dogastus

Thanks to everyone that's responding. Just to remind you, the next sched is at 22:00 tonight on the Reading repeater, GB3RD (145.675 MHz).

Your avatar is crying out to be made into a Geocoin. Maybe you could get ones made out of wood which might be less expensive? Nigel.

Last Friday's QSO on GB3SN was another good Geocaching chat with: Dick (Daisy&me) M3POQ Bren (Birders) G4DYO Andy (Subarite) G8MIA Nigel (dogastus) G8AYC My next suggestion is next Thursday (23rd) at 22:00 on the Reading repeater GB3RD (145.675 MHz). Hope to see you there. 73, Nigel.

It's a pity that on a normal weeknight 22.00 is too late as we're already in bed by then (early starts for us in the mornings) and tonight we're out. Well, I'm sure other times can be arranged. 10 pm is good for me because it gives me time to get all my other tasks done. Make a suggestion and I'm sure you'd persuade people to come on. Which repeaters can you access? 73 Nigel.

Well, we had some Geocachers on GB3NE last night. These were: Dick (Daisy&me) M3POQ Bren (Birders) G4DYO Andy (Subarite) G8MIA Nigel (dogastus) G8AYC A few local stations joined in (G4RUW, 2E0BJM and G3OUC) who wondered what Geocaching was all about, but they didn't stay long after that when they found out! We are hoping to have another Geocaching QSO at 22:00 tonight, this time on GB3SN. 73 Nigel.

Geocaching and Amateur Radio geeky? Surely not . Hope to see Bren and possibly others at 10 tonight on GB3NE. 73, Nigel.

Thanks for all the responses so far. I decided to put the message here rather than in the dedicated Amateur Radio forum because I thought more people would notice it here. Also the dedicated forum tends to be very USA-centric. Well, as a starting point I will try putting out a call on GB3NE (145.7625 MHz) in Newbury at 22:00 on Thursday 16th. You could call this my local repeater as it's only a third of a mile from me! 73 Nigel (G8AYC)

Amateur radio has been mentioned before but I think it would be interesting to see who's licensed and what bands they are currently active on. Also, assuming there isn't one already, how about establishing a Geocaching calling frequency? Wouldn't it be great to be searching for a cache and be able to put out a call for a hint? Round here in Newbury, there are quite a few amateurs, but the local repeaters remain very quiet. To me, that is a shame and a wasted resource. People have put in a lot of time and effort getting these repeaters up and running, so why not put them to good (Geocaching) use. So what I would like is for people to respond with the following: Callsign Approximate location Which bands/modes you are currently active on Which repeaters you can access Whether you think a Geocaching calling frequency is a good idea, if so what frequency? I'm G8AYC in Newbury, Berks and currently on 2m and 70cm FM. I can access GB3NE (2m), GB3RD (2m),GB3WH (2m), GB3SN (2m), GB3AW (70cm), GB3FN (70cm) Lets hear from you! 73 de Nigel.

I'm past caring what people think I'm doing. I used to be self-conscious of even taking photo's, Geocaching has cured me of all that! If I'm in a bad mood (= can't find the cache after 10 minutes!) then I just totally ignore anyone that happens to come along. If I'm in a good mood (= found the cache!) then I will often acknowledge that a muggle is there and say "Good morning" or "Nice weather, isn't it?". That usually gets rid of the "he's a weirdo" syndrome. I the case where I do ignore muggles, that works too, because "he's a weirdo" means they don't hang around too long

Well done from me too!

There's quite a few featuring (unsuprisingly) "Stumped". I've added a few extra stumped ones while I've been searching

Are we sure "Mr Planner" isn't the original setter of the series and he has used his post to (rather successfully) promote his caches? I wouldn't call walking 6 miles (12 miles round trip) lazy. For my own view - can't wait to do them.

Would it be possible to maybe PM some known London cachers? There might be some that don't look at this forum, but might be willing to take them on. It would be a pity to see the caches go.

AFAIK there isn't an official GC cache type for that, so don't think you can log it

Garmin has my vote too! On the return from a short holiday I noticed that the rubber surround on my Legend had vanished without trace. I returned the (well out of warranty) unit to Garmin and they replaced the surround FOC in just over a week. I recently bought an American 60CSX which worked great for 3 weeks and then developed a fault which caused the display to fade out after 3 seconds of switching it on - yes I did check the batteries! I sent it back last week and wondered how they were getting on with it today so phoned them up. I used their freefone number, so it didn't cost anything to call. I left it on speakerphone while I carried on with something else. After 20 minutes or so, they answered and I explained. I was a bit worried about it being a USA model, but they reassured me that they could repair it no problem, it just might take slightly longer than usual. They said you should allow up to 15 WORKING days for repair, that is 3 weeks. I'm quite happy with that. If you think that is too slow, or they take too long to answer the phone, consider this. They produce consumer/professional products. They must have a large customer base. Yes, they could employ a lot more staff to man the phones and repair their product. This would have to be paid for meaning a hike in prices of their products. I think their current level of pricing and service is just right. I'm not inclined to start talking to solicitors just because they don't answer their phone quickly enough .

Thanks for the comments, Birders. Well I can see a definate concensous emerging here! I have since, resisted the temptation to "upgrade" and instead I've been fettling with my existing setup. I've re-installed some applications onto the SD card to free up more memory. I've added GpsGate and can now run TomTom, MM and Cachemate concurrently with them all getting data from the CF GPS module. I did have issues where it needed a soft reset after every switch off/on cycle but, since upgrading to v1.1 firmware, it seems to be behaving.

I put WM5 on my ipaq 2410, Tomtom v5 doesn't work on it (think you need 5.2), I cant get my bluetooth laser keyboard to work with it either. Flashing the ipaq was a bit diconcerting as immediately afterward the unit wouldn't boot up and just kept displaying a white screen, but I just left it alone for a bit and it sorted itself out. WM5 seems slower than whatever the old version I had was, I don't know the spec but if your unit has a low processor speed (think mine is about 550mhz) then you might want to look into it further before upgrading as you may find it painfully slow. I hardly use my pda so can't really tell you much more about it, it looks pretty and I did notice there is now a built in gps app which does the same sort of thing as gpsgate, so you can send your gps output to several applications at once. Thanks for your comments which were just what I was looking for. The 'gpsgate' feature would be handy but I don't think I would like to trade speed for that - Microsoft update needs more processing umph? Surely not I did upgrade the firmware from 1.0 to 1.1 and the unit appears to be more reliable. I'm not sure if that was a placeibo effect or real (can PDA's feel a placeibo effect?). I think in view of your comments, I'll leave well alone.

I have an H2200 PDA running Windows Mobile V4.2, I use mostly Cachemate, TomTom V5 and MM with it. Has anyone had any experience of updating to Windows Mobile V5? I just wondered if it would cause a lot of hassle. As far as I know, the new version doesn't lose your loaded programs when the battery goes flat. That would be a big step forward! Would be interested in any comments...

I enjoy it if I'm visiting an area and see that there is a cache that hasn't been found for a long time. It is interesting to see how it has survived all by itself (awww) and I get that feel good factor knowing that the cache placer has seen his poor forgotten cache visited.

What happens when you fill it up? Does it just not accept further downloads or does it start to overwrite the oldest entries or something else?

Well done Alison

I thought it was 1700 - ah yes I remember now, I blinked! Well done Andy

Just entered my results, very easy. Thanks Adam.

Huga?

How did you know? Or was it a lucky(?) guess?