin receiver to anyone who needs an inexpensive GPS solution with serial port connectivity.

It is compact, does not take much power, locks on quickly and gives good bread crumbs.
I have been evaluating this unit as a replacement GPS for my current APRS beacon in my truck (KB5TSI-5) and it is performing admirably. My only complaint is that the cable is too short to run the puck to where I want to mount it. I will be adding a serial extension to the DB9 and I will have to replace this cigarette lighter plug with an Anderson Power Pole to match up with my system.
But in all other respects I am quite pleased.

Being an emergency management volunteer, we make extensive use of our APRS beacons and having a dependable, low power consumption GPS that will self start when power is applied makes that work much better than the marine GPS I have previously used.

The GPS was easy to install. Plug it in, power it up and begin showing my position. Very very simple. No Parameters to mess with; 'plug plug and play'.