GPS777

Out of my five, only one is still moving. One was in a stolen cache and three have been held by people forever. I think profiles should have a "complaint" button or something. Kind of like the eBay feedback system. If they are a repeat offender or never answer messages, lock the account.

Somebody has had one of my travel bugs for over a year, now. They haven't replied to my e-mails about it even though they still log into geocaching.com regularly. They know what travel bugs are because they have several of their own. In cases like this, I think geocaching needs to lock down their accounts until they give at least some sort of reply. Of course they could always simply start a new account but they'd lose all their past logs (or at least have to manually re-enter all of them). I realize people might have lost them, but they should at least be nice enough to reply and apologize. There's the slight possibility they put them in a rarely visited cache and also forgot to log them, but that is pretty doubtful. In my case, anyone can look at the log and see the person has been holding it for a year. As I recall, a few months ago I saw they'd picked up another traveler at the same time and still had not logged it anywhere, either. This is a case where I think GC.com really should make an official contact and if there is no response, then lock the account. People pay money for travel tags and usually a bit for the attached item. When somebody else obviously took it, they at least owe an explanation (and several dollars of reimbursement, in my opinion).

I had a Colorado for about 5 weeks and was quite unhappy with the workings and accuracy. The Oregon is different, but Garmin's support was so miserable it will be a long time before I'd ever consider buying from them again. I went with a PN-40 and have been much happier. DeLorme participates frequently in the forums. They seem to actually listen to people and take action. For caching, it sounds like we're about to get a very nice program and update. I don't find Topo 7 to be bad, but maybe a complete computer novice would. And as far as mapping, DeLorme's got everybody beat with unlimited downloads for just $30 per year. In my experiences with DeLorme and Garmin, I'll have to say Garmin will be lucky to ever see a penny of my money ever again.

I have yet to see WAAS on my PN-40 in Virginia. I just started to read the forums on the problems and solutions, so still have hope of an improvement.

I received my PN-40 this week. My biggest fear had been the screen size, but it is perfectly fine. Very readable, bright and clear. I had a Colorado for a month and the bigger screen was nice but I don't think it had near the brightness or clarity. As for tracking, the Colorado was miserable and was the major reason I returned it. My two brief hikes with the PN-40 have been much better. The quick switchbacks that the Colorado would show as loops plot very realistic on the PN-40. The sharp curves that the Colorado would cut short by a hundred feet come out fine on the PN-40. I had previously recorded tracks loaded in the PN-40 (made with a couple of other units), and paid close attention as I hiked. It appeared to me that the PN-40 was much quicker to track curves and bends. Also while stopped, I didn't see any messy "spider web" tracking blobs. I played with a feature that is nice. You can take GPX track files and convert them to "trails" with the Topo software. I think somebody else mentioned it somewhere on this forum. Essentially, it lets you convert all of your old tracks and have them all loaded at once (no limit!). From what I understand, they are routeable when converted, too. As for positioning the unit, I mostly had it in my hand swinging by my side so I could access it quickly to see how it was going to track various curves. At other times it was in my side coat pocket. At this point, I really wouldn't be worried about having to position it in any special way. As for the compass, you don't have to hold the unit flat, either. It works at any angle. Anyway, my impressions are based on only about three miles of walking under extremely cloudy conditions. Once in open space (one mile) and the other under trees in the hills (two miles). If the weather cooperates, I'll do some better testing this weekend. But at this early stage, I really like it. The unit is a nice handy size. The screen is fine. The tracking seems great.

My Colorado (and many others) was miserably inaccurate. You could record a hike twice and it would vary by hundreds of feet. Plus, it can only display one track at a time. It really shouldn't be on the market yet. Maybe someday. But that's assuming the accuracy problem isn't hardware...

Has anyone noticed a possible interference from cell phones? I often hike and record tracks. Three times the tracks went whacky. The third time, I noticed it was exactly when I received a cell phone call. As soon as the call was over, the GPS went to the correct location. When I thought back to the other two times that things went bad, I was pretty sure those were when calls were received, also. If there is a problem, I'd assume it isn't with every model of cell phone since different providers probably use different frequencies. Mine is Sprint.

Did we lose DOQ's? You know, the higher resolution aerial photos that were in black and white. Normally way over at the right where the new button is. I'd much rather have DOQ's than the "satellite" images. The satellite images are useless in most of the country due to horrible resolution. The DOQ's were great for my area.

I'm not really sure why you would bump a thread from August for a feature request. Looks like you bumped it after me...

Yes, "moved" and "discovered" really need to be separated. I won't discover until they are divided into separate categories.

The website should keep "moved" and "discovered" in separate catagories. Currently, I won't log a discover because it "pollutes" my moves.

Here's an underwater cache: GCQ8M9 http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...c4-6cbd7a252042

I suspect new cache hunters are possibly the worst traders. It takes a little while to come up with good ideas for unique trade items. Here's a thought. There are currently caches only available to premium members. Perhaps there could be another type. The cache owner could set a minimum find level, such as 50 or 100. Only cachers with that many finds under their belt could get the coordinates. It would help deter people who get an account and raid caches, but never log. This would partially solve another problem I've seen. People sign the cache log but never log the find online. They might be more likely to log if they know there are high level caches out there. Cache owners could even delete smileys of pirates. Obviously not a total solution, but just an idea I came up with while reading this message thread.

I wasn't involved in this one but it is a nearby cache. I was scanning through the local listings while planning a day of cache hunting and found an interesting log. The cache is at a plane crash memorial. It appears people were caching and found a human bone. The cache: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...cb-1b9594717c12 The logs for October 11, 2007: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...0a-7d2ad11c7d65 http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...80-8c002a1affaf That last has a link to this news story: http://www.wdbj7.com/global/story.asp?s=7195962&nav=S6ak

They need to remove that as one of their selling points!

I just signed up for a premium membership. When I click on "member features" it says: === Geocaching Maps When logged in you can pan, zoom and identify caches from any point on the planet. It's an easy way to visualize all the local caches and quickly pinpoint the area of interest. Geocaches you have found are listed with checkboxes, and caches will have a travel bug icon if one has been placed in the cache. === That's not what my maps show. Found caches have a smiley face, which is good. Caches with travel bugs do NOT have special icons, though. Is this a feature that existed at some point in the past but is now gone? It sounds more like the text listing rather than the map. Obviously, that is something free memberships have, though.

You should live here in Central Texas! I even created a cache that pokes fun at Copy & Paste cache logs, for that very reason. My control has become lax of late, but I was demanding that the finder post a copy and paste of the original log found on this cache (that was the FTF prize, by the way) along with any comments of their own. I really wish I now had the GPS link to my digital camera so I could know with certainty which cache I was at when I snapped a picture. Check RoboGeo. You can set your camera's clock to the same time as your GPS reciever. There doesn't have to be a connection between the GPSr and the camera. The software will later compare photo times with your GPS log times and associate them. It will embed the position info into the photo file and create a Google map and such.