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What's this? A grammar & usage junkie on the Groundspeak forums? That just warms the cockles of my former-english-major heart. Should anyone be interested, in the book Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace there is an essay entitled "Authority and American Usage". If you're truly a grammar & usage junkie, I highly recommend it. It is hilarious.

Holy crap! $83.00 for that?? I've been using one of the below for ages....good old fashioned knapsack that costs about $15.00. It worked as a bookbag in college, as a quasi-briefcase for work, and as a knapsack for the occasional jaunt in the woods. But no, it wouldn't work very well for carrying a concealed weapon. (The video at the bottom of the Maxpedition page is kind of funny.)

I got some good information which aided me in the purchase of my first ever GPSr. That wherever you go you'll always run into some folks who just ain't happy unless they've got something to bitch about.

Hahahaha. I truly did chuckle out loud when I got to the one about brown caches. As a relative newcomer to this board, I've gotta say that I'm somewhat baffled by the threads about micros and the need for in excess of 2500 caches per day via PQ's. But I really don't think that newcomers need to be insulated from it. Anyone with the least bit of internet savvy knows that these kinds of arguments take place everywhere on the 'net. Believe me, I've seen them get far less civil than what I've observed here. At least I've not yet seen anyone on this board refer to anyone else as a fascist.

I just recently bought my first ever GPSr. I was debating between the PN-20 and holding out for the soon-to-be-released (at the time) Colorado. I asked a question much like yours, got numerous helpful responses and in the end went with the PN-20. I've been able to get it outdoors only a few times but I believe that I made the right choice. I do believe that embra, benjamin921 and CowboyPapa are all giving you (as they gave me) some good, honest, objective descriptions of the PN-20. I've just barely begun to scratch the surface of what all I can do with it but I do believe that it will do all that I need of a GPSr....and probably more.

For what it's worth, I'm going to toss in my newbie-two-cents. The only reason that I can see for anyone to give a blanket dismissal of microcaches per se would be if that person making the dismissal is really into the "swag" factor. To me, that seems to be the only drawback to the micro in-and-of-itself. As others have already said, the problem is in the unimaginative placement of the micro. Even for the "micro in the woods" being debated in another thread, it seems to me more the fault of the placement of the cache rather than the size of the cache. I really think that the subjects of these threads should substitute "lame placement" for "micro".

The link lead me to "Server Not Found". Works for me. Must've been a temporary glitch, as it's working for me now, also. Thanks.

Heh heh.....no "age-ism" intended.

Several days? I was thinking more in terms of several minutes. Is it possible for a GPSr to take an average over several days? Or would you have to take (for instance) three separate averages on three separate days (at the same, identical spot) and then manually average those three GPSr generated averages?

The link lead me to "Server Not Found".

I'm pretty new at this myself, but from what I've read, "averaging" isn't used to help one find caches but rather it is a method of obtaining accurate coordinates when hiding a cache. You set your GPSr to take multiple readings at a particular hide and then take the average of all of those readings. You then use that "averaged" set of coordinates when posting your cache. If I'm incorrect here, I'm sure that one of the old pro's will correct me.

Black light? For what do you use that? I'm picturing some section of a forest with 1970's era headshop posters tacked to the trees.

I just got my PN-20 on Monday. It is the first GPSr that I've either used or owned. When, during the unpacking, I came across the USB cable, my first reaction was, "what in the world is this doo-dad?" I'd never seen anything like it before. As I was considering why in the world this thing was made the way it is, the waterproof issue occurred to me. I figured that maybe even with a tight-fitting plug, having a USB port on the unit wouldn't allow it to meet the waterproof specifications. I've been assuming (since I've never before had a piece of waterproof electronics) that this USB configuration was some kind of standard for waterproof electronics. I guess I was incorrect on that count.

I'm a newbie also and have much the same sentiments. I've been reading this thread with a bit of bafflement.

As a newbie who doesn't know anything other than the "blue splotches", I really anxious to see this previous version that just about everyone is saying is so much better.

