ThePup

As a cacher with a 7 month old and a 3 and a half year old, we don't go for really long walks. If it were just my wife and I, we'd probably be happy to hike all day long, but the kids are a handful, and just can't handle walks. The longest we've had to walk was 2Km (About 1.3 miles) one way, and that was too much for the kids - I wound up with 21 kilograms of 3 year old on my shoulders for the better part of the trip. So, for now, we stick to stuff that's gonna need less than about 500m (1/3 mile) walking. Bit disappointing, but it's what we need to do for now. When they are older, we'll go further.

No doubt Magellan would be as well. It just makes sense. In most industries, you rarely hear the good feedback - Only the bad ones come back to you. Lurking on forums like these without announcing it means you see all feedback, and get to see what features people are talking about, and liking. I remember an RC aircraft forum I used to post on, where a techie from Hi-Tech used to hang out, and advertise the fact that he hung out on them, and would often answer questions and problems regarding their gear. Great PR! He would drop in every couple of days, and would have a thread going purely for questions regarding their gear. Hi Guys! Love my GPS72 - loved the look of the Magellan Explorist, but it didn't have PC link capability, and the 72 was on sale with a car power adapter, and car mounting bracket, for a good price, so I went the 72. Buttons on the Explorist 200 looked pretty small and awkward as well, but I couldn't open the blisterpack to play with it. Oh, and my 72 gets great reception when shoved in my shorts / jeans back pocket - though it does have a quad-helix antenna, not a patch... It preffers vertical.

This also happens if your LCD gets too hot, such as leaving the GPS on the dash of a car too long in the sun. The image refresh is very sluggish and poor quality, but stick it infront of the Air Conditioner vent for a while, cool it down, and all is good again. Thankfully.

If I win lotto, this is the first cache I'm doing! I'm happy to team up with someone, just don't hold ya breath waiting! (I Don't buy lotto tickets often, and haven't won anything yet ) I Got baggies on the FTF prize though! I think that looks cool! (Well, probably about -40 degrees cool to get technical...)

Our 3.5 year old son and 7 month old daughter go on our trips. The lad knows that when we stop looking at the GPS, it's time to start searching in bushes and logs - He actually found the cache before us a couple o weekends ago! Worst thing is, now it's summer, we need to keep him close for fear of snakes.... He then rummages through the cache and picks something out of it whilst the wife and I read / sign the log, and try to find something in our swag-bag that will fit in the container.

I'll point out the obvious and say don't leave ANY cache where it's going to get immersed in water. Why not? What's wrong with a submerged cache? IIRC, there's some that you can only get to with SCUBA / Snorkeling gear, as they are underwater. I've got a location near me which would be perfect for a submerged cache... I've decided against it, because all the good submerging areas are pretty well trafficed, but I did scout them out, and seriously consider a submerged cache.

In reference to your "True that there are 24 available" question in the subject - Yes. A Full pattern is considered 24 active at any one time, in 6 (?) different orbits. There's also one 'spare' satellite in each orbit to take over should one of the 4 active ones fail at any time, or go down due to maintenince. It's impossible to see all 24 at any one time, and very rare to see the full 12 that most GPSrs are capable of locking to. As at Tue Jan 11 17:55:15 UTC 2005, There is only one of the 30 unusable, and there's scheduled maintenance on another set to occur from 18 Jan 1830 UT to 19 Jan 0630 UT. (Repositioning) Here's another bit snipped from a text file - "The U.S. Air Force Space Command (AFSC) formally declared the GPS satellite constellation as having met the requirement for full operational capability (FOC) as of April 27, 1995. Requirements include: 24 operational satellites (Block II/IIA/IIR) functioning in their assigned orbits and successful testing completed for operational military functionality." Bionico - Those tycho.usno.etc.etc pages are good info!

We realised our addiction just this weekend, when we pulled up near a cache site, and realised that we only had about 20 minutes before we were due in town, a half hour drive awaym for a lunch appointment. We still found the cache, and another one 500m away, before finally making it to lunch only 15 minutes late. Wife slept most of the return trip, which is good, because she doesn't like dirt roads, and the trip almost scared me, so she would have been beside herself! Also, our 3.5 year old son, if we stop walking, and put the GPS in my pocket, will start hunting nearby bushes and logs. He knows the drill, and the little bugger actually got a find on the weekend before we did! It's slightly embarassing in town though, when we're not caching, just wandering about with the GPS.

A) This topic has been done to death already, and the general consensus is "each to their own, don't like 'em, don't hunt 'em", and B ) Is it just me, or is pretty much everything that zygote2k posts something negative? I Don't think I've seen a positive, happy post yet...

Rechargables are 1.2V, not 1.1, and the NiMHs I have, one brand is the same size as AAs, and the other brand are about a millimetre LONGER, not shorter.... As you have already decided - Go the NiMHs. I Was getting about 2.5 hours out of a set of good duracell batteries in my GPS72, and get 6 or more hours with the NiMHs. Well worth the investment. (NiMHs cost me about $5 each over here!)

