J Loran
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Posts posted by J Loran
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For some reason only the name of my post appeared.
I've browsed extensively and found several people having the same issue but no posted solutions to this:
I have a new Dell Inspiron 1525 running Vista, a Garmin ETrex camo, a Garmin ETrex H and a USB to Serial transfer cable. Running GSAK to download caches I get that error message "Garmin can't initiate com port x" and the download fails. Geocaching.com also will not download the individual caches from the cache pages.
I have: Checked the system utilities - all USB ports will see the cable but not the GPSr
I have run this utility GpsPortChecker and it identifies the Garmin on the correct port
I have followed all the steps on this page http://gsak.net/board/index.php?showtopic=...amp;#entry11653 except I can not find the setting UNcheck "GPSr is USB"?
I have disabled Avast and Windows security
Everything works fine on the desktop running XP and on an identical laptop w/ Vista, so the cable and GPSrs are ok. All other USB devices work with this laptop - camera, ipod etc.
I do not use a palm device or anything else that syncs data
I'm guessing I'm missing some setting on the laptop? I hope somebody can help with this since I mainly got the laptop to download caches while traveling and that seems to be the one thing I can't do.
Many thanks, in advance.
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Sometimes you have to look for unusual sources. This is by far the best price I've found for these little capsules and they are very good quality.
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=...amp;cat=1,43326
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Cabella's sells the garmin E Trex for $99.00. We have 2 of them and have never needed anything fancier for caching - we often find caches faster than people with high-end models. Shipping from the website is inexpensive and only took 3 days.
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Go ahead and dip the trackable wherever you want. I love to see mine moving around and someone who takes the time to photograph it is appreciated. As for the few "purists" who disapprove, tough cookies. This is your game too, play it as you like.
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A nearby cache uses these words on the listing page:
YOU WILL NEED a container to carry about .5 to 1 gallon of water or be highly resourceful to retrieve this cache."
Being "highly resourceful" I guess might include having drunk that .5 gal of water before arriving, but I would hope not
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I really enjoy book and CD trade caches but found one once where all the paperbacks had been removed and
replaced with religious pamphlets. Irksome and rude way to spread your message, I thought. -
We started out geocaching disliking Puzzles & Micros, but with more experience these became our favorites. Even a so-so hide becomes enjoyable when you have to work at it a bit.
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I agree with Wimseyguy that it's not the quantity or quality of the cache, but the shared experience in finding it.
I rarely see my husband (he travels) and when we did get together, it was mostly "here, honey, have a beer and complain about your job." NOW, (since we hunt together and separately; thank you inexpensive Garmins) our talks usually lead off with "Did you find any?" The most frequently used words in our lexicon are now: cache, DNF, muggle, FTF, micro, nano and TFTC!!!
I can't claim to not care about numbers, BUT, we get as much joy being together and signing the log on a Home Depot LPC as we do discovering a natural preserve with 6 caches to log. - not quite as many
"cool!"moments but- We're together, rediscovering our love for each other and our main competition is comparing quad muscles. I could kill you with these thighs 
My only (minor) beef is when a team splits and the new-name cacher goes back to log previous finds using the date of the split rather than the date of actual find. It puts a false smilie on some caches that should be maintained or archived.
Other than that.... your game, your rules (even when they're wrong
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Thank goodness it's not just me. I used a different computer to log finds yesterday and google maps was behaving strangely... When I couldn't sign on today, I thought maybe I'd bolluxed my account somehow
Guess I'll just have to be patient.
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I don't really have a geo-morality issue with folks who want to log a cache's former location as a find. It's not how I play but hey, it's their game too!
The problem is when you use a secondary program to manage your queries (like GSAK) and a "false" smilie can send you off after a cache that isn't, in fact, there
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Can't wait to see the finished product. As for promoting it; this forum is a good start. Encourage cachers to view the film and possibly show it at a cache event.
Join a community of local cachers and present a screening at the public library along with a veteran to answer questions about the sport.
Just some ideas. Good luck with your film!
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If you really were just hoping that more people would hide caches in your area for you to hunt, why not host an event where the theme is to create ready-to-hide geocaches of all shapes, sizes, and levels of cleverness? Even if the attendees don't want to hide a cache themsleves, they could help get one or two together for someone to hide!
