california-jones

I tried your method, but that didn't work for me. With your approach, I can get any icon appear for the caches, but they will show up only at a scale of 200ft or below as POI don't appear on a higher scale view of the map. So, while driving around, I cannot take an off the cuff decision to hunt for a cache when I see it appear on the map. On other GPSrs, you will always see the cache icons on the map. In Nuvi, since we have the 500 waypoints limitation and also since you cannot put in long text field of info, you are forced to use the POI (limited only by the size of free memory in Nuvi or SD card). What I am asking for is most like not possible. It is liking eating your cake and having it as well.

I copied the .gpx file to the gpx folder and the .gpi folder to the POI folder. Voila! Now, I can see the caches on the map and they are available under "Favourites", but without any description info. Whereas, the same is listed under "Custom POI" with all the details that pilotsnipes provided. Further, I created two such gpx and gpi files (one for one area and the other for another area) and copied them and I can see all of them together.

First I should thank you for this awesome effort. I like it very much. I own a 60csx, 400t and Nuvi-370, but I like convergence and if I can carry only one GPSr with me on some of the trips, that makes life simpler. I don't use POI Loader at all. I use Mapsource to load the .gdb file that GSAK generates containing all the caches I have filtered using GSAK and then send it to the GPSr. That process allows me to send the icon for the caches to Nuvi. In this process, the caches appear as "waypoints" and so they are listed under "Favourites" and hence visible on the map directly. I wonder if I take the .gpx file created by the first step by the macro and then load it in Mapsource! Will that make the caches appear on the map.

I have used multiple geotours (they are .gpi files) on my Nuvi and they co-exist. On the Custom POI list, all the individual waypoints in each of the .gpi files will be listed together sorted by distance from the current point.

pilotsnipes, I can't see the caches on the map in normal resolutions (say 800ft or 0.2mile) unless I go thru the Custom List and after selecting the cache and then choosing the "Map" option. I can see them only when I zoom in to 200ft scale. I remember reading about this limitation with Nuvi-6xx and 3xx series (don't know if that have changed that in the newer series). My understanding is that you choose the route of .gpi (custom POI) Vs the regular POIs as the regular POIs get displayed in all resolutions, but cannot take large amount of text in the description field. Is that the reason why you took this method?

Thanks for your reply, pilotsnipes. Actually, I was looking under Favourites whereas I should be looking under Custom POI list on my Nuvi-370.

FOUND SOLUTION to MY STUPIDITY: I need to look under Custom POI, not Favourites. Sorry for the confusion. I must be doing something stupid as it didn't work for me. I was using v6 of GSAK for so many years, but this thread motivated me to pay $15 and upgrade it to v7.2.1.40. I have 370 and I used the original macro in this thread and followed the steps. Except that I set a filter to select all the caches within 10miles from my office and then set a flag to all the caches found by this filter. Then, I created the .gpx file exactly with the name given in this thread (TourGuide Geo.gpx with a space in the name). Then, in the 2nd step, created the .gpi file without any errors. The .gpx file is 1723KB and the .gpi file is 875KB for 116 caches. I copied ONLY the .gpi file to Nuvi's main memory under the POI folder. Before copying the file, I had deleted ALL the POIs in my Nuvi. But, I don't find any items under "Favourite" at all even after copying the .gpi. What am I doing wrong? Edit: The caches and waypoints are showing up now. I don't know why it didn't show up earlier. However, there are no descriptions at all. I will post some screenshots now. This is how cache details look: This is how a waypoint details look: This is how my Favourites List looks:

My problems turned out to be due to a defective unit. I got it replaced this afternoon at REI and the new unit doesn't have the two issues I reported. I will take it for another round of geocaching spin later today.

I found this thread this morning. I have reported couple of issues in other threads, but felt that it should be reported here instead. I have 400t. Here are the two issues I am facing (which I haven't seen discussed yet): The compass is not working even when I am standing still with the unit held horizontal - set to Auto after calibration. I have tried it in the Geocaching or Recreational profiles. The needle is locked to N-S permanently. Maybe the unit is defective. I am using 2.51 beta. When the compass is in Auto mode and I was in any of the profiles, unit will stay in "North Up" mode and refuse to show Track Up even though I set it to Track Up. I took it for geocaching and was struggling to make it change until I switched the Compass OFF. As soon as I put it back to Auto, I got the problem back. This is reproducable 100% of the time.

