Best GPS Reception?

Mostly just bells and whistles, though units which support an external antenna can - "can", mind you, not necessaily "will" - be a bit less succeptible to some forms of signal degradation. Something I've found with my eTrex Legend, which I often use in fairly dense woods, is that moving a few yards one way or another frequently allows the unit to get a decent fix - good enough to pretty accurately determine where on a physical map to mark a known position; do that a few times in the vicinity of a feature that signal obstruction makes direct position fixing unachievable and you can triangulate a very accurate fix for the signal-obstructed feature - more work, yeah, but it works.

Thanks Timber, that's what I suspected.And yes that sounds like a lot of work unless you're at risk of getting lost. I would in a New York minute go to my compass and topos but where I am there don't seem to be any topos at least for civilian use. As to my Legend, well ok, I can use it to mark car routes.

even the more expensive survey models get bolicksed. Then you also have to deal with radioing to a fixed base station for differential correction.
If I were you Id limit all my hiking to the fall or winter :wink:

Ive tried the moving around trick and , in a really deep leaf cover you may as well be inside a pyramid. Ive found that once you can get a satellite signal then you can move a few feet and still retain this one and maybe acquire some more. If youve got a 76 X or later, the second page should give you a satellite tally board. I sometimes scroll page down and return to the talley board it sometimes shows this as an entirely new function and remembers the other satellite and concentrates on new ones.

Ive sometimes spent 15 or more minutes on a station, especially if Im using it as a turn point.

Hey, its not perfect but it beats wandering around in circles.

My only desire (and Ive written to GArmin) is that their compass work as a "bearing compass" where the E and W are reversed so it lets you know which direction youre going , not the point at which your standing. (after al l were using it for hiking and we usually have a map besides the stupid little e-map they give you. ) If you were hiking the AT for example, youd most often have no idea where you are at from the GPS map, unless yours can take c maps or CDs like on a marine or motor unit.