ScottJ

quote:Originally posted by King Pellinore:--majic_man_? Hi-heels?? Hm, McLoud OK must be some kind of place! LOL Whatever floats your boat I suppose! Actually, the last time I heard the words, "I'm a magic man", they were sung by a woman ... the group "Heart" to be exact! -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

quote:Originally posted by jasonhuber:So if I place a cache (virtual or not) and there is a rule by the person leasing or governing that land (NPS, flood control, etc) then dont I have to jump those hoops? No. Think of placing a virtual cache this way - I stand on the street, and point my finger at you. You might not LIKE having my finger pointed at you -- it might bring unwelcome attention, or it might embarrass you -- it might even inspire others to do illegal things to you. You might ask me not to point my finger at you, and if you ask me nicely enough and have a good enough reason, I might stop. However, I don't need to ask your permission to point my finger at you, and you have no legal right to stop me. A virtual cache is a reference to a point on the earth's surface, just as is the little box on the USGS topo map that represents my house. I didn't give anyone permission to draw my house on a topo map. Under the DVRAC's rules, I should be able to call up the USGS and have my house removed! Ridiculous. -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

A while back, someone pointed out that in the Delta Airlines inflight magazine, it said passengers were not allowed to operate "Global Positioning Satellites". I always took that to mean that using my receiver was perfectly fine ... so long as I didn't actually try to bring a SATELLITE on board the plane. -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

Fizzy, How does the LOC file you are outputting differ from the GPX in terms of download to the GPS? After generating the HTML and syncing it to my Palm, I simply load up the GPX with ExpertGPS (or before that, EasyGPS) and download the waypoints to the GPS V and Rino. The topografix software seems to read GPX's just as well as LOCs, so is there some advantage to having a separate LOC file? Sorry, I must be coffee-deficient, bear with my density today -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

Weasels. You just can't beat trained weasels. Or, in a pinch, insurance salesmen. -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

quote:Originally posted by kitsune:So many things rely on GPS these days that it would be almost catastrophic for them to shut it down. We lived with GPS 'jitter' for years before they shut it off and it was never a real hinderance to geocaching. Huh? Geocaching BEGAN AFTER it was turned off. It would have been nearly impossible before. -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

They make handy little clips for securing your keychain to your belt, securing items to your backpack, etc. -- in fact, most of the cheap multicolored carabiners you see these days are not suitable for climbing at all. Carabiners for climbing generally have a breaking strength of 3600kg or so and are made with load-bearing gates. The typical cheapie is good for 150 lbs or so. -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

quote:Originally posted by st_richardson:Originally Garmin specs said the 110 didn't support GMRS but I've heard they're including now. BTW... Don't you have a 110? As I said, I have one of each. One 110, one 120. Notice the avatar? One big one, one small one. Since I never bothered with a GMRS license, I hadn't looked to see if the 110 had those channels, I just believed the brochure. Forgot the 110 doesn't have the vibrating alert either. I keep it turned off on my 120 anyway because it's annoying. -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

There ought to be a locationless cache for all the strangely named towns in America. French Lick sure qualifies, along with such towns as Intercourse, PA, and Hell, Kentucky. Chevy Chase, Maryland comes to mind, too. The next time someone asks you "Where's Waldo", you can point to a small town near Gainesville, Florida (known as a famous speed trap). And the next time you feel the need for a place that's worth two in the bush, try Bird-In-Hand, PA (just up the road from Zooks Corner and Smoketown). -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

I wish I were crawling all over the hills of Southwest Virginia! (My dad grew up in Richlands, my mother near Roanoke.) Instead, I'm stuck out here in Chicago on business. I did a pocket query before I left, though, so the first time my client isn't looking, I'm out the door with my Rino in one hand and my Palm in the other. It's cold and slushy and generally unpleasant, but I'm game! -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

...but if you ask any journalist, they'll get it wrong every time. Honestly, don't these people ever do their homework? -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

quote:Originally posted by '68 Dodger:Why doesn't somebody make a "log Book Cache" ? Mtn-man started one out that way ... I think it was "Water Wheel". Original contents were a dozen or so homemade logbooks. Neat idea, there are probably a dozen or so caches around with his logbooks in them now! -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