I read about the conditions that you mentioned and did precisely all of them - horizontal, recalibrated and was actually standing still as I know the unit will switch to using satellites when you exceed a specific speed. I was using it while walking.

I am not an addicted geocacher, but try to cache every new place I visit. Having said that and with the experience of using Garmin GPSrs for over 5 years now (starting with iQue-3600, GMXT, 60csx, Nuvi-370) and now 400t(which I purchased and used today), I must say that their dumbing down strategy which started with Nuvi is still continuing into this Colorado series. In the few hours of use that I put the unit thru today, here is what I found (my $0.02): Very good geocaching features compared to 60csx (adding the waypoint averaging feature will be great, but not very important to my use). The screen resolution is better and so they have used anti-aliasing fonts, but I am not a big fan of that. It has jazzed up the interface, but traversing the menus is non-intuitive. Wonder if they have lost the "usability engineer" in their organization. Resetting of brightness when powered ON and then having to dial it up is a pain (it was one single button press in 60csx as long as we didn't use 100% brightnes). LCD panel technologies are way ahead of what Garmin has used here. The screen gets smudge marks very easily. Battery life is terrible. Already on my 2nd set of batteries in one day. Most of the folks who use these stuff are very conscious of our environment and using a pile of batteries is not going to help it. Haven't been able to make the compass work so far. If I enable the compass, the Track Up mode always shows the North Up mode. Wierd. Have posted a thread on this to find out what I am doing stupidly. The way this consumes battey, we need a provision for a "battery bandolier" and having the crab mounted over the battery latch doesn't help in the quick loading of battery. Product Designer? Knock, knock, are you there? The screen reflects too easily and it is not easily readable. I have one of those USB power sources that has two USB type ports on a single car charger. I can connect upto two devices to it to draw power into any device (like my AT&T Tilt, Nuvi-370, etc.). When I connect that to 400t, it shows the "data-transfer" screen and doesn't allow me to use the unit as a GPSr at that time. Huh? I had received iQue-3600 in the first batch that Garmin shipped and it had problems, but not as many and as long as GMXT. After Nuvi-6xx and 3xx came out, we were all pining for the features of iQue-3600 as Garmin decided to "remove" features, not add/improve. Their later models of Nuvi has started showing up the features that they had removed. Looks like other than the Geocaching/Wherigo/fitness functions, the rest of this unit is a step backwards. Garmin, please get rid of the Product Mktg jokers that you currently have and bring back the ones you had earlier. And please employ a test team and not make your customers do all the testing. ---end of rant----

Today I purchased a Garmin Colorado 400t and took it for an afternoon walk and geocaching. First, it refused to "Track Up" no matter how many times I change the settings or whichever profile I choose or how many times I calibrate the compass. I am not a complete newbie to these things as I own a 60csx and have had ique-3600, GMXT, Nuvi-370. I loved the geocaching features, but not being able to track up flumoxed me. Finally, when I turned off the compass, I was able to track up! Is that the way it is supposed to work? I had downloaded 2.51 beta as soon as I purchased the GPS. And I had copied one pocket query .gpx file into the GPS with 50 caches. Nothing else. After that I have enabled the compass many times, but I never see it active in the "compass" page. I must be doing something incredibly stupid or this product has been released way ahead of thorough testing. I had similar experience with GMXT few years back. I poured over Scot's wiki site (Excellent site) to find a solution to my problem as well this forum, but I couldn't find a reference to this or maybe I missed it. Appreciate any suggestions. Thanks in advance.

Thanks for responding to my english post in the french forum. I can see that I am among friends. I am looking for a couple of simple caches near my hotel in Grenoble (Hotel Mercure Grenoble President). I have downloaded 100 caches (which is my standard pocket query config). But, I would like to stick to simple ones as the "lost in translation" may be too difficult for the complex multi-stage ones. Thanks a lot for your help, gperlier.

