admo1972

GC10NA is available...

I like the idea of a custom GC#. As you predict, everyone and their mother would want to have their own, individualized GC# for their cache hides, so the precident would be set. Perhaps it could be a revenue stream? Maybe $50, and that includes a 1 year premium membership (effective immediately or once current membership expires). And this should probably be in the website forum...

Well, got my 50th cache, and recorded my track. I'm looking forward to exporting it to mapsource, and perhaps posting the track on the log of my 50th find. I can say that: My minimum elevation was 253 feet, my maximum elevation was 737 feet. I drove/walked a total of 18.6 miles. Man, this is the data I want for the hot air balloon!

I don't think I'll use the GPS on my flight. My son (3 years old) will be in the window seat, so my arm would get REALLY tired holding my arm across him to keep the GPS in the window. Plus, I'll be on Continental, which the website said they disallow use of GPSr on flights. I will be trying to get my 50th cache today at lunch time (a 3 cache grab is planned). So I may experiment with tracks and record this mini-trip.

LOL. Me too: admo's vehicle TB

Well, it depends what you want to do with them. If you go the laptop route: make sure it has Wifi capability. This way, you can get online at any free hotspot (hotels, coffee shops, etc) and see the latest geocaching goodness. You will be able to download waypoint data from the internet to your laptop, and transfer it to your GPS, depending on your GPS. The only downside is that once on the trail, you only have your GPS. Usually no problem, but you won't have the description, logs, hints, etc with you in case you did need it. If you go the PDA route, you can get all the cache information onto it using a program like cachemate, and you can bring the pda right into the field with you. Most people would recommend an older greyscale screen pda, for the logical reasons that the screen is easier to read in daylight, and they are cheap so you won't have lost as much if you lose it or break it. The downside of this is that you pretty much have to get the caches on it before you go. Towards the end of your trip, the data will get a little old. If you don't have other internet access while on vacation, you may end up looking for a cache that has been archived since you last looked it up. This happened to me. I went on a short vacation with my PDA/GPS combo and where I was going a bunch of new caches were placed. One of them, unknown to me, was then archived as it was placed inadvertantly on private property. Lucky for me, I happened to bump into the cache owner at another of his caches and he was able to tell me not to go for that one. If I hadn't seen him, I would have wasted my time later looking for a cache that wasn't there, and tresspass to boot!

I went on a hot air balloon ride this last weekend, and only after landing and getting back to the airport did it occur to me that I should have brought my GPSr with me. It would have been pretty cool to include a image of our track on a topographic plot, along with our elevation changes (which there were a lot of), in our album that we will put together. Why didn't this occur to me at all before! I wish I posted something about the upcoming ride in OT. I am sure someone there would have mentioned to bring it. *Smacks head* Anyone bring their GPS on other similar situations like hot air balloons? People often talk of using the GPS on airplanes, but do you really get sat reception in them? I'm flying to this coming weekend.

One other exception to the 1GC# 1 find rule is a recurring event that keeps the same GC#. It's simply a decision of the organizer and/or group to either reuse the GC# or to get a new one. In either case, an "attended" log is accurate.

This is sad news indeed. I was discussing this very cache last night with PTBilly at the Third Tuesday Burgers, Beer & Free Ice Cream event. After our conversation, this went onto my mental to-do list. We didn't realise at the time that such is impossible now. AVGraphics was there, but not at our table when we were talking about it. Oh well, back to traditional tupperware!

I have a mac and can't use GSAK. I can't figure out how to get the PQ on my new (old) m500 palm i got off ebay. I try sending the .gpx file over with hotsync, and it wants to send it to a SD card?! Do you know if i have to have an SD card installed in the PDA for it to work? Thanks! No problem on a Mac! First, you will want the program called CacheMate. It installs on your Palm. It is only about $8, but you can use it somewhat restricted without paying. So download it and hotsync it. Next, you need the Mac program MacCMConvert. This one is free. Once you have MacCMConvert, you download the .gpx file from geocacnign .com. Open MacCMConvert, and I check every option. Click select file and navgate to you rgpx file. MacCMConvert converts the gpx file that your Palm has no idea what it is for (which is why it wants it on the SD card), into regular palm .pdb database files. The program also throws these files automatically into the hotsync app. So, once it is done, just hotsync and you are all set!. You'll have coordinates, hints, description, diff/terrain; cache size, and the last 5 to 10 logs. The best part is that it can calculate closest caches to the current cache.

