Woodstramp

No. You can't do that. You are supposed to patiently wait it out, put it throught the wringer after you get it, then tell me how you like it so I can decide if I want to get one around Christmas.

Sweetpea, Lifelong Poison Ivy sufferer here. I've studied book pics, internet pics, etc. and they've always confused me. On a side note, it is not like I can't identify plants...I can name most any tree I glance at. You get enough exposure to PI you develope a sixth sense. Kind of like when you see a "snakey-looking" place. Just don't "go there". If my GPS is leading to one of those snakey-PI-looking places I just do one of those Catholic cross gestures (even though I'm not a Catholic) and back away. Even if the Devil loaded the cache with gold and Swedish Bikini Team sirens. (Well, I would come back to that one with a Hazmat suit)

egnix, I think that second article you linked is probably what was really going on. Fake a crazy frontal attack with something expendable and during the distraction, make a flank move to secure the real goal. That tactic has be used a few times before.

Cracker, Not a Floridian, but I do live in Alabama and we have about the same snakes....simular snakey places. I had a pair of snake boots a long time ago. Hated them. Ended up using "snake gaiters" over my regular boots. The ones I have are Rattler's Brand. They are great. They wrap on and secure with velco and snaps. Less than a minute and they are on or off. I big snake can pop you higher than the knee, but these are a comfortable trade off. The knee high gaiters are a ton more comfortable than snake boots or hip high snake chaps.

"A little safe spacing (a 'guardband') had been established long ago in the frequency allocations,..." That is the way I understood things were done to prevent broadcasters from walking all over each other. You also couldn't have a 98.5 FM radio station and a 98.4 FM station in the same town. "...and everyone designed equipment accordingly." GPS manufacturers didn't have a crystal ball. They just assumed the allocated band wouldn't be encroached upon. Why build a tank for an environment that is supposed to be safe for bicycles?

Portland....i started the thread.... i get first dibs on Tims castaways. Tim, cast a tested etrex20 this way and i'll spot you back some of the initial monetary damage so it won't a total loss on your end....see what a thoughtful guy i am?

I am out of my pay grade here, admittedly. Just some things don't seem Kosher here judging from what I do know. Like I told Ecanderson...sounds like even if you have transmission filters that were salavaged from the alien spacecraft they keep at Area 51, the transmitter running high enough power will still be like dropping boulders in a pond that is used to gentle sound of rain drops. "Legal" with the US gubbment doesn't neccessarily mean "right" from time to time . The Trail of Tears, as an example. Which is gonna make me cry if LS makes my current gizmos deaf. Also, earlier in the thread you mentioned local towers messing with your GPS units now. I've never experienced that with my Garmins. Did experience this with my PN-20 on sporadic occasions near a local array (mix of microwave/TV/cell). This was rare, but in the same location and only within a mile of the towers.

--delete of accidental double post--

To be fair, some of the cheapo Class B CB linears tended to have poor harmonic distortion specs (zero crossing issues) and really did "splatter" outside of their channel space into adjacent channels - something the prior poster doesn't address on the assumption that gear that passes FCC muster will behave better. The "splattery" transmission side didn't occur to me. Guess better filtering on transmission side could help. John also mentions Hams having to install recieve filters on the neighbor's TV's. (From what I know of Ham operators they tend to be self policing and upright folk. Not like outlaw CB skip-hounds or truckers running huge sloppy amps). A Ham using his own time and money to keep the neighbors happy still makes me think that if an electonics pro like that can only keep his high power "splatter" controlled to a certain extent. Regardless of of transmission end filtering.

The eTrex is only slightly smaller than the Dakota and the thickness is pretty much the same. Might still feel like a potato to you. It's not really the potatoyness of it's appearance. It's too smooth. Like I-phones. I'm checking out a friend's new I-phone at work. Thing is slick as a whistle and expensive. Can just see myself easily dropping it. From the pics I've seen the new Etrex is bumpy. My old Legend and 60csx have traction bumps too.

Like I told Tim, I don't like the tiny touch screen potatoes. If the new etrex can do what the early specs say (paperless, custom maps, onboard memory), make alert noises (like my 60csx) and have a wake up alarm (like my 60csx doesn't) then I will be looking for one come the holidays. The advertised battery life is another huge plus.

Tim, I was interested in the Dakota, but when I checked them out at the local Bass Pro I found I don't like them. I love my touch screen Nuvi, but the little munchkin touch screens on Dakotas don't appeal to my big fingers. Plus, it reminded me of a potato for some reason. Taters don't feel right in a shirt pocket.

Been eyeballing the new Etrex 20. Looks like they will be shipping soon. Just wanted to know if anyone has one on order. Would like to hear what the new owners like/dislike about the new line of GPS units when they do come in.

