gilbertf

did not explain it to them at all. i go out at night for geocaching (much more fun) or with the bicycle so it just looks like going out for fresh air to them

My first attemps were alone but I no longer go geocaching without her

Weight is not a very good way of defining fat anyway. By doing sports and getting more muscular my weight did increase, because it is heavier than fat. So you start by loosing weight, then you end up heavier than before but you look better too (well, especially to girls he he)

Same did happen to me. Took me over six monthes just to think again at placing a cache somewhere. Still trying to find a nice place

when i bought something just to empty it immediatly to keep in for a future and not yet ready cache container

It's true that rechargeable batteries are more environment friendly. But compared to Alcaline versions, they have a "end of life" discharge that is pretty fast. An alcaline 1.5 volt starts at 1.7 volts and slowly goes down as you use it. This allows the unit to detect that batteries are weaken so you are going to change them within a few hours if using the unit in economic mode. If you are using rechargeable batteries, the end of available power is counted in minutes. So your unit is used, and suddently stops and turns off with no warning (or a very short warning of a few minutes that you would not see immediatly perhaps). Rechargeable is nice, but they drop fast when used outdoors.

It's true that rechargeable batteries are more environment friendly. But compared to Alcaline versions, they have a "end of life" discharge that is pretty fast. An alcaline 1.5 volt starts at 1.7 volts and slowly goes down as you use it. This allows the unit to detect that batteries are weaken so you are going to change them within a few hours if using the unit in economic mode. If you are using rechargeable batteries, the end of available power is counted in minutes. So your unit is used, and suddently stops and turns off with no warning (or a very short warning of a few minutes that you would not see immediatly perhaps). Rechargeable is nice, but they drop fast when used outdoors.

A month ago I went into a french airport (Charles de Gaulle, Paris) to wait for my girlfriend to come back from Portugal. I was in the parking lot taking fresh air outside, and planes were pretty close. The GPS not only worked fine but gave me a 3 meters precision (or so it says ) without WAAS enabled, and that's the best error margin I ever got from it. The closest runway was about 100 to 150 meters from me. If planes are to use or are using GPS as position-help tool, I believe GPS works fine there

I carry at all times a swiss knife and magnetic compass. Even if I just go outside with my girlfriend to get into some Paris shop while going throught the tube. Having the knife and compass with me at all times is an habit, so when I go out for some wilderness trek, I feel it's missing immediatly before going out

Good idea. I'm gonna paint it green or brown to make it look more cammo

My first cache was approved in about 15 minutes. I went to the place a few times, came back and posted it. Poof ! erik88l-r approved it and at first I wondered if someone could have been there already to check the cache and validate it But erik88l-r probably lives the other side of the world, it was very nice to see that all the time I had spent searching and setting a cache in the most beautiful place I could find had been considered with value and trust. Well, I'm just an happy Geocacher

For me the trouble is I live in France. Even if OUR taxes are being used to pay the people that draw maps of our country, those are not available unless you pay. The maps are of pretty high quality, especially if you use a topographical map at 1:25000 meters range. They are very accurante and up to date so it's excellent but I would like France to behave in a more democratic way like the United States does : what is paid by people's taxes gets back to them. The other problem with those maps we got to pay is they are over-zealous in protecting them, thus encoding them in proprietary ways so if people (like me) are using Linux or some BSD we are stuck and we need to keep a Windows on our machine's disk (and I buy my machines bare-naked so I had to buy in the last few years a copy of Windows 2000 which costed me over 300 $) and recently a licence for XP for my laptop, just to be able to use software that can't run on anything but Windows because it's over-protected What I want to avoid is dongle-protected stuff because I use a laptop and everything that requires a protected CD because I use a very slim laptop that has no floppy, no cd just wireless and plugs for communicating. At least people of Fugawi have a non-CD version of their software, like the IGN software too (IGN = Institut Geographique National). dadgum. If I had knew, I would have bought that much cheaper software since I use a non-mapping unit !

The box is a little larger than a 35 mm film cannister, for approximatively the same height. I prefer that to a 35 mm cannister because the upper-cap is screwed and much more resistant. It will be probably set in urban environment but somewhere with a nice view and trees

I am preparing a small box (that was used for some pills by my father) and I would like to know if you think it is not too small to be used as geocache. The little box looks like this : I have also created a paper cover to put around. It will look like this : (you can download a zip file with a Gimp and Photoshop 300-dpi file for full size) I think it's big enough to get some coins but perhaps it would be a better idea to just leave it empty and put a long paper so people can record their visiting. I have not yet found a place ot hide it and I wonder if it's not too small, thus becoming too difficult to find once hidden. This is my second cache since the first one was stolen so I would prefer something smaller than my previous attempt Thanks for advice

I wonder what's the difference between this software and the MapSource World CD. I got the later one and it contains only main roads, political boundaries and principal cities and towns, like the Waypoint/Track/Route CD. But.. the price is MUCH more interesting than MapSource World

I'm located near Paris in France and using WAAS is not very easy especially in urban zones. The satellite that covers most part of Europe is called AOR-E I think, and checking on the map I see that it's located south of Paris and if I orient the GPS to the south, it grabs the WAAS satellites but I lost it pretty soon as I move around. I usually don't get a clear view of the south sky unless I get out of urban areas. I keep it off now, unless I really end up in a rural place with no buildings on south.

