dreamgear

I have this habit of taking my GPS off the velcro that secures it to my dash, reaching out the window with it and placing on the roof before I get out of the car, to minimize the chance that this old unit loses its lock. When I get back to the car, I usually place it on the roof, and reach out to get it and put it back on the dash before I drive away. You guessed it. I forgot and left it on the roof today. Several miles from where I had parked, we reached a good two line blacktop and I accelerated up to 40MPH or so when I heard a noise, looked in my mirror and saw something black bouncing down the road. I turned the car around and drove back to the scene, expecting to find the shattered remains of my GPS. To my surprise it was intact except for one corner of the case, which was ground down to the metal. The glass was intact. To my amazement, I turned it on and it came on. To my further amazement it started acquring normally and locked up within a few minutes. Well, lets just say when I have to buy a new GPS, I'm probably going to look for another Garmin with this same style of case. I can't even imagine the G forces this thing took when it hit the road at that speed. Wow.

Just looked at the pc-mobile site. Their active antenna is supposed to work with the Garmin GPS-II+, but they don't list the GPS-II. I have one w/ sw V2.05. Yeah, I know, it's ancient. But it has sentimental value. They say input voltage 2.5-5v.. so it expects the GPS unit to supply the voltage across the antenna connection? Ok.. but the GPS-II has 4 AA cells in series which makes 6v. Do you think it will work? On another note... I came into the forum today to find somewhere to tell folks that I was sorting through a box of old cables today and I found some thinwire ethernet cables. I said "Hmm.." and proceeded to put one of these cables (and a BNC tee) between my GPS-II and its antenna. It seemed to work fine with 4 meters of 50 ohm cable between the antenna and the unit. I really should have a barrel instaed of a tee to shield things better but I couldn't lay my hands on one. I haven't used thinwire in 5 or six years at least! Anyway, if I don't buy a new antenna I will probably try putting my GPS antenna on my hat, or on my pack frame, or something. Just to get my hands free ! THe "statue of liberty" pose is kind of a pita after a while...

The "Grabber MagneTV" TB is a steel chain dog collar about 2 feet long festooned with about 20 keychains. It collects keychains, and is the biggest I've seen. I moved it from Battle Ground WA to Winchendon MA so I had to add two keychains, one for each end of the trip.

Team DreamGear includes two red-headed female geocachers. My wife, Twinkielight, has been on a half-dozen or so hunts out of our current total of 30. My 6yo daughter, Chi96, has been on more than half of them. She's made several finds herself, the most recent on the "Old Prison Cache" in Rutland, MA. Her size is an advantage in some situations.

Yup, we were doing the "Barre Falls" cache in MA and found a pile of "organized sticks". The cache wasn't under them. I have to admit I did not return the sticks to their organized state. It was hot as the devil and we were out of bug spray.

Infiltration... brings back some memories. When I was about 12 years old, I spent a few days exploring a flood sewer that ran from Newton Center (MA) some 3 miles down to the Charles river in Waban, in the Quinobequin (sp?) reservation. It was just 6 feet in diameter. We did it all with torches made from sticks and blobs of flooring cement, which actually worked quite well. We popped out of manhole covers occasionally all through Newton, sometimes in the middle of busy intersections. Yes, I know a manhole cover weighs some 80-100 pounds. A few years later we explored a few miles of an unused aquaduct in Natick, MA. We even went so far as to lower a Honda QA50 minibike into the tunnel to get around faster. Stupid *** kids, we had no idea if or when the MDC or the MWRC was going to turn on the water and drown us all like rats. But it had its appeal at the time. The mere thought of it gives me the creeps now decades later. I don't recommend it. When I was a young adult I worked for Digital Equipment Coporation, which owned a large former woolen mill that dominates the center of Maynard, MA. We had security access 24x7 with our badges, and on a few occasions we would close a bar and then go to "the mill" and explore the lesser-known corners of the huge complex. We definitely found spots the bosses didn't even know existed...

ditto...

Any on-line references for building these home-brew antennas ? I have no RF/EE background but I've been known to be handy with a soldering iron. I also have some thinwire ethernet cables lying around with BNCs on them.

Hi. I have an old Garmin GPS II w/ V2.05 firmware. Occasionally it'll go into the "poor GPS coverage" state, usually in a wooded area, and then when I get to a clearing, it will not go back to the "Nav 3D" state. At least not within the limits of my patience. Powering it off and on again seems to fix the problem. Any idea what's happening, or how I can improve the performance of this old unit? I'd be interested in building a better antenna. I have some thinwire ethernet cable around with the BNC connectors.