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Somehow I managed to make Marengo work the first time I tried it but today I'm stymied. I place the WPs on the map > add the short description to the side > hit the GPX button > highlite and Copy the text in the box > open text editor (Notepad) > Paste there. Now I'm supposed to Save it as a .gpx file. I think I do that by changing the ending of the file from .txt to .gpx but that is not working as when I try to open the newly created ".gpx" file with MapSource (gpx) it says it is not a valid file and can't be opened. Notebook does not have a Save As GPX option so I can't think of how else to do it. Help; what am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the reply Lasagna. At this time I'm using Firefox with Linux so I opened the PQ build page > From Origin > By Coords > changed the coordinate drop down choice to DegMinSec and then refreshed the screen but no third box appeared to enter the Seconds data. I also tried to Search the issue in the forums but I can never seem to get relevant posts when I do a search.

While setting up a PQ today I noted that From Origin > By Coordinates leads to a display with 3 options; deg min sec, deg minutes and decimal degrees. However there are only 2 boxes (deg and minutes) to enter the data for each option. My question is how can you add deg min sec in only 2 boxes since it requires a third for the seconds value, right?

If one does a "caches along a route" using Google Earth and then uploads the KML file to create a Pocket Query, you don't know how many caches are going to appear until you can Preview the PQ, after it is published. If the number of returned caches exceeds the number specified when creating the PQ how are they then chosen to make up the PQ? I ask because I just did that, specifying only 100 caches as I was fairly certain that would be a large enough figure to include all. However the PQ returned 100 so almost certainly there a some (or a lot) that weren't selected. If I knew the method of rejecting the overflow then maybe I would feel that they were ones I would not have been interested in (farthest off the route for example). Thanks in advance for any wisdom on this, I admit, minutia.

You are exactly right! There they are. I kept looking at None and not digging into the Menu function from there. And, correct again, the upload with the serial connection is much slower so I shouldn't have compared them as to results based on speed of upload. Thanks a ton.

There is no option to choose since there are no waypoints in the unit. I'm quite sure none got uploaded because I was watching the screen as it was supposedly adding WPs and it just flashed closed in an instant instead of showing a moving bar over a couple of seconds as happens when data is usually moved.

This is crazy. I've never run into this before. I have 36 wayponts listed in MapSource (6.11.5) on my XP computer with them displayed on the map to the right of the screen. I press Transfer, Send to Device, it finds my Vista C no problem, the waypoint box is checked but when I push Send it flashes by way to fast to have done anything and no WPs get transferred, even though it says "Transfer Completed". Even stranger, I am able to transfer the same WPs to an old Venture with a serial connection without a problem. I must have some setting wrong to prevent my Vista C from connecting properly. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Thanks Chuy and Timpat. After spending most of today playing around with and learning about the Google mapping products I've come to the same conclusion - that you can't derive routes from GE at all but you can extract a linked series of WPs in Google Maps and then export them to a GPSr, however they show up in the unit as a Track, not a Route. That may be useful to me; we'll see tomorrow when I try to follow it in the field. I'm also anxious to learn about GPS Trackmaker; it's obviously a sophisticated program.

I want to establish a route in GE and then move it to my GPSr. So I go to Add > Path in GE and up comes a box that occupies a major part of the screen called "Google Earth - New". If I click on the map I can use the Path tool but the box is in the way. If I close the box the tool and route disappear. !. How can I get the New box out of the way so I can see all of the viewer and still use the Path tool? I then save the accumulated Path points as a KML file, convert it to a GPX format with GPSBabel then open it in either ExpertGPS or MapSource. In either case the file opens as Tracks and not Routes even though I thought a Path was a Route. I don't think Tracks will work as a useful GPSr format to lead me somewhere. 2. What am I doing wrong to not get a Route out of the KML file? Thanks in advance.

