as77

What happens if the screen gets hit? I guess it would break. It looks like the device doesn't have integrated Bluetooth. That's bad. How are you going to connect a GPS to this device? If you use CF, the GPS will be unprotected and you can forget about ruggedness and waterproofness.

I noticed that coordinates for caches whose owners used a Magellan are more often off/inaccurate than those where a Garmin was used. I verified this by plotting the coordinates on aerial maps. It's not just that Garmins and Magellans often give different coordinates, it's that the Garmin coordinates are the correct ones and the Magellan coordinates are off. This is my observation and I'm not biased because I have neither a Magellan nor a Garmin.

That is PPC2002. You could try GPXView, too. Maybe that one works for you.

Yes, look at the <Groundspeak:type> tags under the sections <Groundspeak:cache>. That is where the type info is given and GPXSonar uses this to select the icons to be displayed. BTW you can also rename the GPX file to something.xml and then open it in Internet Explorer.

Look at the old and new files in a text editor (Word would be OK, too).

It's quad, the Garmin page says so as well.

Why pocket queries? I want to download the gpx files directly from the website. Don't stuff them into my mailbox, please.

They do specify it, mentioning the Terms of Use, which I quoted above. Indeed, there's little doubt that using GeoToad violates that policy.

I would like to hear the TPTB's opinion about it. If you read the geocaching.com Terms of Use document, it says: "You agree that you will not use any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means to access the Site for any purpose without our express written permission." GeoToad is definitely a scraper, definitely an automated means, therefore unless TPTB expressly says that it is OK to use it, I think we should consider its use as a violation of the Terms of Use.

I hope once geocaching.com will have a large enough bandwidth and stronger hardware background so that real-time queries will be possible. Frankly, the e-mail only query system seems quite a bit outdated. It's something that would have been state-of-the-art maybe in 1991, but not in 2004. It's ridiculous if you ask me. Therefore I'm not surprised at all that people use tools like GeoToad.

No, I don't want to disable the compass. But I only want to use it while standing still or at low speed. The Garmin automatically switches it but the Magellan does not.

"a Garmin" is a bit too general here. Several things prevent me from buying a Meridian Platinum: the size (bulky, heavy, it's the biggest, heaviest handheld unit on the market), the undesirable "overshooting" behavior and the fact that the electronic compass is always on, instead of being on only below a certain speed limit. I think the 60cs is a better unit overall and I believe its performance under heavy tree cover is similar to the Meridian (not much worse anyway).

This is true, but whether you want that or not is a matter of personal preference. I like to "pretend" that I'm an explorer of the area and there is just no map because no one before me was there This can cause some surprises but that is part of the game for me. If I'm given a map that shows what is where then what is the point of going anywhere, I can see everything on the map

I never carry a map. I don't have maps in the GPS either. The GPS in itself is perfectly enough (just mark your starting point), even a compass is unnecessary (although it can help). If you get lost with a GPS in your hand then probably you have not yet learned how to use it. Of course, if the GPS fails that can be a problem. One of the thrills in geocaching or hiking with a GPS is that you don't need a map, you don't have to follow any trails and still you will never get lost.

Yes, it's a standard COM port for the PPC. It can use it without any problems. BTW that's NMEA.

The top Pocket PC navigation solutions are Routis, Pocketmap Navigator, TomTom, Destinator and Mapopolis. Mapopolis seems to be quite popular among cachers but in comparison with the other programs it has a poor user interface in and ugly, although fast, graphics. TomTom is great but the most expensive. Destinator is OK with a few weaknesses. Pocketmap is great, with some minor bugs, but uses TeleAtlas maps which tend to be inaccurate in some areas. All in all, Routis might be the best choice but it really depends on one's personal preferences. There is no absolute best, each program has a lot of happy users. Mapopolis and Pocketmap Navigator have the advantage that they can show you the locations of caches after using free utilities (the one for Pocketmap written by myself) to import them.

That's the expected behavior. When standing still, your measured speed will fluctuate around zero in all possible directions. This is normal. This is exactly the problem the magnetic compass serves to eliminate.

For heavier canopy, probably the Lowrance Ifinder and the Magellan Sportrak are the most affordable (around $140). From the Garmin line, the GPS 72 and 76 are the cheapest units with great sensitivity. For lighter canopy, indeed any unit will be fine, but I believe (from what I read) that the Gekos are somewhat better than the Etrexes. The Etrexes are probably the least sensitive units on the market.

I don't know... park employees don't turn over every stone and don't climb under park benches, do they?

I'm using an Axim X5 with CF GPS. In the car, it's unbeatable. For hiking, not the best solution but works.

Apparently there is no commercially available cable to connect the Asus with the Etrex, but you could make one. Look at your Etrex-PC cable and your Asus-PC cable (serial cable is needed, USB won't work) and find out how you can connect them.

The following link shows a photo of young skunks, quite similar to what I saw (except that I saw them at night) http://community.webshots.com/photo/63038015/63055090RzBsPz

Bingo! I also think it was a group of young skunks moving tightly together. The trick is that this way they look like one bigger animal, which provides good defense against predators. Well they sure tricked me, too! They scared the hell out of me So what's your story?

The cable from www.thesupplynet.com comes with a cigarette lighter adapter cable. Using this, you can simultaneously charge the PPC and power the GPSr.

If you go the website ( http://www.gpsinformation.org/ronh/ ) you'll see there is a version specifically for PPC2003 ( the file to download is http://www.gpsinformation.org/ronh/g7toce_PPC_2003_armv4.zip ).