Pharos iGPS-500
sduford on Mar 18 2007 at 11:09 pm | Filed under: Mobile Devices, Technology, Travel
While in Redmond last week I was given the chance to go to the Microsoft Employee Store and I bought a copy of Microsoft Streets & Trips 2007 which came with a miniature GPS Receiver. The whole package cost me $85 and the main reason I bought it was that I was intrigued by the GPS receiver itself.
It turns out that this is a Pharos iGPS-500 receiver and this thing is unbelievable. It is a complete 12-Channel GPS receiver on a single chip, with an antenna mounted directly on the chip. Look at the attached picture (please forgive the crappy cell phone picture), it is a very small gizmo, measuring 1.42″ x 1.34″ x 0.47″ and weighting only 18 grams. It is ultra sensitive at -159 dB and will start-up and acquire the satellites in 1 second. I was able to track 10 satellites through the window of my house! It updates every second and had no problem keeping up with our position while tracking through the window of a Bombardier Regional Jet travelling at a ground speed of 550 Mph.
This is really amazing as I remember the first GPS I ever used was the size of a brick, could only track 6 satellites, and took several minutes to locate and synch with the satellites. It is really a marvel of modern micro-electronics. You can connect it through USB, you can purchase a Bluetooth docking station, or a Compact-Flash adapter. I haven’t checked yet, but apparently I can buy software to use this GPS tracker from my Smartphone.
That sounds neat. I would like to have one of those.