It can be impossible to see in the bright sunlite . We had to give up looking for a cache on a mountainside in the direct sun (Maui) because we couldn't see the Cachemate info on the Z22 screen, and it wasn't Cachmate's fault. There was no natural shade around and I couldn't improvise satisfactory shade with what I had. Better to use an older PDA with a B&W screen.

Thanks for the replies: Miragee - is this only useful for the Fast Reply catagory? What about other sites' forums, the same thing? I ask because I tried it on a html practice page and it didn't work. Fratt - yup now I see it and that is obviously the easy way to do it. Starbrand - I use Firefox So here is a practice attempt via the 3 methods above: Miragee's - click here Fratt's - click here And the html way - <a href="http://www.wunderground.com">click here</a> For some reason the conventional method is not working but certainly the other 2 do. Looks like I answered my own question re: the Fast Reply.

Although not a direct geocaching issue it applies to posting to the forums. I've googled this and I can't find a consistent answer since it seems to vary with the format being used. So my question is how to create a link that is short, such as "click" or "here" so as to not have to paste the entire URL to the posting, some of which are extremely long? Thanks in advance.

I am trying to learn the some of the nuances of GPSr-mapping programs. I set up a small test "path"" in Google Earth and then saved it as a KLM file. When I open it with GE it shows multiple WPs, as it should. Then when I open it in Mapsource, GpsUtility or ExpertGPS it shows only one (the first) WP. What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance.

Thanks Chuy and TOLady. The problem I was having with GPS Visualizer not being open-able was that I was looking at routes instead of WPs as the input format from S&T and I now understand that S&T only records individual waypoints. Thanks DWBur. I'll check out the GPSUtility. After I posted the question on the forum I went back and google searched some more and came up with an app 'ITNconv' - http://benitools.info/itnconv.zip - that works beautifully also.

I have the 2004 edition but I don't have a clue as to how to make the conversion from S&T itself?

Thanks Chuy but I looked at GPS Visualizer and the .est format did not come up in bold as an option in the drop down box.

I want to convert a S&T .est file to a .gpx one. According to the instructions on Markwell's excellent FAQs page I need to modify GPSBabel with the batch file line he gives. If I have this right what I do is copy the batch line to Notebook, rename and save it as ESTtoGPX.bat, insert it into the GPSBabel directory and then make a shortcut from it alongside. I should then drag and drop the .est file onto the newly created shortcut. However when I do this I get an unidentfiable file named "21". It has no characteristics of a GSAK/gpx file seen in the screen shot. Obviously I'm doing something wrong. Help? Or an easier way to make the conversion? Thanks.

I had bought a Z22 to replace my Handspring Visor which I figured was so old it would die any minute. I loaded WPs to CacheMate on the Z22, no problem, except shortly after that I took it to Maui to do some caching and realized I could NOT see the screen in the intense sunlight, even after improvising ways to shade the unit. I now have returned to my old Visor for cache info as I can read the B&W screen in any conditions.

Thanks Tervas; that's what I needed. F

A friend of mine has a yellow eTrex GPSr. She wonders if the unit can be put on "standby" by turning off the satellite search function of the unit like I can with my eTrex Vista C. I reviewed the Garmin manual for that unit and can find no such capacity. Any ideas? Thanks.

The connection just began working after another attempt and I don't know why but I guess I don't need more help. Thanks for the replies.

Thanks for the reply. I know about the HotSync problem and know to not have it on when trying to use the serial port. That is not happening. I checked the COM port on Device Manager and it is working and appears to not be in use.

When you select Send to Device or Receive from Device under the transfer menu, are you getting the pop up window where you can select Find Device? I use Mapsource with a serial connection with my GPS V and with the USB connection to my CSx. No pop up message; only a wait while it trys to Find, than "cannot find"

I'm using Win XP & MapSource ver. 6.11.5 and have no problem making a connection to my newer Vista C using a USB cable but now I can't get the program to find my older eTrex Venture with a serial cable. I don't see any options for setting up parameters to connect to the GPSr like those of NG TOPO for example. Any ideas? Thanks.

Thanks robertlipe and rws - that explains it so well.