There's a whole 66 within 100 miles of my home location, or about 6 within 12 miles. Gotta love caching in country south australia....

Friend of mine has a 12XL which I borrowed a couple of times. He was quite jealous when I showed him that I had a "Geocache" and a "Geocache found" icon for waypoint markers on my GPS 72 I want to know why they chose a treasure chest, rather than a tupperware box...

Oh I dunno, would make for a pretty cool hiding spot, at least difficulty 4... Might get muggled pretty quickly though when someone tries to buy it

Depending on the glue type, it can also help to roughen the smooth plastic surfaces before applying glue - Use some medium snadpaper or something, and clean off the plastic shavings. Gives a rougher surface, with more surface area for the glue to stick to and hold. (You don't need to do this with glues that melt the plastic though... )

Opera 7.6 under RedHat Linux 9 here. No issues with any websites to date. (Did have to upgeade opera to 7.6 to use Gmail). Been using opera since about version 5. I Tried Firefox a few times, with each new release, and failed to see what all the fuss was about - Sure, it's nice, and it's Not Microsoft, but all it's "New Features" have been in Opera since I've been using it, so they were nothing that hot for me. I Just preffer the look, feel, and speed of Opera. I Guess technically, Opera isn't a free browser like Firefox is, it's Adware - If you don't pay for it, you get an ad in the top right corner. It's very unobtrusive, takes up very little realestate, and I barely notice it thesedays. Even with the ad, I have more viewing area than IE! My 98 box at home is running Win98lite, which removes Internet Exploder for me - Very nice Install 98, do windows updates, install 98lite, remove IE.

It's also worth mentioning that many electronic devices, GPSs included, Wont fully discharge a NiCad. Only something like a flashlight, or a discharger, will fully discharge them. Most electronic devices have voltage sensors, and turn off when the voltage drops below a preset threshold. This is often a higher voltage than what counts as "Discharged" for a NiCad (From memory a "discharged" nicad should be about 0.7 volts?) It's also bad for NiCads to be completly, utterly drained, as in left on overnight on a flashlight bulb - That'll reduce their lifespan as well. Me, I Love my NiMHs... My GPS72 was chewing through alkalines in about 2 - 2.5 hours. Now I get about 6 hours, with backlight for some of it (Never timed how long backlight was on....)

Don't be stupid, The sky can't fall. Oh No! The ground is rising, the ground is rising!

Nikon D70 or Canon Rebel are 6MP and would kick the pants off your sony. 4MP will happily do an 8x10 at photo quality. We've got display shots hanging on a wall printed on A4 borderless, taken with a 3.2MP camera. Up close you can see noise, but from more than about 4 feet, it looks fine. Why would you want some other online photo service doing post processing? I'd rather have the control myself thanks.

For me, it's about spending quality time with my family. It's something we do together that we all enjoy. The stuff we've found in caches (OK, a whole 4 so far) is pretty lame really, but the son loves rumaging and taking something, and we leave something in return. Keeps him happy. A Couple of Down Under geocachers Daughter is showing mum how to use the thing properly

" a hiker found a World War II-era bazooka shell and brought it into a ranger station." What sort of fool picks the thing up and takes it to a ranger station?!

I Haven't used any proximity waypoints, but my understanding of them is that whenever you come close to one, your GPS will let you know, even if it's not set as a goto point. I've been meaning to try this by setting proximity points near intersections that are hard to spot in the dark, that I keep missing, or having to brake heavily for.

I've mentioned this elsewhere as well... I'm surprised more GPSrs don't have averaging built in! My Garmin GPS72 has averaging... I Mark a waypoint, hit 'menu' then 'average waypoint' and sit my GPS on the ground for 10 minutes. In this time, it takes several hundred readings, averages them, and gives an estimated accuracy. Generally in 10 minutes, it's showing an estimated average of 3 - 4 metres (about 12 feet). (When it starts, the estimated accuracy is about 7 metres, or about 25 feet). Course I haven't hidden a cache yet (Still waiting for reply from council to see if the'll allow it) and never tried to 'seek' a marked waypoint, so I don't know how it goes getting back to them

This must be you. That would be me

My wife has a shotgun that she received as a Christmas present from her parents, when she was eight years old. Awww man, Likes guns, and goes caching in graveyards during thunderstorms... You don't wanna swap wives do ya? (Yes, I Know your wife online from other places, she said I should say Hi )

I've done a mere 4 caches so far (Hey, there's bugger all in my area, gimmie a break), 3 were rated 1/1. Only 1 of those 3 would be wheelchair accessable. Is the person who complained someone who is in a wheelchair? I've never tried to use a wheelchair, so I don't know for sure, but a Small incline in bark chips doesn't sound like it would pose much of a problem to someone familiar with their chair....