Wintertime

The page about the iOS version of the app on the Geocaching.com website says, "Save geocache listings, including maps and photos, for quick retrieval and offline use" and "Download active pocket queries for use while outside of network coverage." I have friends with iPhones and iPads who've stored cache information for use on the trail away from cellphone towers, so it should work with an iPod touch...

Romeds did you notice on this page: http://gpsfiledepot.com/maps/state/ct that there's a CT map available for Macs that shows 20-ft. contours?

If your PDA is one supported by Cachemate, I highly recommend that program: http://www.smittyware.com/prodlist.php Patty

The full manuals for the new eTrexes are "in the box," too. They're on the device. Just look in Documents/files/pdf. There are versions of the Owner's Manual in about 15 different languages. The Quick-Start Manuals (same document as provided in printed form in the package) are also there in PDF form. Patty

Hello, M3ashi. Even though your question is about technology, since it's also about a language spoken in a certain part of the world, maybe Groundspeak would let you post the question in the Arabian Peninsula forum: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showforum=25 Good luck! Patty

If Excalibur orders one from REI, shipping will be free, because the unit is over their $50 minimum. The member rebate brings the price down to about $167. BTW, the member rebates for 2011 have just come out, so people who were already members last year can reduce their outlay for a new GPSr that way.

A friend of mine has this program: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-walk-for-ipad-interactive/id363486802?mt=8 that takes advantage of the GPS receiver and accelerometers in her iPad to exactly replicate the sky wherever she is and whatever direction she's looking in. She can then get more details on any object. I think she can also do the opposite--select an object and have the app guide her where to look to find it. Patty

I often use the ScaredyCat site to informally browse for benchmarks: http://benchmarks.scaredycatfilms.com To actually prepare for an outing, I overlay GPX files onto calibrated topo maps using MacGPS Pro. However, I now have about a dozen California counties' worth of benchmark data sheets loaded into my new Garmin eTrex 20, so I don't need to use any computer software much any more. Patty

Lebenheimer, is this the group you've been trying to contact? http://www.rcgds.net/ I was just talking with someone the other day who's going to be attending a conference in Sacto this summer, and I thought she said she'd been in contact with some other cachers there, but maybe she just said that she knew there was a group but hadn't talked with anyone. If you don't have any luck there, you might ask for help on the Bay Area forum: http://thegba.net/forum/index.php Also, does your local REI offer geocaching classes? They might be in touch with local geocachers and also have other ideas to help with getting your project up and running. Good luck! Patty

Hello, Dan. Greetings to beautiful Ottawa! You have unknowingly answered your question by saying that you just got the eTrex "tonight." It's in night mode, which means you're seeing a black background. You can force it into daytime mode by going to Setup > Display and changing the mode from Auto to Day. I just checked the Ottawa area, and it appears that there isn't much shaded relief to display in that area. I don't know what elevation change is needed for it to show up. I would expect something like the cliff behind Parliament above the river to show up, but it doesn't. As for roads, all I'm seeing are the major ones like 5, 16, 417, etc. So you will need to add better ones yourself--either the ones that Garmin sells or the ones mentioned from GPS File Depot. That isn't the case, I'm afraid. And since you go outside the city, I would suggest that you install topo as well as street maps. Yes, the eTrex will store tracks of where you've been. You can mount the eTrex as a USB drive and drag the track to your computer and bring it up in a program of your choice. Or it might be easier to use Garmin's Basecamp program to view the tracks. Good luck! And have a Beavertail for me--my friend and I were late getting to Tobermory the last time I was in Ontario and the Beavertail stand had closed down 20 minutes earlier. We did have some in Byward Market on the previous trip. Yummm.... Patty

Note that there's one that does have arm support (and more features) on sale for only $5 more. I've thought about getting a metal detector, but since I do most of my benchmark hunting in Yosemite where I couldn't use it anyway, it's never seemed worth the money to me. Patty

