Parts Needed:
The usual suspects.
1) Phone
2) Car power adapter
The Optional Parts.
3) Radio Shack power port extension cable ($8.00)
4) Otterbox 3000 ($20.00 +s&h)
5) Small piece of bubble wrap (gratis, ebay seller)
The Creation
All of the Parts.
![Image](http://garagejob.smugmug.com/photos/182943314-M.jpg)
First thing I did was cut the male connection off of the radio shack power adapter extension cord. Then I stripped the wire ends to ready them for some splice connectors. I had to disassemble the cut off male end connector to verify which lead was positive and negative, marking the negative/ground lead with a piece of black duct tape for easy identification. If this step is skipped and the wires are connected to the vehicle power source backwards, the fuse inside the phones car power adapter will blow.
![Image](http://garagejob.smugmug.com/photos/182940728-M.jpg)
On the other end of the remaining power extension cord I tied a knot about 1 inch from the receptacle so that...
![Image](http://garagejob.smugmug.com/photos/182940906-M.jpg)
It will not slip through the hole I cut in the box.
![Image](http://garagejob.smugmug.com/photos/182948352-M.jpg)
Then it becomes a matter of putting it all together leaving about 9 feet of power cord extending out of the box. I added the small piece of bubble wrap to keep all the parts snug in the box, without the bubble wrap the phone seemed too loose for my liking.
![Image](http://garagejob.smugmug.com/photos/182941291-M.jpg)
Note: in the above photo the box is an OtterBox 3000, it seems to be an almost perfect fit for the phone and power cords, its a tight fit and with the parts positioned in any other way they will not fit.
The phone picks up the GPS signal just fine through the box, for testing I had it in my glove box and drove all around town for the past few days without any issue.
Now that this unit is installed:
The GPS signal is not at all hindered by the box or the placement of the box. The GPS signal strength is fine when around town, the initial install was in my driveway, I have lots of big trees and the vehicle was parked partially under the house eve giving a bad signal strength indicator that first day. Since then everything has been peachy.
Hope this helps someone.
Lurch