I don't think he does. If both found and not found boxes are checked, you would get no results. Leaving both boxes unchecked would give you all caches, found and unfound. It's confusing. In that section, a single cache has to meet all the criteria checked to be viewed. That and refers to the criteria, not the caches.

I just did a few tests, and if all I checked was "I haven't found", I got only caches I haven't found. I then checked both "I haven't found" and "I have found", and got no results. Next thing I suggest is to make sure that the account you are creating the PQ with is the same account that logged the finds on the caches. Also, make sure you did indeed log your finds as "Found it" logs, not notes or something else. Lastly, if your finds are very recent, they may still come up in the PQ.

Hmm. Make sure you don't have the "I have found" box checked (although I think that if you had that box checked, you'd be getting no results, not results with both found and not found caches). Generally, the only boxes I have checked in that section are "I haven't found" and "Is active" What other options do you have checked?

Thanks for that info. I manually restored all the cachemate files just this morning. Good news: all the caches are back in my palm again. Bad news: everything is in the default database(nothing in my founds, not founds, etc) all my logs I wrote are gone. Most importantly, all my notes on the final location of a bunch of puzzle caches are gone, as well as my notes on the final coordinates of a few multis (in case I want to go back to drop of, retrieve bugs and coins). I have an SD card, a 2GB one. NVBackup sounds like what I need. But I also should put the puzzle cache answers somewhere else too.

Personally I would have left the DNF, and also logged a Find, and you can tell the story how it was misisng when you were last there, but was replaced by whatever user replaced it.

Just bought a 2007 Honda Pilot last night. Loving it.

On macs, you simply hold command-option-4. The cursor turns into a crosshair and you select the section of the screen you want. The resulting file is a png of just the area selected.

Good point. My 1st FTF, the next cacher after me was a few days. My 2nd FTF I missed the next cacher by about 40 minutes. I thought we'd be tripping over each other! I'm sure that is to come.

That's a good question. I assume that if you have a WAAS lock with the newer chips, your position will be more accurate, but the difference will be less. In MA two weekends ago, my accuracy was an average of 20 feet or so. At one cache, I got my first WAAS lock, and was pleasantly surprised to see all those sats on the sat page with the letter D in them. My accuracy was listed as 9 to 10 feet, the best I have seen yet on my Vista. So, I am guessing that with the newer chip sets, the accuracy w/o WAAS is somewhat better, and when it does get a WAAS lock it improves, but not to the same degree. I'd be interested to hear some user experiences.

I think you have the option to upload an image when you write a log. Try that.

I am using garmin mapsource topo, and it really isn't necessary at all, in my opinion. The only thing I use it for is to glance at the map screen once in a while just to get a general sense of my location. Helps with some situational awareness, but never helped me find a cache.

I'm by no means a veteran, but here are a couple things: 1. Keep your early caches easy. Make sure difficulty/terrain is at most 2 or 1.5 each. 2. Avoid caches that have a string of DNF's, or the last find was a while ago. Looking for caches that have a bunch of recent finds will increase the chances that the cache is indeed there to be found. If the cache has been washed away, or stolen, you will never find it. 3. Avoid caches that are small or micro. Some micros are the size of a pencil eraser! 4. Once you get to the site, put the gps away and look everywhere! Start with the obvious spots of where you would hide something. Once those are exhausted, do a more methodical search. Onceyou get frustrated or no longer having fun, give up and move on.

I will be receiving one of those magnetic TB's for my car. My question is, is it good form to move the magnet with the Tracking number from one car to another? Sometimes I'll be out caching in one vehicle, and sometimes another, so I'd like to move it as I move. Also, the TB page I set up, can I easly update it with new images depending what is my primary geocaching vehicle? Or am I being too cheap and should I just buy 2 of these magnets.

Make sure you are set up to receive notifications of when a cache is published. You probably are, but good just to check. Otherwise, just keep checking them. When I got my first FTF, I was quite excited. No one logged anything on the cache for a few days after that. This was is in a relatively active geocaching area (although it required about a 3/4 mile walk on a trail to get to it). So sometimes you have time to get your FTF.

I love blind luck. Nothing feels better than finding a cache in a minute when the previous searchers DNF'd after 45. It also works in the inverse. I've DNF's several caches recently that others, before and after me, say they made "quick grabs". I guess I should stop reading the logs...