Hi, I don't know if this is possible at all. I am travelling to Grenoble next week and would love to hunts some caches while I am on my business trip. Is there a way to translate the caches as they are all in French and unfortunately, I don't understand french. Appreciate any help.

I used the macro from cron to export the POIs into a folder from GSAK. Now I need the icons which match these categories and that will appear correctly on my 60csx and Nuvi-370. Could someone please point me to the place where I can get them?

I have put it up on ebay for sale now....check out the link: On ebay

I want to sell my iQue- 3600 (which was replaced last year by Garmin after my original unit stopped working). It is in PERFECT working condition and it will have the following with it: iQue-3600 in original box, user manual, City Select NA v5 CDs and Setup CD Hotsync cradle and AC power supply City Navigator North America v8 DVD upgrade (Last year I had upgraded my CS to CN from Garmin) 2GB SD Card that was being used to store the maps, MP3 and the html database created by Plucker for geocaching. Bean Bag with the cradle and car charger with powered speaker from Garmin which they call the auto nav kit. Additional Garmin car charger with speaker and mounting cradle that I purchased and glued to a a better suction mount kit Gilsson Antenna Reradiating antenna so that you don't have to connect/disconnect the external antenna every time you mount/dismount the iQue from the cradle Enfora wireless portfolio for iQue that actually worked for me with a old version of the utility. It has a battery built in that charges the iQue as well. semi-hard case to hold the iQue from Tap-it. USB to iQue charge+communication retractable cable from Boxwave I have other licensed software on it like cachemate, Launcher-X, Backupman I have spent over US$1200 on this infatuation so far. I don't expect anyone to pay me that kind of money. However, if anyone makes me an offer that sounds attractive, I will not go to ebay. I go by the user name ssaibal on other forums (pdastreet and brighthand). If anyone is interested, they can send me a PM indicating the amount they want to offer. I will accept paypal only and after I receive the payment, I will ship the package. I will charge the shipping strictly at actuals. Will ship outside USA too.

Photomaniac, last year I upgraded my City Select NA v5 which came with my 3yr old iQue-3600 to City Navigator NA v8 for US$75. It wasn't a bad deal.

I want to buy Nuvi-350 as a gift for someone in UK. If I buy it here in USA, I get only the NA map preloaded whereas I want it with the Europe map preloaded. Amazon.co.uk is listing it for UKP 270 which is more than what we pay here in equivalent US$ for the NA version. Any suggestions for a trusted online source in UK/europe?

I made my friend buy one last week. He has taken it to Hawaii with him. He tried some geocaching near his home in Palo Alto, CA and he was impressed by the fact that the CN NA NT maps loaded on it showed the trail he was on. He had ordered the US Topo 2008, but it hadn't arrived before he left on vacation. I am waiting to hear his experience with auto nav and geocaching in Hawaii. Before buying that, we went to a store to look at the Magellan Crossover (2500T). The Topo map on it was a piece of junk.

That's awesome, Clyde! Just what I wanted.

My friend purchased the Nuvi-350 and he is happy that he is able to do geocaching as well with it even though it is an auto nav GPSr. I have always preferred the "paperless cache" route and so have used plucker and cachemate (on my iQue-3600) and now I export it is html pages from GSAK into my PPC phone. I have tested out the html2ipod utility which is really cool. However, my friend doesn't own any ipod or PDA. So, he wants to select a bunch of caches that he wants to hunt on a day, and take print outs along. What is the best method for doing that? I know I can use a filter to select the caches on GSAK. But, how can print them out (description, coordinates, last 5 logs, hints)?

This is discussed in great detail and interest on the brighthand forum for Garmin and a very resourceful gentleman wrote and published patches for the MG maps after which you will see the routing option gets enabled on MG. I have been able to patch my MG Europe v7 that way last year and have used it in two trips to UK and Germany. And that has worked perfectly (both auto-routing and geocaching). Search for Metroguide on brighthand forum. I paid just 30 UKP for the MG7 and that was much cheaper than buying the CN/CS Europe.

Thanks a ton for that info, Jim. I was doing it really the hard way.

Garmin/dealer was giving this excellent upgrade offer with trade-in and along with the other reasons as given by others, I thought it was a good bargain. And it will work in urban jungle as well like downtown Vancouver.