The only real reason I have pants with pockets is so that one of them holds my Swiss Army Tinker. I instinctively feel for it when I leave every day. Higher on my totem pole than car keys, cell phone or wallet. Feel nekked without a pocket knife. Have carried one every days since (except when going on a plane and the TSA Gestapo). My first pocket knife was a gift from the boy scouts 40 years ago. A Camillus BS knife. A thief stole the worn out sucker when I was 17. Since then the SA Tinker has been my top choice. I've worn out/broken/lost about 7 of them, I think. Uses...clean fingernails (little blade)remove screws, clean critters who've sacrificed thier bodies for my consumption, whittle, scrape paint, work tinder for a fire, peel/pare fruit/veggies, debur soft metals, fish micro logs, etc, etc.... Been eyeballing one of those Mora carbon knives from Sweden. I hear they are dandies as far as straight blades go.

John E Cache, You're an EE with obvious RF experience. Maybe you can explain this for me. This whole Lightsquared thing reminds me of something I recall from years ago. I used to fiddle around with Citizen's Band radio. I think it was near 29mhz and AM. The FCC suposedly limited transmission to 4 watts. In pre-cell phone days we kept one in the boat and base station at the house just in case we broke down on the lake. We also chatted at night with other locals at times. There was this one guy though. If he fired up his amp (bragged he could crank out 1KW) nobody on any of the adjacent channels could carry on a conversation within a 10 mile radius. The problem was not that our CB radios were faulty. It was the jerk suddenly cranking out 1000 watts on our lake.

I believe the older generation of Explorists (210-600) where cut from thier lines as "legacy" (no longer supported) before the Magellan 'send to' deal was created for Groundspeak.

Seeing how this is one of my favorite threads, ever on this site, and that you guys all apparently like unusual trees I thought I might pass on some info. I'm also a huge fan of the film "The Shawshank Redemption". I read the other day that "The Tree" was badly damaged in a bad storm a few days ago. http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/53153/shawshank-tree-damaged-by-thun-1.asp?partner=accuweather What a shame. When I first started caching I thought that this tree would be the ultimate place for a geocache, being a SR fan. For those that don't know, this was the spot where Andy "cached" some money for Red. I did some homework and found the the tree was in Ohio. Also found out that the stone wall was a prop (and was removed after filming). Also found out the tree is on private property. I got on google earth and searched and think I found the exact place. N40 39.237 W82 23.508 Looks like from the sat imagery that you can see where the stone wall led up from the creek Freeman crossed to find the cache by the tree. Anyway, just a FYI.

Fish Whisperer (killer screen name, BTW) I don't use GE enough to get real familiar with it. My Dell is old and slow and GE gives it convulsions.

"Tonight, I went to the most obvious corner of my property, recorded it with the GPS, and found that the location showed up correctly in Google Earth." If Google Earth and your first coord were jiving, then why not use GE to determine the other corners? Not real familiar with getting coords from GE, but I hear it can be done. You might also check online for a local, or county, or state GIS site. Luckily, we have one for my county in Alabama. The site showed prop boundaries, but if you moved the cursor on the screen it gave weird, regional (East Alabama) XY coordinates. I was able to churn these into Delorme Topo and get "normal" coordinates for the GPS.

Totem, You mentioned some rig that allows you to refill water while leaving your pack on. I'd be interested in what filter and rigging you use. Got a pic? I have a Katadyn Hiker filter. Kind of clumsy, but works.

I saw Dakota 10's going for $150 at Academy Sports (Trussville, Al. store) the other day while buying some shotshells. Don't know if that was just a local clearance. You might check online.

Etrex units with an "H" means they are high sensitivity. Extrex H, Etrex HXC, etc. Be aware the "Etrex H" model is a high sensitivity, but it has the older style serial port communication with computers. This will allow you transfer data back and forth if you have a computer with a serial port or if you only have a USB ported computer you'll need a serial to USB adaptor. Also, the Etrex H is not a paperless unit. You can mass load some geocache info (coords, name) but a "paperless" unit will be able to hold full cache descriptions from a cache page (coords, name, hints, description, finder logs) Most folks would shoot basic cache info to a non-paperless unit and then print cache pages out (on paper) for the rest of the info in the field.

The 210 i had was a good unit. Only problem was that it had an old firmware and couldn't use WAAS. After that new fw upgrade it did better.

"Learning" a PN and Topo aint that hard....Lord knows if I can do it then about anyone can. Those are really accurate units, but battery life is so so. I actually like Delorme Topo better than Garmin's software. But, I was in the local Academy sports store the other day and they had the Dakota 10 on sale for $150. No fancy altimeter or E-compass, but a good little paperless unit, They advertize 20 hour battery life.

I have two expensive Ranger style mirror compasses (a Brunton and a Suunto), but (along Briansnat's same thinking) I'd just recommend an inexpensive protractor type. Our local Academy Sports sells a really nice Suunto M2 baseplate job for like $15. No mirror, but a lot of bang for the buck. Even has declination adjustment and a good magnifier. I think your part of the US has a fairly steep western declination angle, so that would be a plus.