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Nogami

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Everything posted by Nogami

  1. I'm just getting the supplies together to start a new cache, and would like to make it a puzzle rather than a straight cache location. Anyone have some good examples of interesting/tricky puzzles for caches they've encountered?
  2. I've seen a few messages along these lines recently, and there seems to be three types of park management: 1. Those who genuinely care about the environment, and want to help people to enjoy the parks while at the same time making sure that caches are placed in areas that are not environmentally sensitive. 2. Those that don't understand and can't be bothered to understand. They just say "no" to reduce hassle and because they can. 3. Those that are convinced that parks should be seen but not visited. Parks grudgingly admit "the public", but only allow them certain "freedoms". But they would be happier if nobody was in the park at all. They use "caring for the environment" as an excuse to lay down whatever laws they wish. I suppose there are lots of ways of dealing with different sorts of people - hopefully the #1s outnumber the #2 and #3s by a fair margin. But don't despair, there are lots of places to hide caches outside of the reaches of Park Nazis.
  3. I've also had medium to poor reception under tree cover, however two things that I've learned that seem to help: 1. Make sure you're not in "battery saver mode" under tree cover. While it may save batteries, it seriously degrades the time it takes for the unit to get a good lock in difficult conditions. 2. I'm not sure if it's just the constellations changing, but there have been times where my vista starts reading much better under tree cover after 10 minutes or so than it did initially. Perhaps it re-calibrates itself somehow when the signal is exceptionally low? I went on a cache last week under really heavy tree cover and was getting perhaps 1 sat at 25%. After bushwacking through to a position relatively close to the location, I waited for another 10-15min, and started pulling in 4 or 5 sats in the 30-40% range. Not perfect by any means, but certainly enough to get a lock.
  4. Hmm... Probably a very good idea. I've only started seriously geocaching recently, and until now my "kit" has only included the GPS, Cell phone, bug repellent, and sunscreen. It's certainly a very good idea to bring some extras for safety. Now most of the stuff I do is reasonably "urban" (no more than an hour or so out of town), so I feel that my cell phone is the best safety, but I'm going to put together a small pack that contains a few extra things I think are valuable: -My leatherman wave -2 x plastic cig. lighters -couple of candles -some first aid supplies (disinfectant & bandages) -spare GPS batteries -flashlight I doubt I'll always take it with me - not too much chance of having to rough it in a city park, but I'll keep it in the car's trunk as a dual-purpose caching/car kit.
  5. Ya... Although I think it also said his system costed something like $60,000 to give that kind of accuracy ;P
  6. Ya... Although I think it also said his system costed something like $60,000 to give that kind of accuracy ;P
  7. Yup, they showed that on that "Worst Case Scenario" last night. One of the girls in the show climed a 25 story building with it. Very impressive!
  8. Yup, they showed that on that "Worst Case Scenario" last night. One of the girls in the show climed a 25 story building with it. Very impressive!
  9. No problems with my Vista - Mine is on GMT-8, for the West coast of Canada. Set it once when I first got this unit 3 weeks ago, and it's held the setting through the firmware update to the latest version, no problems.
  10. Yup, the new compass that "bends" to show you approaching turns on routes is a great idea. Just noticed it in my car today and it worked very well.
  11. The rotating patch antenna is a helluva idea that all manufacturers should offer. Can just rotate it to be horizontal to the sky no matter what the orientation of the screen is. Now just have to make it (optionally) totally automatic with some small servos and sensors so it follows the orientation of the unit automatically.
  12. Good stuff Joining in the fun ;P [This message was edited by Nogami on July 22, 2002 at 10:14 PM.]
  13. If your comm port isn't finishing the upload to the GPS, try unchecking the "use highspeed" box before uploading. The downside is that the upload takes 10-15x longer (20 min or so), but it works more reliably if your comm port doesn't like the 115kbps rate. Had the problem once before (hung with the "loading" message on the GPS) and that fixed it. Oddly enough, highspeed works fine on mine now.
  14. Selling my Magellan GPS Companion handspring module - works in any of the Visor series of PDAs. Used it in my Visor Pro and it works really nicely. Uses 2xAAA batteries, and comes with the included CD of navigation software as well as maps for all of the US. Unit is in excellent condition and works perfectly - I have put a small cell-phone clip on the back so I could mount it in my car as I was driving, however I can either pop the clip off, or give you the vent clip base with the unit. Quite a few of these on Ebay for various prices - I'm looking for $70 US + postage. Anyone who is interested, please drop me a note at nogami@senkou.com and we can arrange something.
  15. Yup, just plug the unit into your serial port and run the software. If you know which port it's connected to, select it, otherwise hit automatic and let the software find it. Then just hit update! Took around 20 min to upgrade my vista.
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