How different is aviation GPS?

"Stubby" wrote in message
...
A friend bought a 60CS recently and we noticed that my old Garmin-12 got
better reception and seemed more accurate. We called Garmin and the
fellow we talk with was surprised because both units use the same chips
inside!

What antenna types do they both use?

When I bought a GPS (basic hiking handheld), I discovered that the smaller
GPS units used a flat square plate antenna that worked okay when one had a
perfectly clear view of the sky, but otherwise was noticeably inferior to
the "helix" antenna (the thumb-sized antenna that usually sticks out from
the top of a GPS unit).

Either should be fine in an airplane, where one gets a great view of the sky
all the time, but on the ground one would notice significant differences.

It's too bad, because I really liked the form-factor of the smaller GPS.
But it just didn't perform as well as the larger ones that can use the
better antenna.

Pete