That's a really good idea. An actual tasty morsel floats to the top of the angst soup
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GCZV3P - Never judge a book by its cover
A very popular find around here.
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We're planning to cache along the route from MT to Chicago in late August. The "real" reason for the trip is to see our daughter graduate from Naval basic training, but we've added in a full week to the trip just for cache stops!
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A couple of our local group have a decoy hide called Insanity Tree. It's an enormous pine with many, many film containers hanging in it, one of which is the cache. The other containers hold pieces of paper with inspirational or silly survival techniques written on them. Part of logging your find is quoting one of the decoys. This was a lot of fun for our Geocaching christmas party and people are still enjoying it!
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"Hey Bob, here's another one of those things the GPS trackers keep leaving in our lamp posts!"
"Yep. Think they'll be upset when they don't find the signing paper?"
"Maybe we should leave 'em a note."
So all lamp post utility workers are really geocachers....I'm going to start referring to myself as a GPS tracker.
I was most impressed by the proper use of the apostrophe.
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Other way around... Hid a cache in our neighborhood park, none were listed nearby except a "false" mystery cache waypoint. Logs have since indicated that a part of a tricky multi is 8 ft. from my hide! Thanks y'all for the help with that one!
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So I put one of the puzzles away and came back to it last night. It is a page with numbers on it that you cut out and fold to get the waypoint. I had an idea of what it should come out looking like but I couldn't figure out how to fold it properly. An email to the cache owner has as of yet gone unreplied to.
So I'm looking at this thing and my 11 year old goes, "Oh I know how to do that!" and proceeds to pull up a youtube of a boy teaching how to fold the paper - step by step.
I was laughing my butt off. I've been struggling for weeks and my kid solves it in about 2 minutes.
This sounds like an interesting puzzle. Could you provide a link or name so I could check it out?
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I have gone after caches several times using coords loaded before the cache was archived - and not knowing the status had changed.
Most of the time, the cache is indeed missing, but in one instance we found the original paper from the first stage of an archived multi. It was in a pile of trash 300 feet from the original coordinates, but still legible. We completed the multi and re hid the original 1st stage in a new container.
Found out when we went to log the find that it had been archived before we sought it, so we sent an e-mail note to the owner with a picture of the new container and coordinates where we hid it.
If I find a newly reactivated cache and then find the original "missing" cache can I log 2 finds on the listing page?
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My husband & I got into caching because it gets us out of the house and exploring new areas during our limited free time. We are not number cachers, happy to log 3-10 finds on a weekend, but we plan our day's hunt by Google mapping a location we haven't visited before then looking first at the multis and/or puzzles hidden there. It's a great way to see more of a new (to us) site and gives us a lot more satisfaction in the find than finding 30 urban micros.
We would have lost interest in this game if all caches were single stage swag containers since we don't hike with children and we love the distance and brain work involved in multiple stage hides. So my point is, I greatly appreciate a well-thought out multi and hope people won't be deterred from putting them out just because the visits are fewer. Know that the people who take the time to visit your cache will have enjoyed the fruits of your labors.
Fortunately, the world is big enough for all styles of Geocaching. I don't envy the huge numbers of the people who care about that, but I'm glad that there are enough of the things they like out there to keep them happy and out of my way while I enjoy a nice long walk in the woods!
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This has been a useful thread for me as well. I have vowed to never log terse messages again and also to try uploading a photo for each cache I find. Thanks for the information.
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Glad I checked here before blaming my own system. I understand that changing things always results in unexpected problems. Willing to swallow a little frustration for a better response eventually
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"Confirming cooridinates for an internet map site." (not very useful in deep woods/brambles}
"Looking for my dog's i.d. tags" (Nobody ever wants to help look for this)
Garmin can't initiate com port
in GPS technology and devices
Posted
Thanks Snowball, but where did you write to get the driver? Can you tell me the driver name?
I've followed every link I can find to different drivers, uninstalled/reinstalled... no luck. Device manager identifies the cable (Radioshack USB to serial cable com4) with driver properties ser2rs.sys and serenum.sys
Properties say the "device is working properly" Update driver search just gets me the "best driver is already installed"
I still can't export waypoints from GSAK or geocaching.com. This is so dadgum frustrating