Mike, you're wrong. You made a wrong assumption about my immersion habbits with my gps and my overall experience with my waterproof gps and radios.
I have indeed capsized many many times and fully immersed my gps, while it was in operation. I routinely take my un-bagged garmin etrex legend, as well as my two waterproof vhf radios into the pacific ocean with me. (that is into the ocean as in into the water, full immersion) And from there I continue to use them, wet and salty.
I can assure you and Jamie too, that both the icom M1V and the Standard Horizon HX460SS are not resiliant to being submersed and subsequently relied upon for transmission, in a salt water immersed environment.
The battery contacts on the back of the batteries on both of these radios I own, will bleed electricity through the salt water. On the icom M1V, the contacts are used in the charging module.
On the HX460, the battery has some innocent looking things on the back that appear to be phillips head screws. Guess what?? Use your tongue if you don't feel that I am speaking the truth. Go ahead and get out the fancy schmancy shunt device and measure it accurately if you want.
What you will find out is what I have known for a year. If you expect to be able to make a distress call from one of these babies after being in the salt water for awhile, you have better take the prescribed precaution that I tell you here; Put electrical tape over these contacts.
The leakage is so bad that it will eat the conductive silver finish right off of the radios carcus. (HX460 in silver color)
I have informed the manufacturer (icom) of the flaw; something that a simple electronic diode can cure. They asked for the radio, replaced the battery with another one that has the same design flaw.
I am an electrician and I have shown this situation to Alan Thompson, an electrical engineer, as well as Glenn Brown, another electrical engineer. Don't bother disbelieving me, it could mean your life on the water someday.
Anyway, back to the thread; gps. My experience with my Legend is that if I protect it from high pressure spurts of water, it can withstand being submersed in the ocean and the accompianied impact that it sees when the pocket it lives in on the front of my thigh goes smashing onto the water during a capsize. No, make that several capsizes. On purpose, with the gps, intentionally.
This is my experience and you can not take it away from me. Please don't tell me that I have not done these things. Feel free to take all the precaution with your gps that many here will insist upon. But I will continue to enjoy the un-sheathed use of my unit.
By the way, my unit does not have any aids either. If you can not afford to potentially be left without the use of yours one day, or can not afford to buy another if this should happen, by all means...cover it up with one or more layers of waterproof bags. Just don't expect to be able to use the features that it came with, while negotiating the control of your catamaran.
