Bob&TheGang

Not finding great ideas of how to make a fake rock online, I came up with own method. I want to share with users on how I made my fake rock, but I am not sure what forum topic to post it under. Recommendations please?

Ok,I have been out of the game for a while, but now that my kids are bit older, I have been Geocaching a lot more. Way back when, I thought Geocaches were prohibited from being hidden in National Parks. Though in doing some recent searches of the Kings Canyon and Yosemite National Parks, I noticed there are bunch of caches hidden in those two parks. Can someone bring me up to speed with the current National Park regulations concerning geocaches?

THANKS for the information (and the link to the web site). How often is that site updated with the numbers?

OK, this might be a stupid question, but is there a way to find out how many current geocaches are hidden in San Diego County.

Magellan Hand Held eXplorist 600 GPS ~ with tons of bells and whistles Great for Geocaching Electronic compass - The built-in electronic 3-axis compass points you in the right direction Full color screen - The 16-color screen makes reading maps and GPS information easy with vibrant graphics in all lighting conditions. TrueFix GPS technology takes advantage of 14 parallel channels, supported by WAAS Built in barometric pressure thermometer and an altimeter Store up to 5 track log files, each with 2000 track-points to the internal memory Powered by New Lithium Battery (18+ Hours of charge) USB and A/C charging cables included Excellent condition (was $300 new) Price: $150 (including shipping) - Email Bob at: bmeehan@tiee.org Located in San Diego, CA.

OK, I checked out the demo site on my iPod Touch. Pretty cool. I definately liked the map link. Will there be cache page information in your app (e.g., cache description, hint, and logs)? Without jailbreaking, I would like my iPod Touch to work a like a PDA when it comes to downloading Caches pages.

So now now that Apple has released a beta version of it's SDK, will there be some 3-party software developer who will be creating an app. so cache page information can be uploaded to a iPhone/iPod Touch (without relying on wifi or cell phone connection)?

TigerGPS.com sells the Explorist AAA Battery adaptor for about $8. Definately a good thing to have.

I have Mac using OS 10.3.9. Can I update my Explorist 600 on my Mac or do I need to use a Windows OS computer?

A while back, I heard that they were going to make a battery adaptor clip so you could use AAA batteries in the Explorist 600. Is there any update on that?

I guess I should thank Buck Hunter for giving us an update, but from the last list he posted, it only seems things have been submitted and few items have been assigned. I was hoping that Megallan would release sometype of Firmware update before the end of the year. And now Magellan is about the release the Explorist XL. What does that all mean. I am just curious about Magellan's lack of response. What precentage of the people who buy GPS's use them for Geocaching? I would think it is a fairly high percentage. Am I wrong? From the lack of support we get, maybe I am wrong.

OK, here is the deal. This is a long post, but I need help from would be Mapsends, Explorist 600 and Mac users out there. I saw sound threads on here saying if you barrow a friend's Windows computer and make some regions from MapSends and save them on CD or DVD, you can transfer them over to a Mac. Well, I had such a friend. He is actually very active in Geocaching and very knowledgeable with computers in general. I know MapSends and getting those maps onto an Explorist is rather tricky. And I saw that Magellan even made a PDF file to discuss and talk someone through these steps. Well, we tried to do that, and it just did not work. Here is how is went: My Friend's computer is running Windows XP. We were using MapSends v. 4.20d. According to the Magellan directions, you are select and region on MapSends. OK, we did that. We chose San Diego County. And then is says click "map upload button on MapSends toolbar". Well, before that button could be active, we had to cut region and then give the region a Name. We called it SanDiego1. No where in the Magellan directions did it talk about Cut Region and having to name it, once we did that, the upload button became active on the toolbar. When we did that, then came up another dialog box (just like the Magellan directions says it should). We then clicked "Store On Hard Drive" and clicked the "Next" button. Well, according to the Magellan directions, another dialog box should come up prompted you to put in the Explorist serial number. Well this dialog box number came up. Some other dialog screen came up and we clicked next. And sure enough MapSend prepared the Map and saved it to the hard drive. Well, after this point, nothing else matched up in the Magellan directions and we could do on the computer we were using. According to the directions, MapSends should have saved the file with an .imi end tag. Well that just did not happen. It did save it to the hard drive, but with an .rgn end tag. So where did we go wrong? How do we create .imi files? Well, we still tried to upload this the .rgn file to my SD card using my friend's card reader. Well, my Explorist SD card really did not like this once it was loaded into my Explorist. The unit would not fully turn on. We got some type of "Transferring file" screen and it would just stay that way (and never fully turn on). We had to take the SD card out and reformat it to make it work again. Well, we decided to burn this file and few other California regions onto a CD anyways with the .rgn end tag. I then put these files from the CD onto my Mac iBook. I then took one file and changed the end tag to .imi. I then uploaded it to my Explorist 600 SD card - detailed maps folder. Well, then I restarted my Explorist, it really did not like that I did that. The screen said something about uploading the map, then just kind of froze. I had to take out the battery and then hook the Explorist to my iBook again and remove that file from the SD card. Once I did that, my Explorist 600 worked just find. So where are we going wrong? I know, I am not much of a computer person, but my friend is. Any help you can give me with making this work, would be greatly appreciated.

