Friday, August 13, 2010

New MobileMapper 100 GPS Unit - Jon is first to test in US


Hi Everyone,

I was able to test the new MobileMapper 100 GPS unit from Ashtech last week. That unit was the only one in the US; and I was the first to get to test it! Not wanting to baby it, I took it straight to the Clackamas GPS test course east of Portland, Oregon. The course is a tough one, with big, tall timber.

The MobileMapper 100 performed flawlessly. I have not summarized accuracy tests yet, although it definitely beat every other unit I have ever tested at Clackamas. Boy does it track satellites! It tracks both US and GLONASS satellites which means it never had less than 10 satellites even on the toughest points. PDOP was almost always below 2.0 and sometimes as low as 1.6

The picture above shows me with the MobileMapper 100 and the external antenna. I did the Clackamas test course twice with the external antenna and twice with the internal antenna. the internal antenna is a precision unit and it did as well as the much larger and heavier external unit.

I have ordered my own MobileMapper 100 and hopefully it will arrive by mid September. The production units will be available in September or October.

All for now! Call me at 503-521-0888 if you have questions on the MobileMapper 100.

Jon Aschenbach