[aprssig] How about a new TH-7D with this?

[Stephen H. Smith]

Amateur Radio WB8NUT wrote:
> I thought for sure that Kenwood would have introduced a new TH-7D 
> handheld at Dayton this year with had an integrated GPS unit built 
> into the radio. If cell phones can have a GPS, why not a handheld?
>

Any GPS is actually two subsystems: a radio receiver and a dedicated 
computer.   The cell phone GPS installations are only the radio 
component. The heavy lifting power-consuming computing is done in the 
cellular base station infrastructure.  This technique is known as 
"Assisted GPS" a.k.a "AGPS" and is relatively easy to implement when you 
have a continuous digital data stream between the handset and the cell 
site.

If a handheld's battery had to power a complete standalone GPS, the RX 
standby current drain would probably be 5-15 times higher than it is 
now, with a corresponding drop in battery life. 



--

Stephen H. Smith    wa8lmf (at) aol.com
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