Whomever doesn't do the math.
The data sheet claims that with the stock antennas, the range is 1km. The antennas look to be fairly typical 2dBi coaxial antennas. Range doubles for every 6dB increase in antenna gain. That data sheet claims 1km range with the stock antennas.
Range doubles for every 6dB of gain (inverse square law) or: dB = 20 log (range_ratio) or range_ratio = 10^(gain_in_dB/20) Building a table:
Antenna Claimed range gain dB over range calc km gain km 2dBi omni increase range 2dBi omni 1 0 0x 1 9dBi omni 2 7 2.2x 2.2 18dbi dir 10 16 6.3x 6.3
So, the doubling of the range using the 9dBi omni is probably for real, but the 10km range is a bit optimistic. Of course, all this depends on the original data sheet 1km specified range. There are plenty of other variables, such as the performance of the device at the other end of the link. If it's a Class 2 (10mw) device, there's not going to enough signal coming back to create a useful link. The TX power has to be the same in both directions for this to work. Same with the receiver sensitivity. Any asymmetry will result in range loss. It's highly likely that the receiver in the AIRCable device has been dramatically improved over the usual minimal designs found in most commodity BT devices. If so, then the increased RX sensitivity in the AirCable device may somewhat compensate for the lack of TX power in the GPS BT device. However, it's difficult to tell without the maker and model number of the GPS device and associated specifications.
Yep. A better receiver. -92dBm sensitivity (presumably at 0.1% BER). Minimum spec is -70dBm so this is far better than usual. The reason they get away with it is that they don't have any serious power consumption limitations and they don't have a mess of RFI and noise belching devices nearby such as inside a cell phone. Increase the sensitivity to practical BT limits and all the typical BT device will pickup is noise and junk.
Kinda looks like it will do what you want. I'm not so confident about the range increase, but with a big antenna, you will certainly get an improvement.
Incidentally, I lied. There are chips that can do simultaneous BT and Wi-Fi. See:
It was product released 2 months ago, so there may not be any products available for a while. It also targets multi-media cell phone handsets, not laptops.
Full disclosure: I did some very very very minor work for Wireless Cables when they were in Santa Cruz CA. Good people.