E = Mc2

Ummm... How many NRA members would get hot?

As far as this thread goes, I had a hard time finding ST Colors for less than $200, even on eBay, while the MeriGold is frequently available at or below $150. Personally, when I made the decision to buy -yet another- unit, I did consider the ST Color. The deciding factors for -ME- were the lack of SD expandability, and the controls (which I suppose I could have gotten used to eventually). I'm waiting until the Garmin 60C(s) comes down in price before I consider a color unit. Imagine going to an event where (aside from Show Me The Cache, who uses a Map330) you are the only person using a Magellan receiver! Of course, the laugther died down when I was the first person to finish inputting the nine sets of coords for the event caches...

In all fairness, you are correct. The best way to get a shot without having the flash reflect in the screens was at an angle. I've included another shot, below, that was taken with them lying flat. Again, in all fairness, you should note that the bars on the Meridian are outlined and not filled in. It is picking up signals in the basement (Window? What window??), but they are not strong enough, nor long lasting enough for it to be considered a 'lock'. I'm not disparaging the eTrex line. I have and use one myself, and it is a decent unit which many thousands use to find Geocaches every day. It is at a slight disadvantage, though, when under cover. The Meridian series is a much larger unit, and that is something you should take into consideration. Personally I think that the Quad antenna, ease of use, larger screen, and especially the SD expandability more than make up for the size difference. Again, that's just my opinion. Like I said before:"take your time and try to get your hands on each unit before you make your final decision.". You are the only person who can decide which features are for you. Most of all, HAVE FUN!

Any reason why the display of expected satellite positions in the sky looks very different on all three receivers? Interesting observation! I Haven't the slightest clue as to why that is. I haven't been out in <quick double check>... almost a week, and the batteries were out for several days while I cycled them through the charger. Perhaps I left the the MeriPlat running (in the powered car mount) until I got home while the other were shut off in the field, if I even took them. That might be the cause. If you think that's odd, no two of any of the GPSr's I've held could ever agree on what time it was! Also, after a second look, the two Meridians' clocks are off by a considerable margin (one by 3 days, 3 hours, the other by 3 days 5 hours), probably because the batteries were out for so long. Let me reset the clocks (IE, initialize) and see what happens... Yup. That was the cause. They all agree now.

No. The base model Meridian (aka MeriGreen/Yellow) has only a 2MB basemap. This covers Interstates, and most US Highways, plus a very few of the more major State roads. Of course, with the money saved purchasing a Green, one could buy the Topo software and SD card(s) to upload detailed street level maps... I've noticed that my Green doesn't process REALLY large maps as quickly as the Platinum model, though. Check out this image... This is next to my computer, which is in the basement of my house. Notice the signal strength bars on the Meridians?

Man, I'm getting long-winded! Without using some of the 'secret' codes, (available at the Meridian FAQ on Yahoo Groups) you can't. But, why would you want to degrade your accuracy? More or less a myth perpetuated by those who don't use them. It will continue to give speed and direction for a few seconds if you drive into a tunnel and lose signal. I haven't had a problem in the field on foot, though. You can set the unit to give an audible alarm on the very rare occasions that it does lose the signal, though. Again, I cannot recommend eBay enough... Definitely a factor. The eTrex lineup is, indeed, a nice little compact unit which will do the job admirably in most situations. Yuppers! I suppose it all boils down to which features you like the most. Perhaps the best advice I can give you is to take your time and try to get your hands on each unit before you make your final decision. Perhaps you can try contacting some of your area's Geocachers to see what units they are using, and go together, so you can get a feel for each type. Also, there is an event in Daytona Beach on the 26th, and another coming up in the Orlando area on the 8th of Jan which you might want to try attending. Events are a great way to spend a day or more learning about Geocaching in general, and getting to know the people who's logs you read.

In a word, yes. Hmmm. That I'm not so sure about. After further review of Garmin's website: NOPE The higher-end units, like the Meridian Platinum or eTrex Vista (I think?), have an electronic compass which does not require you to be moving for the needle to point towards where you need to go. It also consumes batteries more quickly. Truth be told, I'd rather rely on a good hand-held compass than the one on the GPSr. Yes, they all will show your trail on the screen.

