Niels Blaauw wrote: >According to the manual my GPS is water- and shockproof. >Indestructible, you would think. Since yesterday I know better: >When lightning strikes at a few meters distance a GPS is as dead >as a dodo. It's pretty difficult to protect any electrical device from the voltages induced from a bolt that close- much harder than protecting from mechanical shock. You'd need to shield the internals completely, and have an external antenna that in turn was protected and bypassed to the shield. The display has to be either outside the shield and bypassed, or placed behind a metal screen. All this would add a few hundred dollars minimum, which means it's unlikely to be found on a $125 GPS. The same is true of hand held VHF units, particularly as they're all dependent on very voltage sensitive microprocessor circuits. -- mike --------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Edelman mje_at_spamcop.net http://www.foldingkayaks.org (nomadics) http://www.findascope.com (choosing a telescope) *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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