Better than stock antenna
I use this product on a Garmin GPS60CS. Before hand, I would get okay signal on any given day. And navigating by it in the truck was difficult because of lost signals. Once I hooked up this GA 25MCX to the GPS, WOW. I have never had sooo a great deal of and so high recepction before, EVER!. I almost had all 12 sats. @ full strength. And the plug is easy to use, just push it in and go. And just pull it out for removal, no tiny screw to mess with. The wire is slim and long (9ft), easy sufficient to hide away behing trim pieces. If you travel with a mobile GPS from Garmin, I highly commend this product.
Pathetic Performance. Get the Gilsson instead.
I ordered one of these Garmin 25MCX external GPS antennas thinking it was an adequate but less-expensive version of the Garmin GA27C. But the performance of the 25MCX was so bad that I thought it was defective. "Bad" in this context means that all four of the Garmin GPS units that I tried with it took way too long to acquire a repair and the GPS unit very without apparent effort lost it is connections to the satellites. The 25MCX was basically useless. I assume that the 25MCX will have to provide a very weak signal to the GPS equated to the Garmin GA27C and the "Gilsson High Performance active remote external" products.
More information: I tested the 25MCX with two dissimilar Garmin eMaps, a Garmin StreetPilot 2610, and a Garmin StreetPilot 2720. All with the same pathetic results: Way too long to acquire, way to popular satellite disconnects. Amazon substituted the 1st 25MCX for me. But the 2nd one was no different. So Amazon substituted it, too. The 3rd one was just like the others. So, I returned it and substituted it with the Garmin-compatible Gilsson High Performance active remote external GPS Antenna. I presently own 3 of the Gilssons and over the years have owned 5 Gilssons. Perfect! And inexpensive. If you *must* have a Garmin, don't waste your cash on the 25MCX. Get the Garmin GA27C. I owned one of these as well and employed it with my eMap for sailing on Lake Superior. It works as well as the Gilsson. But, as of 8/3/07, the cost of the Garmin GA27C was $100 and the cost of the Gilsson High Performance active remote external GPS Antenna was $20. And their performance is equal.
Works well --- for a while -- Beware lousy warranty
I got this for my GPSmap 60csx and my wife's Quest (Mark I). We wanted to be competent to locate the units someplace safer (for the occupants) than on the dash when we were in the car. We were likewise experiencing loss of lock when driving in galore forested locatings (the Quest mainly).
The antenna seems to improve reception even equated to the GPS units in the same location, and is a lot better when you locate the antenna someplace where the reception is better and/or the GPS units could not fit or be seen. I always held the antenna inside the car - on the dash, or on sunroof shade. But the magnet seemed adequate to mount of the body of the car. Problem I had with that conception is that the wire has to be purchased into the car through an open window or something, and I did not need to do it, so I never tried.
The only downside is that the connector (which is a coaxial type) seems to be a bit fragile for the application. It was very snug and hard to insert/remove and after a dozen or so inserts/removes the inner conductor became sufficiently misaligned that it damaged the connector on the GPS unit, and the external antenna stopped working. I believe that it gets power from the wire as well as sending signals. The GPS swapped mechanically to it is internal antenna so this was not without delay apparent. I will shortly be seeing how Garmin's warranty procedure works.
Edited:
Warranty procedure for the antenna is this: Garmin does not do repairs, and refers you to the place you purchased it from to "see if they may do anything for you." Amazon.com's return policy is only for 30 days (in introductory packaging) other than as supposed or expected they refer you to the manufacturer. I have had this for 6 weeks so I am out of luck. Buyer Beware, I guess. My recommendation, buy it if you actually need it but buy it from a bricks and mortar store that has an interest in keeping you as a client if the product turns out to be defective.
Edited again:
I sent in my GPSMap 60CSx (its external antenna connector failed when the external antenna's connector failed) for repair under it is warranty. I got back an individual else's Rino 110. Now, given that a Rino 110 costs 1/2 as much as a GPS Map, and has a very dissimilar feature set (including a walkie-talkie and the capacity to commune with other Rino's - but I don't own any, but no route finding) it is useless in my application. So, not only will the antenna take out itself, it may take out your GPS too, and the warranty service for that sucks as well. I'd steer clear of this antenna/manfacturer unless you utterly need it.
Edit X3:
Garmin at long last substituted the GOS unit that was lost, and the antenna. But I would still stick with someone who is fascinated in keeping you as a customer. I'd also be concerned that the plug is still a weak spot in an necessary place.