I don't suppose you know of a way to mount this puppy without having to remove the shifter, brake and grip, do you? It's not that I can't do it....it just seems like a bit of a pain. This is the first time that I've come across a handlebar mount that had to be slid on rather than wrapped around. Thanks. Recommended--> The safest way would be to remove the items on your handle bar. Use Caution: I just pried it apart enough to slip over the bar. You're a braver man than I, benjamin921. Either that, or your handlebars are just skinny enough to pull that trick off. I had given that "use caution" method a try but decided that it would've just ended up breaking the mount. It strikes me as a definite design flaw. Thanks for the reply.

I don't suppose you know of a way to mount this puppy without having to remove the shifter, brake and grip, do you? It's not that I can't do it....it just seems like a bit of a pain. This is the first time that I've come across a handlebar mount that had to be slid on rather than wrapped around. Thanks.

I've been giving that a little thought, also. But in the past, while the gadget-freak in me has always wanted to get a PDA, my rational side has always realized that I had utterly no need for a PDA and rationality always won that particular debate. If I were to look into a cheap PDA on Ebay, what kind of memory capacity ought I be looking for? Bear in mind that I really don't see "power caching" in my (at least immediate) future. [side note: I've been reading another thread here where some folks are (rather heatedly) debating the 500 cache/PQ limit. Call me a newbie, but I just don't quite understand why anyone would need more that that.] Thanks.

Thanks, CowboyPapa. I'm sure that I'll be getting into the GPX format and Pocket Queries soon. The .loc file seemed to me like a nice, gentle way to ease my way into a gadget and technology with which I'm utterly unfamiliar. Plus, I wanted to take it for a spin a soon as possible. I think that I might've found a hobby that I'll stick with for more than a year-or-so. Cripes....I feel like I'm going through a second childhood or something.

My PN-20 was on the porch this morning. YeeHaw!! Since I've never before used one of these gadgets I'm taking it slow & easy. I read the manual, got Topo USA loaded onto the PC (that is quite a piece of software...I don't know that I'll ever need everything that it looks like it can do) and the PN-20. I then found a cache within 0.5 miles of the house, downloaded the .loc file and got it onto the PN-20. I got a little nervous when, right out of the box and during installation I was given a message that an update was required. I wasn't expecting that and thought I'd missed something in the manual. But I got through it -- apparently they don't ship with the most recent firmware version pre-installed. I then took a walk. And got DNF'd. I think that there might've just been too much snow. Granted, I've not come even close to putting it through it's paces, but it sure does seem like a sweet little device. I believe that it will meet my needs wonderfully.

I think that would be called "PEN and [sT]INK"

If I were you, I'd give a call back to them and ask if they might honor the sale price for you. They might say they can't, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if they did. That's a good idea and I had (briefly) given it some thought. But I've never been much of a haggler. I'm sure that if I lived someplace where haggling is expected I'd be bankrupt 10 times over. I just figure that business is business and that's the way the cookie crumbles. DeLorme is a business and they're in it to make money. I don't hold it against them. Now, on the other hand, if come tomorrow they were to announce the release of the "PN-40".....yeah.....then I do believe that I'd be giving them a call.

Okay....I think I'm getting the drift of this. I wasn't thinking about the possibility of "spur-of-the-moment" caching expeditions. Plus, I suppose if you live in a major metropolitan area you could hit that 500 mark rather quickly. For my own area I have to go out to a 20 mile radius of my home zip-code to get 544 cache listings. And many of them look (from their map location) to be so simple that you probably don't even need a GPSr to find them. Thanks.

Disclaimer: I'm pretty new to all of this and still trying to learn the details and finer points. Ergo, I might very well be speaking here via my bung-hole. Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding the use/purpose of Pocket Queries, but why would one need to download the info for hundreds of caches at a time? Why wouldn't you just download enough to get you through your upcoming expedition and then when it comes time for another outing, request a new Pocket Query? Granted, I am now hearing of "Power Cachers" who do 100+ caches in a day or a weekend, but those folks are the minority of the cachers, no? Thanks in advance for being patient to a possible clueless noob.

Yeesh. It is just uncanny how often this happens to me: no sooner than I buy something does it go on sale. I think that I must have some kind of curse hovering over me.