Wondering about Summer Caching

[Jay Mills]

Just bored and tired and can’t get to sleep and thinking about geocaching. Well what else would I be thinking about? Anyway. I started caching in January so have become familair with the pleasures and pitfalls of winter caching but am wondering how my Garmin Legend will work in summer under the canopy of trees. Am I wrong to believe that leaves will block the signal basically rendering my GPSr useless in the woods? Even in winter it seemed that areas with thick braches effected the reception.

[Vegas Gamblers]

Effected yes, useless no. Your signal may bounce around but you should still get a signal. We started with a Legend C in summer and we had many finds. We have now upgraded to a 60 CX but have not gone in summer yet. So that is my limited opinion.

[NeverLost Mark]

@Jay Mills wrote:

Am I wrong to believe that leaves will block the signal basically rendering my GPSr useless in the woods? Even in winter it seemed that areas with thick braches effected the reception.

Being under heavy cover will effect your gps, but it will be far from useless. Just as digging around in two feet of snow is an added challenge in winter, being under heavy tree cover is just a little bit of an added challenge that’s all.

[Uncle_Fun]

I started out with a Garmin Etrex Vista. Which is the next model up from the Legend. In heavy tree cover mine was useless. I would need to find a clearing, get a bearing and then head in. There were many times when I could not get a signal.
Uncle_Fun

[kbraband]

I think you’ll find that in tree cover the amount of moisture on the leaves will degrade the signal more than the leaves themselves. Scientists (like JeremyV) tell me this is because the H2O scatters/absorbs (I forget which) the GPS radio signals from the satellites. More info here:
http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/gpsintrees.html

[Jay Mills]

hmmmm should make for some interesting caching moments with the GPS jumping all over the place taking me in circles or getting the dreaded need a “clear view” of the sky message. I presume the higher end models this is less of an issue? Not that I can afford an upgrade, just curious. Thanks for the responses.

Peace

[greyhounder]

You’ll do just fine. You’ll adapt. I started geocaching in January 2004. I just find that every season has its benefits and problems. Just go with the flow. When winter comes again, you’ll be worried about finding caches in the snow!

😆

Bec

[Jeremy]

@kbraband wrote:

I think you’ll find that in tree cover the amount of moisture on the leaves will degrade the signal more than the leaves themselves. Scientists (like JeremyV) tell me this is because the H2O scatters/absorbs (I forget which) the GPS radio signals from the satellites.

It’s both Ken. As the article says, wet leaves block (attenuate) more signal than dry leaves. In fact, just a thin “sheet” of water (not individual droplets) can block the signal completely. Wet leaves can also scatter the signal, causing it to “bounce around” before getting to your receiver, leading to some nasty multipath errors. Rocks, especially wet rocks, and being next to a cliff or mountain that blocks a large portion of the sky, are also notorious for introducing multipath errors.

http://gpsinformation.net/multipath.htm

A fancy GPS unit would help by allowing you to receive weaker signals (those blocked by tree cover). They also have advanced error correction algorithms that can eliminate some of the multipath problems by filtering out those signals that have been bounced around.

I grabbed this from another topic, but it seemed to make sense to include it in our discussion here…

@djwini wrote:

i’m so tired of not being able to find things under heavy cloud cover.

Cloud cover, rain, and snow does not seriously degrade GPS signal…

http://gpsinformation.net/gpsclouds.htm

And as Bec said, the best advice is to just get out there and cache! Some of us have been hiding and finding caches for over 6 years… most of that time we were using units that today would be considered inferior, yet somehow we managed. 🙂 Sometimes just the way you hold your GPS can make all the difference in the world as far as keeping your signal. It should be pointed up and away from your body… hanging it upside-down from a lanyard around your neck is about the worst thing you can do.

[ecorangers]

8) We are pretty happy with our Magellan Meridian Gold BUT we always geocache with a compass around our neck. Just before we go into the woods (under canopy), we take a bearing and eyeball our line of direction and walk that way (assuming there’s not a cliff, river etc). For the most part, it works great. Hope this helps. Tami

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