@rodpp
That 22 dollar puck antenna should be more than ok for the time being even if you have to extend the feeder by another ten metres. The most important aspect of any GPS antenna being that you site it in a location that has an unobstructed 360 degree view of the horizon.
I wouldn't bother upgrading to another fancy (and over-priced) navigation grade GPS/GNSS antenna. I'd save the money for a dual band timing grade antenna to make the most of a dual band GPS receiver module such as a u-blox ZED9 when you finally cave in to the pressure to upgrade to an even better setup.
I'm still using a mag mount puck antenna, similar to enut11's, that I bought three years ago for £2.99 delivered (less than 5 dollars!) from a UK based ebay seller. This had a 5 metre RG174 co-ax with male SMA plug making it an even better bargain than the more common 3 metre co-ax cabled types.
Even so, I needed to extend this by another 5 metres of RG174 (SMA in-line female to SMA male terminated patch lead) which surprisingly, only reduced the C/No ratio by a mere 2dB rather than by the 6 to 7 dB I was expecting of 5 metre's worth of RG174. This allowed me to locate the antenna on a ballasted biscuit tin parked on the flat bay window roof of my 1st floor workroom (2nd floor in the oddball American terminology that names the ground floor as the 1st floor).
Moving the antenna from a South West facing window ledge onto the bay window roof with a 180 degree view centred on a direct westerly view made a significant improvement in SV reception but it was completely obstructed to the East by the brickwork of the gable ended 2nd floor bedroom above which seemed to offer a 3dB boost by constructive reflection of near overhead satellite passes.
Ideally, I wanted to mount a short mast onto this brickwork in order to raise the antenna a foot or so above the ridge tiles to finally gain a full 360 degree view of the horizon but stepping out through the 2nd floor bedroom window onto this flat bay roof in order to drill into the brickwork was, to say the least, a bit too precarious even for me. The ballasted biscuit tin arrangement had only required me to lean out of said 2nd floor bedroom window, no actual crawling out onto the bay window roof needed (although I have done so in times past even through it's a bit of a struggle with the top hinged upward opening window).
I only needed to raise the puck antenna another 8 feet or so from the biscuit tin location to allow it to peek over the ridge tiles so when I spotted a 60 by 70cm metal drawer in the basement I'd been using to store some motorbike parts in, it came to me in a flash that I could extend the ballasted biscuit tin antenna mount setup using this with four old car batteries for ballast and a 7 or 8 foot 1 1/4" diameter aluminium (aluminum) pole clamped into one corner to which I could screw the 20cm diameter biscuit tin lid onto by which to mag mount that puck antenna, reinforced with some impact adhesive to make it somewhat secure against even hurricane level storms (an over-kill/engineered solution in most UK locations but only pennies to implement so, Why not?
).
The chosen pole was about 18 inches short of the required length and required another length of 3/4" diameter aluminium tube to be added a few months later. Despite this initial shortfall, I did see a significant improvement but the fact that the view of the horizon was not quite the full 360 degree I'd aimed for, niggled me enough to properly finish the job even though this required yet more faffing around to recover the support pole and extend its length and then relocate it back to its pride of place... about three times over!
There were a few changes to the groundplane mount and an "upgrade puck antenna" I'd wanted to try out. The "upgrade" antenna proved to be a washout since it seemed to lack any immunity to overloading by cellphone signals from a nearby tower so I landed up reverting to the original 3 quid puck and the 20cm biscuit tin lid setup.
I'd had to replace the original 5 metre RG174 patch lead, that I'd used to connect to the GPSDO via a cracked open window, with an 11 metre RG58 patch lead so I could reroute it through an existing conveniently located hole in the wall that had been drilled for a now long since redundant TV antenna feeder years before we'd moved into the property. The C/No figures range between 35 to 45 dB and have done so ever since I finalised this antenna mounting arrangement some 18 months ago.
That first image shows a navigation class antenna that Banggood had been selling for around £18 about a year ago. I think this was the version with a 16 metre RG58 co-ax and I had been tempted to buy one until reason stayed my hand. It had occurred to me that it would offer no more performance than the 3 quid puck I already had in my possession and it would be far better to invest in a dual band timing class antenna for when the pricing on dual band timing GPS receivers finally descends from out of the stratosphere.
Those fancy looking antennas will almost certainly be using the same 1 inch square patch antenna (pretty well the best choice for GNSS service) as that 22 dollar puck antenna. The radome comes into its own where you have to endure heavy persistent snowfall cursed winters - not usually a problem south of the Scottish border here in the UK.
Unless you have to endure such winter conditions or need to use a very long run of feeder, I'd save my money for a more effective dual band antenna upgrade and make do with a well sited cheap puck antenna for now.
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