http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/qstarz-intros-the-double-32-bt-q818-bluetooth-gps-receiver/ Engadget Comments for http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2008 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/qstarz-intros-the-double-32-bt-q818-bluetooth-gps-receiver/http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/qstarz-intros-the-double-32-bt-q818-bluetooth-gps-receiver/
]]>Dec 20th 2006 8:08AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/qstarz-intros-the-double-32-bt-q818-bluetooth-gps-receiver/http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/qstarz-intros-the-double-32-bt-q818-bluetooth-gps-receiver/
Oh, and you only need 4 to give you position, and speed.]]>Dec 20th 2006 8:15AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/qstarz-intros-the-double-32-bt-q818-bluetooth-gps-receiver/http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/qstarz-intros-the-double-32-bt-q818-bluetooth-gps-receiver/
Other than that it works very well! Can't wait to ditch the PDA and get some software to use it with my mobile/cell phone :)

p.s. they are only £40 or so on ebay!]]>Dec 20th 2006 9:32AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/qstarz-intros-the-double-32-bt-q818-bluetooth-gps-receiver/http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/qstarz-intros-the-double-32-bt-q818-bluetooth-gps-receiver/
You need 5 satellites to an accurate GPS navigation, so 12 channels have enough free channels to connect to a new visible satellite while another one is disappearing from sky.

http://www.holysmoke.org/gps/sat.htm

http://tt01.ripe.net:10259/cgi-bin/gps64s-std.cgi?RRD_START=now-48h&RRD_END=-estart%2B2days&RRD_W=-w600&Draw=Draw]]>Dec 20th 2006 1:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/qstarz-intros-the-double-32-bt-q818-bluetooth-gps-receiver/http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/qstarz-intros-the-double-32-bt-q818-bluetooth-gps-receiver/
Some Taiwanese vendor mis-interpreted "capable of acquiring 32 satellites simultaneously" as "32 channel" and put that on their brochure. Accidentally it sold quite well due to its comparable weak signal tracking capability with SiRFstarIII, lower power consumption, and claiming of having 32 channels.

Henceforth, Taiwanese makers using the Mediatek GPS chipset claim their GPS receiver to be a 32-channel GPS receiver.

With many of the GPS chipset having separate search engine from track engine nowadays, there doesn't seem to be too much of an advantage for a GPS receiver having more than 12 channels; many of the low elevation angle satellites are likely to be block in typical usage.

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