Deleting legitimate finds is reprehensible. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the appropriate response would be. There are always going to be people who will act like utter jerks and feel completely justified. -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

Atlas Beach and Playalinda Beach (both on the Space Coast of Florida near Titusville) are the only places I'm aware of where nudists abound on public land. Both beaches are part of the Canaveral National Seashore. In fact, it is precisely because they're on Federal land that the nudists can disrobe ... some strange loopholes in the law do not allow local ordinances or state laws against nudity to apply on Federal land, and no one in the federal government ever saw the need to specifically outlaw nudity. So, if you want to "skinny-cache", that might be the place -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

I have a cache whose logbook is nearly full, and I've been wondering what I should do ... add a new logbook and leave the old one for a while, or leave both in there permanently, or just swap them out. Maybe some of the more prolific cache placers (hi, mtn-man!) will have a good answer. -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

I have one of each. Key differences are: 110 has no GMRS channels 110 has no basemap 110 has only ~1mb of download space for maps 110 has no voice scrambler (useless feature) 110 does not come with data cable Scott -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

quote:Originally posted by umc:I annoy the world... I knew we'd get an insurance salesman eventually! -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

quote:If a paper map costs $5, where is it I'm getting an additional $95 in value? First of all, let me say that I am not in any way defending Garmin's ridiculously high prices for their CD-ROM cartography products. With that out of the way... You're not getting additional value, other than, of course, convenience. However, I think the cost of these products isn't driven by value, but by cost to produce. Remember that Garmin's maps -- ALL of them -- started out as either paper maps or DRG's. In order to make them "original" (and therefore saleable), Garmin had to hire an army of cartographers to hand-enter, hand-georeference, and hand-check each and every segment of each and every line of each and every map. I would guess that translates into tens of thousands of man-hours. Good GIS people don't come cheap, and Garmin is charging what they think all that labor is worth. I own the MetroGuide, CitySource, and Roads & Recreation CD's. Yep, a lot of what's on them is sorely out of date. Realistically, though, I haven't run into too many situations where that's really caused me any problems. There's an interstate rest area near my house that's half a mile from where it should be, but if I've got to go that bad, I've got worse problems than the accuracy of my map. -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

I'm an audio engineer and systems design engineer for Klotz Digital America; we manufacture digital audio consoles and fiber-optic networked routers for the broadcast industry. Also former GSAR (Ground Search & Rescue) Ground Team Leader and communications officer with the Civil Air Patrol. -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

Whenever it looks like I'll have a little extra time at lunch, I love to go hit a cache. I've already done most of the ones I can comfortably do and be back at the office inside of an hour, though, so now I have to go AWOL a little -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

It is usually a light mineral oil. Occasionally they're filled with water, alcohol, or a mixture of the two. Aircraft magnetic compasses used to be filled exclusively with alcohol. To this day, flying a plane without the use of fancy navigational aids is called "Needle 'n' Ball 'n' Alcohol" flying, referring to the turn coordinator and compass. Mineral oil is used now because it's more viscous and is better at damping out motion. -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

Time-consuming? Actually, MapSource is pretty quick. All you need do is use the waypoint tool (looks like a pennant) to put a waypoint at each location, give each a name, then send the whole file to your GPS. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to do. What's taking the most time for you? -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

My favorite quote from Fred Rogers: "We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say 'It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.' Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes." May Mr. Rogers enjoy his new home, the best possible "Neighborhood of Make-Believe." -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

You can find caches without a GPS, yes. However, doing so requires good accurate maps, a good-quality compass, and the skills to use them. Getting all that together is likely to cost as much as the $100 GPS. I would add that on eBay, one can usually find entry-level GPS units that are perfect for geocaching, for far less than $100. There's always letterboxing ... -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

Of COURSE all conversations (well, OK, sophomoric ones) lead to doots. Booger jokes are SO passe'. -- Scott Johnson (ScottJ)