I'm thinking about getting a Forerunner 305, but have had mixed results with the old 201. I like the unit when it is working, but have had to send it back to Garmin at least three times--I can only assume the problems are generated by exposure to water.
Do you use the 305 with a drybag of some kind or just mount it on its own?
I recently spoke with a Garmin technician about this issue, and he advised putting the unit in a zip-lock bag or wrapping in plastic wrap. I find that stretching plastic wrap (such as Saran wrap) over the screen and pulling it tightly around the back of the unit does the trick. Don't worry about not having a perfect seal where the wrist straps connect to the unit...the unit is vulnerable to hard splashes that might penetrate the seals in the unit, not to having moisture around the unit per se. -Hope that helps.
I'm having other difficulties at the moment...my 305 stopped receiving satellite signals, and when I tried to reinstall using Garmin's WebUpdater for Mac, it erased my GPS chipset but did not reinstall a clean version....now I have a GPS that with no GPS chipset...worthless, as one cannot even set the date manually, so software will not transfer workout data because it doesn't recognize a date with which to label the data. I tried installing the exe. chipset file using a friends PC, but that also failed. Garmin is currently doing some work on its website, so perhaps they will fix the WebUpdater interface, but if not, I'll have to return the unit for service (a two-week interruption in use).
I thought I saw that Polar recently, or will soon, release a GPS heart rate monitor...if that's true, it may be worth waiting for, as Polar makes very good HRMs.