You'll find that each of us has opinions on which is the better reciever. Take your time and shop around before you plunk your money down. For less than $200, I would recommend the Magellan Meridian Gold. It comes with a 16MB basemap built in, which covers a decent number of roads. The screen (and unfortunately, the unit) is larger than anything in the eTrex lineup as well. The Meridian Gold can be had on eBay for less than $150 if you wait, and roughly $160-170 if you are in a hurry. One sold last week for $130. In the long run, I think you will be happy with the Gold, as seems to have an advantage in cover over the eTrex line. It also has SD expandability. Later on, you can purchase the mapping software and upload detailed (street level) maps of large sections of the country onto one tiny little SD card. It also will accept Magellan's DirectRoute software, which does automatic routing to your destination (again, something to think about for the future). Another option would be to look for a Meridian Green with SD card and software on eBay. Here is one such unit with GPS, Mapsend Topo software, 16MB SD card, automobile mount, and cables that closes in about an hour, and still under $200. The 'green' only has a 2MB basemap (basically interstates and US routes only), but it also accepts SD cards for expanded mapping. It does not do autorouting, though. The SD expandability of the entire Meridian line is a selling point for me over anything else made by Magellan. (SporTrak, Explorist) I'm no expert on the eTrex line, but I do have an eTrex camo (basic unit) that I carry with me to supplement my Magellan Meridian (Green) and Meridian Platinum. I rely mostly on the Meridians, as the eTrex tends to lose satellites unless it's held flat and face up. Turn it upside down (ie, hang around your neck) and it drops the signal... As far as a compass is concerned, I never hit the trail without one and a map of the area. Should my GPSr's die, I have a backup method of finding the way out. Also, it does come in very handy when you get within a couple hundred feet of the cache. Using the bearing (to target) from your GPSr, you can shoot an azimuth to the cache and be able to see where it might be before you start 'chasing the arrow'. This has been a successful tactic for me many times.

First of all, welcome to the addiction! (My wife says "Insanity") For just the basic upload of waypoints to the GPS reciever (GPSr), you will need to download a program such as EasyGPS. The *.LOC option will work fine, if all you want to do is upload waypoints to the GPSr. On other fronts... If you have a Palm or Pocket PC, then you might want to get the *.GPX files instead of the *.LOC . The GPX files contain a stripped down version of the actual cache pages. Instead of carrying the printed pages into the field, you can put them in your palm (known as "Paperless Geocaching"). In order to process the GPX file into something that your Palm can read, you will need the above Cachemate, GPSBabel, or my personal favorite, Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (GSAK). You will also need to download something along the lines of Plucker to get the info into your handheld device, depending on which software you use to process the GPX file. If you are interested in paperless Geocaching, I would recommend that you go to CYBret's web pages: Geocacher-U and spend some time looking around. He has an article(s) in the 'Resources' section about paperless Geocaching that should help get you started along that route, should you so desire. (although he uses GPX Spinner to process the GPX file, it's pretty much the same) Have FUN!

Does anyone even have any ideas on the subject?

If I had the money, it would be on the way. Unfortunately, I don't. I could use a 4th unit so we all could carry one when we go out, and you can't beat the MeriPlat.

I absolutely detest the right-side window that takes up a full third of the screen every time I start Mapsend Topo. (Ver 3.00a, BTW) I end up having to 'view','full screen' and then check the toolbar and status bars again. Is there some kind of hack I can apply that will force the program to launch the way I would like it to be configured without having to go through the same mouse clicks every time I open it? Seems like there should be something in an .ini file somewhere that pertains to this, but with my rather limited knowledge, I'd rather not go tinkering without assistance. Any takers?

Don't know your situation (time, transportation, etc.) but there are a couple of caches in Summerville I can recommend : "Christmas-y" tree and Azalea Park Cache, both by Sissy-n-CR. There are three letterboxes in the Charleston area, also by Sissy -n-CR: GCC626, GC5BB6, and a really cool one GCHMY1, which requires you to bring a blacklight (UV). If you've got a lot of time and are looking for something out of the ordinary, try Spying in Summerville. One of the requirements of this multi is that no one see you looking. He has spotters out and about, and if you get caught, you aren't allowed to finish it. I've been trying to get this cache for over a year now (on my vacation trips down there).

Okay, I'll go down to Nashville and set the individual record just for kicks... NOT!

Also an hour's drive from Lancaster is Columbia, SC, where there are many x many quality caches available. You could spend the better part of the day just doing the dozen or so caches in Sesquicentennial State Park. One of my all-time favorites, SesquiTrivia, is located there, BTW. Should you decide to do that one, I would recommend that you decode and read the hints before you leave the house. There are some links to very important information there. Sesqui has a lot to offer, especially if you like to hike around looking for Geocaches (versus drive up, jump out, and log). Be aware, though, that most, if not all, of the South Carolina State Parks charge a small fee for daily admission (yes, you can usually come and go). Sometimes it is cheaper to get the annual pass if you plan on doing a lot of caching in the parks. I would strongly recommend that you bring your 100% DEET with you, as ticks and chiggers are prevalent in the state almost all year-round. Spending a couple of weeks scratching is not my idea of a good time. Also, you may want to bring your hiking stick, pole, or some such to poke around with, as pine needles are the predominant forest floor-covering. After a couple of days, the needles do such a good job of camo that the caches just disappear. I've been hard-pressed to find some of them when I was standing less than 2 feet away!

