Re: [Paddlewise] Standard Horizon HX460S

----- Original Message -----
From: <Rick.Sylvia_at_ferguson.com>

> I have the HX260S and wonder if I'm hurting my battery life.  I listen to
the weather before I leave the house.  While I'm paddling, I leave it turned
off, but after a couple hours, or if the weather looks like it's changing, I
check the weather again.  Consequently, I only use it about 10 minutes for
each outing.  At that rate, I can go many weeks without draining and
recharging. <
>
> Am I okay, or would it be better to leave it on overnight to drain, and
then recharge the next day?  How many days/weeks should I let it go before
purposely draining and recharging? <

It is something I really have no perfect answer for.  I know of some people
who just continue to top off the charge on the radio fter each use and then
occasionally doing a total drain and recharge.  My practice with the HX350
was to use the radio over a few outings and then drain it totally and
recharge carefully (i.e. not exceeding the 16 hours of charging as
recommended); I never topped off to avoid the Nicad battery developing a
memory that would led to less than full charging eventually.  If I had a
situation coming up that I knew I would use and depend on the radio a lot
(one of the swims in which I lead the kayak escorting for), then I would do
the drain and recharge to make certain I had a lot of juice in the battery.

This year the battery appears to not be dependable and the radio failed in
one swim.  But it was one in which we were in a stationary zone defense for
a less than 1-mile swim (a test of the triathlon course for the big race the
next day).  Communication faded while I was getting into position but we had
all our kayakers already clearly assigned and no changes appeared necessary.
I could not transmit.  I waited about 15 minutes for some residual charge to
return and transmitted quickly to the race organizers that my radio was
failing so they would know the situation.

Since then the radio continues to show a full charge and then drop down to
almost nothing on the indicator even when I am hardly using the radio.  I
think the radio is 3 years old.  Maybe that is the life expectancy of a
battery.

ralph diaz



***************************************************************************
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/
***************************************************************************