I'd like to put one of me and my girl while Geocaching but she doesn't come very often to me so it's not easy to get a picture of us

I'm using mapsource. The european roads is very nice (i was a bit disappointed when i bought the world cd, since it only has main roads) and I use it. I have put some cache coordinates and I have then created routes by "following" the real routes visible on map, and I plan to go there by bicycle this night (or within the next few days by night). As I use a Garmin unit it's rather easy and I don't encounter problems. It was quite interesting to discover that the coordinates are very close to the real areas. Sometimes it was perfectly on spot Well, mapsource is excellent to give better precision to waypoints I recorded. I got a WAAS enabled unit and the unit seens the EOR satellite over Europe but since I'm mainly in urban setting I almost never get a clean view of the south sky (where the EOR is since I'm in Paris). I believe the best is to create waypoints in the software, then create a route and clicking at corners of streets to set routes waypoints. From a programmer's point of view, adding automatic "magnetic grid" is rather easy but might require a change in the database format they're using in Mapsource (and I believe they just use pictures they use to create maps and put various things over those as icons). -- Gilbert Fernandes

I feel interested in night geocaching. Up to now I only went to caches during day, but as I don't sleep a lot (I wake up near 2 or 3 am then I don't sleep no more until the next day near 11 pm). At night it's mostly cops you find out and they usually stop you if you're by foot or by car or by anything in fact

I feel like cheaters can be ignored. The game of Geocaching is not about your own Geocaching stats but the fun of seeking for a cache, going outside and finding nice natural places. My own stats are close to a 50 % find, 50 % been around and found nothing (my poor eyesight might be a cause). As long as we have no form of classification based on cache founds stats, cheaters got it up their a**. In fact, I almost never check other's people stats

what did happen is I had bought with a friend some little rockets. we planted a few ones near a tree and fired those up to the sky. but one of mine did not go up and went in the toilets and there, the painting inside of it caught fire and it started burning. they called firefighters and it was burning quite well. they killed the fire but it had spread in the upper walls (is the word "ceiling" in english ?) and the fire propagated to the bigger building. Everyone got out and it became so bad they let it burn and protect buildings around the school. It burned until the next day. I told my parents about it and they turned me to the principal. I don't recall a lot of my young years (I don't recall anything before 12 years old or so in fact) but I remember that crappy day perfectly, from morning to the end of the day with my a** hurting and all my toys gone

I tried Fugawi (trial version) and Mapsource (a friend had it). I really did not like Fugawi because it had too much buttons and was just painful to use. Mapsource has very less buttons, and is quite easy to use, though its search function just sucks. I can move to anypoint in Europe, grab a city name and the dadgum Mapsource can't find anything if I type the City name in the search window. I got the Mapsource with Europe routes and I use it to find faster and shorter routes to places I go. I insert waypoints, then I check the best route and I mark waypoints on it, and upload it to my eTrex Venture. I found that very often I could have better ways of going to my various's friends houses I like Mapsource a lot. The first one I bought was the worldmap one. It's not fantastic but has main roads for most countries and is interesting to learn more about world's geography. The Europe Roads and Recreation (especially the "roads" part of it) is great. Fugawi seems quite good when it comes to marine maps though

I was rather a dark clown in school. I burned one and they didn't find it funny So I spent one year without ever playing with other children, and the principal gave me a huge book of sciences, a pen and told me : "until you have hand-copied this 2000 pages book, you will not play with others this year". took me two years of school to copy it and I was cheating in the end by "bypassing" some pages and tweaking the text (because the principal checked it). Well, at least it gave me a college sciences and mathematics level at 11 or so, years before I would start to learn all that stuff in school. I was rather tough but what worried me was my parents sadness about it, their kid having burned a school and being sent (with ALL others pupils whom also lost their school) to another one

I agree with Bobthearch. Compass is not that hard. The first thing I learned was to use maps without compass. To find where I was and where to move. Then I learned how to use the compass alone, to be able to go anywhere AND go back as I wanted. With just a compass you might not where you are, but if you got a pencil and paper (or good memory) you will always go back to the start position. Best is using both map and compass of course You can play the coin game with a compass. You take a coin like 1 $ or euro and put it on the ground. You get your compass, shot a random heading and count 100 steps or even more (counting steps is done by counting on left or right step but never both). Then you add 60 degrees right (or left) and walk again for 100 steps and add again 60 degrees and walk 100 steps. If you are precise with your compass, lay down and grab your coin Walk is (excuse the crude map, was done hastily) Used correctly and with two angle mesures from your position to easy, visible and non-moving points of reference, you can mark your position with precision, like in the niddle of a lake where you found a good spot for fishes

Even a usual altimeter needs to be calibrated for each area. That's why the level points on topographic maps are useful for Altimeter is useful when used with a compass and map and doing treks. I just keep the GPS in the bag with basecamp position and if I get lost, otherwise I like the compass and 1:24000/25000 map (not when geocaching though)