I ran a pocket query a couple of days ago for a weekend hike. One of the caches in the area was temporarily disabled a couple of months ago because there had been a bunch of DNFs on it. I didn't think to checkmark the "Is enabled" filter, so that cache ended up in the resulting .gpx file. When we went out yesterday, I was surprised to see that cache listed with the others on my eTrex 20, with no indication that it wasn't available. I just looked at the .gpx file, and there's a line of xml that says: <Groundspeak:cache id="1950950" available="False" archived="False" xmlns:Groundspeak="http://www.Groundspeak.com/cache/1/0"> Is this a bug with the eTrex software, or is Groundspeak's "available='False'" designation some extension of xml that Garmin can't be expected to keep up with? And yes, in the future, I'll be more careful about filtering my pocket queries. Patty

There should be information about tracking in your Oregon user's guide, but you might also want to check out this user-created wiki: http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/

Ah, okay, yes, I see now that there was another poster asking about a Delorme. BTW, my geocaching name is "wintertime," not "@wintertime." Patty

Where on the GPSr did you put them? As Sussamb noted, they have to be in the Garmin/GPX folder.

I've never heard of any problems with using a USB cable of one's choice with the new Garmins. I have one cable on my iMac and another on my MacBook and they both work fine with my eTrex 20. Was there perhaps a problem with the original USB Garmins? However, I have heard of problems with many different types of USB devices when connecting them through a hub rather than into one of the computer's own USB ports. So I'm not surprised that David's eTrex started working better when he made a direct connection.

What do you want to do with the GPX files?

Thank you, autigerman and Moun10Bike. I did finally manage to get all the caches uploaded, but I'm not sure how. I initially deleted one at a time hoping to find which one was causing the trouble, but even when I had only one cache (and I tried two different ones of those), it still didn't work! Then I tried two Jan. 29 caches and one Feb. 18 cache and it worked. Then I tried removing the Jan. 29th caches and it didn't. Then...oh well, long story short, I kept trying various combinations and in ones and twos and maybe threes, I got all six new caches into the Field Notes page. Moun10Bike, I will send you the original file. Thanks for following up on this. Patty

I just tried to upload some field notes from a geocaching expedition a few days ago. My previous notes went up to January 29th. The Upload Your Field Notes page opened with the "Ignore logs before 01/29/2012 12:02:00" box checked, but after I found and uploaded the geocache_visits.txt file, the page reported that "0 records were successfully uploaded." I tried unchecking the "ignore before" box, and the website uploaded the 23 logs in my visits.txt file up to Jan. 29th, but nothing after that. I opened the file in a text editor and can see no reason why it would gag between the Jan. 29 and Feb. 18 notes--there are no extraneous characters or anything like that, as far as I can tell. Any thoughts on why the file (or the website) might be acting up on this? Patty

I have a setting that lets me say what zoom level I should be at before POIs appear. Is that the setting you mean? Patty

That's odd. I also have an eTrex 20, and it never displays yards. It goes straight from 0.1 mile to feet. Patty

I don't see 1.0.6 either, just 1.0 and 1.0.1. But why do you want to change it? Is something not working properly with your Oregon? I've got an eTrex 20, and GPX 1.0 works fine with that.

Turtle, some of the buttons on a cache page only send .loc files with just the cache name/ID and coordinates. You want to send the .gpx file. Also, if you run pocket queries, those are .gpx files and will have lots of information in them (difficulty, terrain, description, logs, etc.) Patty

(unneeded quotage deleted) Glad you got things working with Basecamp. I hope you can also get the Send to GPS button working, as well as just dragging GPX files to the unit. Keep us posted.

Stampman, you can't just make your own folders on the GPSr. Well, you can, but the GPSr won't know they exist, because Garmin wrote its software to look for geocaches in a specific location. You have to put GPX files in the GPX folder inside the Garmin folder. I don't know why the Send to GPS command isn't working for you. Did you try the plug-in test page on Garmin's website? I'm also not sure what you mean by cutting and pasting cache files. If you use the Send to GPS button, a single .gpx file will be downloaded to your receiver. If you run a pocket query, you'll receive (via email) a .zip file that will become a .gpx file after you unzip it. In both cases, you simply drag the .gpx file to the Garmin/GPX folder. Patty p.s. "MAC" is an IT term that stands for "media access control." MAC addresses are used to identify specific hardware devices on a network. I assume you're talking about a Mac computer. Each Mac has a MAC address, but that isn't relevant to this discussion...