: The poor man's approach is to use two ziplock bags. Put the GPS inside the
: first, seal it, fold over the seal twice. Place this in the second ziplock
: bag.

: The trapped air in the bags lets this float like a cork. Water would have to
: navigate through both plastic bags before it hit the GPS which is water
: resistant all by itself. The gaskets and "o" ring seals on my
: GPS are good for keeping out humidity and rainfall, but they would fail if
: the GPS was immersed over a foot or two, as the water pressure would force
: in some moisture. As long as the thing is floating on the surface its own
: seals work fine, and th plastic bags are insurance.

Paul, Julie's GPS bag she mentioned can allow the GPS to be operated while inside the bag, I think. But it is expensive and I am always looking for cheap. Zip Lock bags with air in them so they float might be make it difficult to punch the GPS buttons. Looking at Julie's bag, it looks like you could put foam strips for floation on the inside ends of the first zip bag, put you GPS in it and zip it up without any air. Put that bag inside a second bag and again zip it up without air inside so the buttons could be easily depressed and it would still float because of the foam strips inside.

: You can keep a bunch of spare batteries in those plastic bags, too.

: Biggest problem I've had with navigating with my GPS is that they rely on
: having enough satellites in the sky -- and there are some days (and
: nights) when my part of the midwest seems to get only token coverage from
: the satellites. The GPS shows what devices are supposed to be above the
: horizon, and those theoretically should be sending a signal for my use.
: But, on a few occasions I've see that there were 8 or 9 satellites, but
: I've only been getting clear signals from one or two of them. and I need
: three clear signals.

I have a GPS Garmin 12 channel that picked up the satellites well even under trees when I was hiking in Utah. The problem for me was it had so many different screen options that I would forget how to get to them and would have to dig out the manual. I need pactice and a memory.

: Today I was driving to Wisconsin with my GPS in the car, and hit areas where
: the GPS reception was spotty. Looking at the map of my route is a joke. It
: resembles staggering path of a drunkard. Why? Well with incomplete data
: the GPS would plot a position for me that was incorrect, then a second
: later it would plot another position for me that was quite some distance
: away. and each second it would plot a new position. If the positions were
: 100 feet apart things would be fine. I'd get a reading showing my speed at
: about 70 mph and my direction would probably be accurate. But when I could
: not get good reception I got positions plotted that were thousands of feet
: apart. And the calculations showed I was doing about 326 mph between them!

I have never tried mine in a car.

: To add to this morning's humor: The GPS also calculates elevation. The
: rolling landscape of Southern Wisconsin is anywhere from 600 to 1000 feet
: above sea level, and I was spending most of my time around an altitude of
: 850 feet aboe sea level, give or take the height of a hill. However, that
: was not what the GPS showed when it was acting up. According to it, at
: times I was attaining an altitude of 11,000 to 13,220 feet -- and this is
: in a wingless Chevy!

I tried to use mine to measure elevations from a field to my pond as a surveyer-- and it was a joke.

: By the way, keep your GPS on while you drive to your put-in point. My
: previous use of my GPS had been about 70 miles from home. When I turned on
: the thing this morning, as I pulled out of the driveway, it took almost
: half an hour to initialize and I got some really flaky output. Apparently
: it kept trying to relate the limited reception to the previous (70 miles
: distant) trip.

It's been a couple of years since I used mine but I think the GPS has to go through a repositioning process when it is moved very far from your original area.

: Mind you. I love my GPS, but I carry a cheap Swiss Army compass that I got
: from Target. It looks jsut like the Silva compasses sold at Boy Scout
: stores, but it was a buck or two cheaper.
: Hope this helps.

: PGJ

I will have a regular compass with me also, just in case. Thanks for you imput Paul.

John