When someone asked me this question, my first thought was all the way back to that 1980s sitcom, Perfect Strangers. You know, the one where the catchphrase was “don’t be ridiculous.” But the more I thought about it, I came to a surprising conclusion.
Chances are, a cell booster will help your GPS. At least the GPS you’re likely to actually use.
The Global Positioning System is one of those things we rarely think about but it’s an incredible invention. A constellation of satellites all over the world have only one purpose. (Well, one purpose we know of. There are probably military things going on.) Their purpose is to broadcast out the time in precise increments. That’s all they do.
On the ground, a GPS receiver listens to the signal from at least 3 satellites. Using math that’s thousands of years old as well as some basic information baked into the receiver, this allows the receiver to provide you with your exact location within about 100 feet. Military GPS is even more precise, and is believed to be accurate to one foot.
If the GPS signals from four satellites are strong enough for your receiver to get them, you’ll not only know your position on earth but your altitude. Again this is math that existed way back in antiquity and it’s rock solid.
Modern GPS receivers, or the apps on your phone that simulate them, are pretty fancy. They either have some sort of built-in map or they download maps from the internet in real time. This lets the GPS receiver make some intelligent guesses. For example if you’re traveling 65mph and you seem to be 100 feet away from a highway, chances are you’re on that highway. So the map app shows you on that highway. This is why it sometimes seems like a GPS app jumps from place to place if you’re not taking the route it expects.
There’s more though. Phones use a system called “assisted GPS (aGPS)” that gives them even better precision. In addition to listening to satellites in space, your phone is always connected to at least one cell tower. As long as the phone is connected to a minimum of 2 cell towers, it can use the same kind of math that’s used with the satellites to pin down your location. If it connects to 3 or more towers, the level of precision is actually kind of scary. Did you ever notice that if you’re at home, your phone’s mapping app can tell if you’re in the kitchen or the powder room? That’s the kind of precision I’m talking about.
A cell booster is going to help you get signals from more distant towers, and that means aGPS will work better. Now, you probably don’t need precise GPS at home, but of course you can get a cell phone signal booster for your car, truck, SUV, or RV that’s going to help your phone’s mapping app work better. It will also help your battery life because the phone won’t strain so hard to find cell towers as you’re going down the road.
If you’re not sure what kind of cell phone signal booster you need, call the experts! The folks at Solid Signal are here for you during East Coast business hours. Call us at 888-233-7563 and we’ll be happy to help before, during, and after the sale. If it’s after hours, fill out the form below. We’ll get back to you right away, before you get too lost!
The post Will a cell phone signal booster help my GPS? appeared first on The Solid Signal Blog.
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Chances are, a cell booster will help your GPS. At least the GPS you’re likely to actually use.
GPS is…
The Global Positioning System is one of those things we rarely think about but it’s an incredible invention. A constellation of satellites all over the world have only one purpose. (Well, one purpose we know of. There are probably military things going on.) Their purpose is to broadcast out the time in precise increments. That’s all they do.
On the ground, a GPS receiver listens to the signal from at least 3 satellites. Using math that’s thousands of years old as well as some basic information baked into the receiver, this allows the receiver to provide you with your exact location within about 100 feet. Military GPS is even more precise, and is believed to be accurate to one foot.
If the GPS signals from four satellites are strong enough for your receiver to get them, you’ll not only know your position on earth but your altitude. Again this is math that existed way back in antiquity and it’s rock solid.
But it seems like GPS is more accurate than that.
Modern GPS receivers, or the apps on your phone that simulate them, are pretty fancy. They either have some sort of built-in map or they download maps from the internet in real time. This lets the GPS receiver make some intelligent guesses. For example if you’re traveling 65mph and you seem to be 100 feet away from a highway, chances are you’re on that highway. So the map app shows you on that highway. This is why it sometimes seems like a GPS app jumps from place to place if you’re not taking the route it expects.
There’s more though. Phones use a system called “assisted GPS (aGPS)” that gives them even better precision. In addition to listening to satellites in space, your phone is always connected to at least one cell tower. As long as the phone is connected to a minimum of 2 cell towers, it can use the same kind of math that’s used with the satellites to pin down your location. If it connects to 3 or more towers, the level of precision is actually kind of scary. Did you ever notice that if you’re at home, your phone’s mapping app can tell if you’re in the kitchen or the powder room? That’s the kind of precision I’m talking about.
And that’s why a cell booster might actually help GPS.
A cell booster is going to help you get signals from more distant towers, and that means aGPS will work better. Now, you probably don’t need precise GPS at home, but of course you can get a cell phone signal booster for your car, truck, SUV, or RV that’s going to help your phone’s mapping app work better. It will also help your battery life because the phone won’t strain so hard to find cell towers as you’re going down the road.
If you’re not sure what kind of cell phone signal booster you need, call the experts! The folks at Solid Signal are here for you during East Coast business hours. Call us at 888-233-7563 and we’ll be happy to help before, during, and after the sale. If it’s after hours, fill out the form below. We’ll get back to you right away, before you get too lost!
The post Will a cell phone signal booster help my GPS? appeared first on The Solid Signal Blog.
Continue reading...