Maybe

Either one or both of these suggestions would work, but both are time consuming. I was kind of hoping that it would become an option in the PQ parameters, along with "Ignore", and 1000 results... As per my OP, the area that this fellow's cache hides cover is rather large. I still have over 500 caches I haven't found within that area, so it would take multiple PQ's to get them all. As far as downloading GPX files from the pages themself, I would have to open the ones I haven't found individually... I'm on dial-up, BTW, and the man has hidden 97 caches... Thanks muchly for the suggestions, though.

hmm

I'm fairly certain that if it was a Cacher, we'd have heard something in the forums by now. Unfortunately, the sweepstakes is open to just about everyone... We discussed "Will the winner be annouced" some pages back, and while there was never any definite answer, the consensus is that there will be no announcements made. The Sweepstakes page says that if you want a winners list, you must send in a S.A.S.E before some date... Sorry I can't be any clearer than that.

Welcome to the addiction! I just ran a Pocket Query and the nearest one I can easily locate is about 65 miles from Alpena. It might be a while before you see any up there unless you feel like driving a bit for a toy car with a tag on it... There -is/was/may never have been- a way to search specifically for them, but I can't remember. The "Notify Me" option from the JEEP main page has never worked for me, so I don't know of any easier way (short of paying for a Premium membership) to serch for them than: If you do a zipcode search, the caches with travel bugs will have the TB icon in the listing. The JEEP icon will appear next to those caches with a YJTB in them. Unfortunately, if the cache has both a 'regular' and a Jeep TB in it, the page will default to the 'regular' TB icon. You will have to view each page with a TB icon on it in order to determine if it has both.

The previously mentioned folks who would download the entire database (several have tried just that, in order to set up competing sites) are one reason. Another is that it would bog the servers down, according to TPTB. Try logging -anything- on a Saturday or Sunday evening, and you'll see what I mean. I would like to see more daily PQ's available, myself, and a larger search result. 500 may be the max # of waypoints that the GPSr will hold, but when you're going to filter them in GSAK ahyway and have less than 100 after you're done...

Just trolling along and... That is insane! I'd email the parks and wildlife people at license@tpwd.state.tx.us and ask them personally. I can see paying for the parks pass, but you should not need a hunting license to enjoy a park. The questions arise, though: Was your gun visibly in the gun rack behind the seat of your truck?

Huh? I coulda sworn they sent some your way. Most of the organizations got them in batches from the first 4000, and individual cachers requested and received the last 1000 (if I'm not mistaken). All of them have been shipped, though, so it's now up to ya'll to go pick them up and bring them to the Windy...

Huh? If I remember correctly, my older copy of Mapsend Topo -was- preset to a 32MB file size per region. Of course, this is easily fixed per vagabond's post. Goodness! I'm long winded... The major problem I've encountered with using larger map file sizes is that the larger the map, the slower the GPSr draws it. Near as I can tell, the receiver searches the entire map file (in my case, a 128MB map) every time it updates the map screen. When using large map files, it can take several seconds for your speed and map to update while you're driving down the road. Yuck... 32MB seems a reasonable limit for the map file size, since it covers a fairly large area, and still keeps the GPSr up to speed. It seems that it takes less time for the computer to do it's thing when processing them, too. Personally, I would simply create single 32MB or smaller maps (not regions, maps) and name them accordingly (by State or State pairs) works for me. It takes just a couple of button pushes to change maps on the card, and as far as I know, there is no preset limit to the number of map files you can store and access. On further reading of the OP, YES you can create as many maps as you want and store them on your HDD or CD-Rom to upload to the card at a later date. You must remember to rename the map files when transferring them from Mapsend's 'Export' folder, as Mapsend uses the same file name (MAPS.IMG) each time it creates a new map, thus overwriting the old file. As large as you want them. However, I'd steer clear of anything larger than 32 MB for the reasons stated above. -Roughly- 21 maps at 32MB each, if you include topo and POI's. How fast is your computer and how much memory does it have? I just ran a sample region of 32MB through my machine, and it took 10 minutes to convert the file. That's a Duron 1300 at factory clock, 512MB of SDram, and my son's fairly slow HDD (My RAID array needs attention). It would take me about five hours work to get the whole country divided up, processed, and saved to disc. Your actual mileage may vary. More than likely. I'll do it for a small fee... (Just kidding. It would be a large fee) Not yet. If they had SD expandability with no limit on region uploads on, say, the 60CS, I'd be going in hock to buy one today.

Okay, go ahead and throw a Markwell at me, but... I would like to be able to do a PQ by who hid the cache. We have a very prolific hider in our area, and there are times that I just want to go find his caches, or be able to look at only his caches. (He should feel honored, eh? ) I want more than what the loc files will give me, and I'd have to combine quite a few multiple PQ's to get all of his caches in one database for GSAK to filter.