Does anyone have any suggestions regarding swimming laps and still maintaining signal between the sensor and receiver ? I went to the pool yesterday, I have the sensor positioned on my stomach. The pool is 25 yards long so 75 feet from end to end. I put the receiver on the side of the pool in a ziploc bag about midway between the two ends. I figured while the sensor would be out of range for the last 35 feet it should be in range for the middle 40 feet of the pool. I swam the back stroke for an hour so the sensor was not too far under the water. Almost from the very beginning of the swim I got the "Out of Range" notice and this continued throughout the hour I was in the pool. Having read the User's guide I understand that wireless communication does not work well in the water and the range is less but I am disappointed that communication ceased almost immediately as I got in the water. It resumed within 5 minutes of getting out of the pool and has been fine ever since, but I enjoy swimming for exercise and I would love to hear if anyone has had success. I don't know if the fact it is an indoor pool has any bearing on this, but I did not have this problem when I swam outdoors in a pool a lot bigger than this one.
It won't travel through water. It's the same reason you can't get recorded data off of a garmin HR monitor, etc. The RF (or ANT+ or bluetooth, etc) can't communicate through water as a media the way it can w/ air.
Have you considered using the waterproof cases that are designed for cell phones, and have your G4 with you instead of the sidelines ?
I think the transmitter and receiver are not in constant communication, but only for the few seconds once every 5 minutes when it gets the reading. So that means only 12 attempts in 1 hour. You probably also spend slightly more time at each end doing turns, which is where it is definitely out of range ? But I agree, seems like at least 1 out of 12 would have been in range.
I second Bradford's reply - RF just won't travel through water at all, water attenuates the signal so much that I think trying to get any readings at all back to your Dex receiver is going to be almost impossible.