I find it so odd that even the lastest high end GPS's come with so little built in memory storage (e.g., like Garmin C-60) I know the Meridian and Exmplorist series has the option to add SD cards, but that is still extra money. The technology exist to have huge amounts of memory. Look at the iPods. Even the iPod Nano has 2 GB. For the amount of money you pay for these high end GPS's, you would think having at least 2 or 3 GB of memory would be standard.

I like the Dillon Gang's graphics. Just my two cents: - Instead of a Space Shuttle have some type of satellite - I like "Where on Earth is that Geocache". And unless Geocaching.com has changed their guidelines, if you want to track this geocoin on their site, you have to use their logo too (like the Colorado geocoin). Unless you could convince them to let to make a satalite that has the gc logo built into it.

I know there has been a lot of threads and the Explorist's Firmware and annoying design of the cables. My gripe is this: I have an Explorist 600 with a windshield mount. Every time I put my Explorist the cradle I have to screw in the the cable. There appears to be no way for it be maintain constant power until it is screwed in. So it is a big pain (especially when you are on a cache run) and you like to take in and out of the cradle has you drive to each cache site. Does anyone know of a work around solution for this? Or is there another type of Explorist car mount that does not have this problem? I used to have a Sportstrac Color (until it got stolen) that could make contact with the cable in the back without having to be screwed in.

Let me get this straight, Boxwave sells a car charger that will plug directly into the back of the Explorist 500 and 600? I just checked out their web site and I did not see that item. Can someone post a link to it here? THANKS!!!

pmwerner44 has only 79 finds. He is still a newbie. He certainly does not have a right to move a cache. Actually no one does. If there is a concern about a cache post it in the log or email the owner.

I just received this reply back from Magellan about the Explorist Battery Clip

I have an Explorist 600. A while back, I thought I hear of a rummor that Magellan had plans in the works to produce an AAA battery clip to be used in place of the Li-Ion rechargeable battery? Does anyone know if this rumor is true? g I do like the Li-Ion rechargeable battery, but when you are away from a power source (e.g., backpacking) for a few days, it would be nice to have a standard battery source too. p.s., I know they sell some external USB type power sourses, but then you have to deal with the lovely Exmplorist cable.

Boy, did this thread open a can of worms. I totally agree with Hank that if people are using Where's George as a tracking site for their would-be type travel bugs then that is totally wrong. Also those two examples he cited seemed very wrong too. Sites such as Wherre’s George and Geocaching.com needs rules to work, like them or not. I found out about Where's George about 2 months after I started Geocaching when found one in a cache. I started this thread because I thought it was very odd that Where's George had something against Geocaching. Heck, Geocahing.com has a web link to Where's George on their site. I really thought they sponsored each other. So does Where’s George object if I get a WG$ from a store and then place it in a cache? And then someone else picks up the WG$ and then spends it at a local Mall? To me, that seems very close to the natural circulation of money.

I sent out some email to get some prize donations for an event cache we are holding and I got this reply from Where's George: What is is up with that? If seems Goecahing and Where's George should go hand and hand.

I have a n Explorist 600. I give it a 3.5 Pros: - Great color screens. - Good over all size - Recharable battery - I can upload waypoints with my Macintosh. And I think I can do it with Maps too, but I have not tried to do that yet. Cons: - Geocaching feature does not seem all that useful. - The battery, though it is nice having a rechargeable battery, it is not all that useful when you ar away from a power sourse for more then a day. - I total HATE the cobo USB/AC cord. It is paticularly a pain when using the charge charger with that. - I HATE that I have to srew in the power cable in the back of the unit when I am using the window mount holder. ( I did not have to do that with my SportsTrack Color). - The odometer only does thenths of a mile (e.g., .2, .3, .4, etc). My SportsTrack color did .22, .23, .24, etc. - Would like to see more Macintosh compatibility - Joystick is a pain at times. - Have to push too many buttons to get to a desired Way Point.

OK, I have a Mac and an Explorist 600. Right now, I am just trying to upload GPX files into my Explorist from my Mac. When I plug my Explorist into my Mac, it comes up when I select "File Transfere" mode, but nothing shows up on the desktop when I select "NMEA tracking" Now when I plug it in using "file Transfere" mode, I can actually see my GPS unit come up and the desktop (like a portable drive). I can even see the files. My GPS even gives me the the choice between internal memory or my SD card. Now what? I uploaded the GPX files the the unit and it did upload the file, but these files are not showing up on my POI fold on the Explorist (or anywhere else for that matter). Do I hav to convert this GPX file first? If yes, with what? How does not MacBable factor into this? I tried converting a flile from MacBable and I even uploaded that one too to my Explorist, but again nothing shows up on my GPS when I use GoTo. I know this can done with a Mac, I appear to be so close. What am I doing wrong?

Does anyone know if the application MacGPS Pro is compatable to use with the Explorist 600?

Yes, I would be interested and willing to pay $ for such an application. My big wish is to have a real easy way to import waypoints into an Explorist 600.