Assessing Mobilemapper Beacon Reception Quality - Magellan MobileMapper CE - Hiking GPS Receiver Getting Started Manual

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Assessing MobileMapper Beacon
Reception Quality
As long as the green lock indicator light on MobileMapper
Beacon stays on, you can be certain that MobileMapper CE
can readily deliver a DGPS solution using the incoming correc-
tion data packets from MobileMapper Beacon.
You can verify this by running the GPS Status utility (see View-
ing Current GPS Status on page 14; In the status bar at the
bottom of the screen, "Differential GPS" should be displayed
and the indicator light should flash in blue.)
But if you notice that the green indicator light on MobileMap-
per Beacon sometimes temporarily turns off, this means the
signal received is not as strong as it should be. The reasons
for this are the following:
- Too many obstructions between you and the station. See
how you can limit these obstructions.
- Or you are nearly out of range of the station. Consider
working with a closer station, if possible.
- Or atmospheric noise has significantly increased thus
reducing the SNR. Consider working with a station that
would give a better SNR.
MobileMapper CE gives you the ability to analyze the key re-
ception parameters of the MobileMapper Beacon. You can do
this anytime, when setting the DGPS beacon mode, or later
while using the beacon provided you first ask MobileMapper
CE to stop processing the incoming correction data packets.
This is done by tapping the Disconnect button in the DGPS
Configuration window. You can then tap on the Settings button
and then on the Details button to view the Beacon Details
screen. (See also page 32.)
Among all the parameters displayed on this screen is the Sig-
nal to Noise Ratio (SNR). This is the most important parameter
to look at.