NavList:

Lu-
"Worse, unless the antenna was an active antenna (ie, had an amplifier in
it), there would have been severe signal loss (on the order of 10dB or
more [that's a factor of 10!]) coming down the wire into the GPS set."

Many of the older units were designed with an active antenna and shipped with a
50' run of cable standard in the box. Some of those antennas still sell today
for $300+US so yes, they were and are expensive. But remember, the first
generation GPSes and even the second and third generation weren't anywhere near
as sensitive as the new ones today. A new GPS can often read the sky through the
plywood and fiberglass deck of a sailboat--the old ones simply won't.

If you had to place an antenna from one of those old ones someplace, given the
50' tether cable, and wanted to make sure it couldn't be stepped on, fallen on,
or blocked from a sky view by the boom or anything else...Why not the masthead?
Aside from the extra motions, it makes for a sheltered location with a good sky
view, and the cable losses are "fixed" in the system since it shipped with that
cable anyway.




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