imajeep

End of season? Hey, in Chicago, we've got two months to go! One of the things I'm looking forward to about Southern California... Thanks for the tip on the jacket.

Thanks. The Sporthills look like a winner. It sounds like no middle layer is really necessary. It also sounds like no gaiters necessary? BTW, I just found the Sporthill Symmetry at Sierra Trading Post for $34.95. Thanks again for the tip.

What would be the best GPS-enabled PDA for running Wherigo? I'd like to find a PDA with the GPS capability built-in, rather than an add-on GPS. Keypad/keyboard isn't necessary, but a high-sensitivity GPS receiver chip is a must. The MIO P350 seems to get a lot of attention on this forum. Is it suitable for use in the US, assuming one gets a Pocket PC-compatable map set? Thanks!

I haven't done a whole lot of cold weather hiking, seeing as how I live in Chicago. But I'm moving to Southern California, so it looks like there will be ample opportunity to get out for some snowshoing and winter hiking up in the San Bernadinos. So, here is my question: What are good middle layer and outer layer pants for winter hiking, assuming that I'm wearing a polyprope base layer? I am figuring on a fleece and shell as mid and outer layer jacket.

Trails.com is mainly reprints from various trail guides. The topos are okay, but Nat Geos are a lot better.

Very cool! I gotta get me one o' those!

It depends on what type of maps you buy. City maps (the ones used to get driving directions) typically have unlock codes. However, topo maps (trail maps with topography) do not generally have unlock codes. So, if you are trying to download a map with 'Topo' in its name, you won't find an unlock code, because there isn't one.

I guess not.

The answer depends on how you want to geocache. I started with a Garmin (which I still use!), so I use Garmin's MapSource program to download data to my GPSr. If you don't have that, start with EasyGPS. It's free and gets the job done. Do you print cache descriptions, or do you want to carry them on a PDA? Cachemate does a great job getting descriptions, logs, and hints to a PDA. Some people like to carry a local copy of the GC.com database for their local area on a laptop, as an alternative to PDA caching. GSAK does a great job of maintaining that local database, although its user interface is kinda klunky. I recommend some form of paperless caching, either with a PDA, or with a laptop. We use both. I load descriptions of all caches in the area where we are going to be caching into GSAK on my laptop, and we take that with us in the car. When we get to a site, we generally download coordinates to our GPSr and read the description from GSAK. If we have to hike to a site, then we download from GSAK to the PDA and head off. It works very well.

Whatever you do, go with an "H" (or similar) model, which has a high-sensitivity receiver. Otherwise, you will likely be frustrated by your GPSr losing signal every time you go under tree cover or into a canyon.

IMHO, the rating would depend on the context of the hide. If the fence is the only thing in sight, a 1.0 might be appropriate. After all, where else could it be? But what about a target-rich environment, like a fence on the edge of a woods with all knids of rocks strewn about? I actually came across a hide just like this. I'd give it a 3.

What you are describing is what is often referred to as the 'drunken bee dance', for obvious reasons. Consumer GPSr's have a maximum accuracy of about twenty feet (six metres). Once you get within that distance of a geographic point, the GPSr will go crazy, because you have gotten as close as the unit can accurately represent. A lot of people will get within twenty feet or so, and then start walking a circle around the apparent target point. The center of the circle will give you an indication to within a couple of feet of where your GPSr has the point. Remember that the GPSr of the person who placed the unit may be twenty feet off in one direction, and your may be twenty feet off in another direction. So, you could have as much as a forty-foot discrepency between the placer's ground zero and yours. Many placers will use waypoint averaging when they place a cache to reduce this error..

The FAQ should get you going. Keep in mind that most Garmins will connect to your PC, so that you can download coordinates, instead of entering them manually. FAQs cover downloading coordinates from GC.com so that you can transfer them to your PC

Also, if you will be caching in an area with tree cover or canyons, get an 'H' model. The 'H' stands for 'high-sensitivity receiver'. They work a lot better in any environment where you don't have wide-open sky.

I'll second the vote for Big Agnes. We have a couple of bags we use for car camping, and we love them.

Actually, I think the hat is the antenna.

It's a matter of opinion, but I would recommend the Garmin. That's the most popular unit on GC.com, so you will probably find it easier to get help with it. As to maps--it depends on what sort of caches you want to hunt. Strictly speaking, you don't need topos, but I find them helpful when hunting caches along trails. And if you are a hiker, topos on a GPS make life way easier than paper topos and a compass.

I got an answer at A href="n"tp://microsoft.public.dotnet.xml">nntp://microsoft.public.dotnet.xml. The short answer is that namespace declarations aren't done explicitly. Instead, they are set by calling the SetAttribute() overload that takes a prefix and a namespace URI. Here is the code to create the root node: const string gpx = "http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1", xsi = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"; XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument(); XmlElement root = xmlDoc.CreateElement("gpx", gpx); root.SetAttribute("version", "1.1"); root.SetAttribute("creator", "ExpertGPS 2.4.2"); XmlAttribute schemaLocation = xmlDoc.CreateAttribute("xsi", "schemaLocation", xsi); schemaLocation.Value = @"http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/gpx.xsd http://www.topografix.com/GPX/gpx_style/0/2 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/gpx_style/0/2/gpx_style.xsd http://www.topografix.com/GPX/gpx_overlay/0/3 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/gpx_overlay/...gpx_overlay.xsd http://www.topografix.com/GPX/gpx_modified/0/1 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/gpx_modified...px_modified.xsd"; root.SetAttributeNode(schemaLocation); xmlDoc.AppendChild(root);

60 CSx is not long in the tooth, by any stretch of the imagination. The 'H' series eTrex models have just caught up to it. I would be comfortable with the performance of a Vista HCx, although my personal preference is for the 60 CSx. I haven't seen anything that suggests the 60 CSx is about to be replaced anytime soon. The handlheld product line seems pretty stable at this point--76 CSx for handheld marine use, 60 CSx for hikers, and the eTrex line as the general consumer line, topped off by the Vista HCx, which is pretty much the performance equivalent of the 60 CSx and the 76 CSx.

I am writing some code in .NET to create a GPX file, and I need a little bit of help coding the document node of a GPX file. I am using the XmlDocument class and its related classes. I'm having trouble declaring the 'xmlns:xsi' and 'xsi:schemaLocation' attributes of the document (<gpx>) node. I can declare the XSI namespace, using the XmlDocument.CreateAttribute() method, but .NET ignores the prefix in the 'xsi:schemaLocation' attribute. All that gets written is 'schemaLocation', which causes the document to be invalid. Does anyone have a snippet that shows how to code a GPX document node in either VB.NET or C#? Thanks for your help! David Veeneman Foresight Systems a/k/a 'imajeep'

Hey, thanks! That is very cool, indeed!

Is there any way to limit the sections that show up in a 'show new posts' command on this forum? For example, I'm not personally into geocoins, so I would just as soon exclude that section when I click the 'Show new posts' link. Is there any way to do that? Thanks.

Here is what we did before a recent trip out West (6K miles total, and you can see how many states we cached by checking our profile): Before we left home, I created 'caches along a route' PQs for each driving segment of the trip. I ended up with about a dozen segments, each of which covered about 500 miles. As we made the trip, I ran the next day's PQs and loaded the results into GSAK. Then, while we were on the road, we used the GSAK database we had created to target caches to hunt. Then, each night, I'd clear the GSAK database and repeat the process to load the next day's cache list. It worked like a charm. The only limitation was a fairly aggressive driving schedule (about 500 miles/day), which limited the number of caches we could hunt.

Second the vote for Amazon. Got my 60 CSx there.