JDandDD

My understanding is they won't. They are raster maps that require software such as Fugawi. You would need to convert them to Mapsource format. Ibycus has been converting Canadian govt Topo maps and might have some idea how to do it. You can get BlueChart Americas from Garmin which would work. JD

I second that Yay. Back to seeing some interesting nature. Yes!! JD

Not usually. That's why you have to do visual inspection. One good thing, is that they don 't normally bite and attach themselves immediately. They can be present for some period (I seem to remember 1 to 2 Hours, maybe longer) before they bite and imbed themselves. They don't infect until they do that. JD

Actually, that's one of the great misunderstandings, you don't technically own it, the crown owns it, that means the reigning monarch. Yes, its a technicality but in British common law, and that is the basis of all our laws, the crown bestows rights for our use of the land, we don't have any inherent rights. So we can only do what the crown, or the representatives of the crown (the government) decide we can do. And your two assumptions about an old fence post are not the only possiblities. The managers of the crown land may themselves have installed the fence for any number of reasons. My place of work was on crown land and there were lots of old derelict fences that were placed by the managers of the land (by the way they managed it for the crown). JD

Exactly, and the Premier's comments about GPS were not about banning them for use but were about people entering addresses while driving. There are too many being built-in to vehicles and too many advantages (as Northern Penguin has pointed out) for a total ban of GPSs to be done. Just musing's at this point. JD

Don't know whether this explains your issue because I'm not sure what weak signals means for sure but, one has to know what the satellite cluster overhead is really like. If they are all near the horizon at your location your GPS may not pick up all of them. But there has also been a recent problem with the entire 32 satellites. This week, #1, was taken off line completely. There are now only 31 active. I've noticed on the live tracking sites that that has actually been leaving a bit of a hole over North America during the afternoon in North America. As well, there have been a number of times that the status of 138 has changed from NPA (non-precision approach use only) to NM (not monitored) which means live but not really usable for WAAS. These changes have happen for periods of just a few minutes. However, all this combined could mean that there are times when signal reception is not quite the same, at least on the civilian channel we get to use. JD

Pretty sure its the map not the GPS. Both my Magellans and the Colorado have me walking on water here, the Great Lakes. Many shorelinies just aren't mapped that well and that's the map producers issue not Garmin's. Garmin buys the map info from places like Navteq, DMTI etc. JD

For the most part, I like the new maps. It would be better if there was one or maybe two more zoom out levels. Here in Ontario, it is often difficult to tell on the City view exactly where the cache is in the province. It was easy to zoom out on the Yahoo maps to see that and the small map also provided a better idea of that. JD

Surprising length of time really. I downloaded the entire thing in 51 minutes on DSL. and yes I have the entire map set. JD

Actually, the fastest and best way to do this is to download the Garmin Colorado Export macro from the Gsak forum page. Its really easy to use, lets you select which and caches to send to the Colorado (using filters and/or user flags). Just run the macro, and it places the caches in the correct location on your Colorado with coords, description, hint, and past logs. JD

That sounds like a good idea. I think the idea behind profiles is so you can have different settings for different activities and geographical areas so a lot of things shouldn 't be global, but yes, I agree, there are some that should be and others that should give you the option of global activation or not. JD

Don't really agree with that. There are those of us who cross time zones with some regularity. Its nice to have a profile that is setup for the home time zone and one for the away time zone. For me its a feature, not a bug. JD

I generally agree with you but sometimes you get surprised. I just received 2 find notices and 1 dnf on three of my caches that I would have said were impossible for the reasons you said. However, for whatever reasons the two that were found turned out to be in spots that for some reason didn't get all that badly covered. Yes I checked because I was surprised. I've also found a couple of caches that others couldn't in deep snow. It was a real sense of accomplishment. So even there, its difficult to lay down a hard and fast rule about this issue or any other for that matter. It really comes down to the fact that the placer makes their best subjective judgement when making decisions about difficulty/terrain ratings and what attributes to assign to a cache. Sometimes they will be right and sometimes they will be wrong. I think the best we can hope for is that we will find some in the winter and will have some dnf's. Now that I'm mostly through my fifth year of winter caching its clear to me that dnf's in winter are part of the game and not all winter available caches will be. JD

I have been watching this question with interest and wonder how you got a Britsh Grid answer for a location in Canada. The British National Grid system only works in Great Britain. The system uses standard easting and northing positions in Great Britain and measures the positive number of meters from thsoe spots, just like UTM is all positive. That's why you can't transform back because you have been using coords outside of the working range of BNG. Also, its based on the ETRS89 datum not WGS84 (the gps standard). By the way, take some coordinates in Great Britain, use the Ordinance Survey convereter, and it will convert back and forth correctly. Coords outside of Great Britain, nothing. JD

I think winter available has to be interpreted carefully. This year is NOT a normal snow year. I have a few caches (yes some in Tiny) that in most years ARE winter available. But not this year. In the 5 years I've cached, this is the first in which those caches of mine are a problem but then snow depths are way deeper than before. I would disable them temporarily, but that isn't considered appropriate now so I don't. So, in my estimation, winter avavilable has to be interpreted in terms of a typical winter, not a year of record snow. Also, just because something is winter available should not be interpreted as meaning that you won't have to move some snow. I mean, snow can collect anywhere and be blown in anywhere depending on the winds. So, I don't interpret it as meaning I can get at a cache without some difficulty. I interpret it as meaning that I have a better chance to find it than one marked Not Winter Available but it still may be hard to find depending on the conditions. Its also no disgrace to not find one in winter. A greater number of DNF's is one of the expectations of winter caching. Go out, enjoy the day, and accept a miss or two as part of the game. JD

This is an example of the things that are starting to cause some bad feelings in the geocaching community recently, certainly heard at get togethers and offline. The law is laid down but no rationale is given. So, the question, why would that be against the guidelines? The Canadian site requires registration but does not have any cost involved. So what is the rationale of the guideline that makes it such a bad thing? Also, I wast part of the thread you mentioned and the issue of this being against the listing guidelines was never mentioned even thought Elias and Jeremy were part of that discussion and Jeremy had agreement with some of my points. This raises the questions of is this really against the guidelines and why wasn't that pointed out before? I think most of us are very understanding when given the rationale to guidelines and decisions resulting from them but also expect some consistency in their application. JD

I also live outside the US and would say that the 300 is really the only choice for people outside of the US. The real difference is that the 400 series come with builtin US maps and the 300 doesn't. You would be paying for a map you wouldn't likely use. The 300 has all the same functionality and is really intended for the rest of the worlders like us. JD

The Waymarking Canadian Benchmark page also has the links to the Canadian benchmark database which has listings of all benchmarks in Canada. JD

Had been winter caching up to the beginning of Feb but now the snow has become impossible here on the southern tip of Georgian Bay (Ontario). We are now over 10ft of snow for the year and snow depths are way beyond being able to poke with a stick. Don't normally hibernate but this would be the year. JD

Hmm, I think the location of shipbuilding yard and the location of the bridge both qualify as geography. Hmm, Collingwood and Jonqueire are both in the list of Geographical Names of Canada database of National Resources Canada, so that's geography isn't it? And asking where the boat launching and where the bridge are located are questions about geography then aren't they? So, how were these off topic? Besides, seems like people enjoyed the questions from what I read. Wasn't that the real point? Oh well, I guess I'll just get out of this thread so I don't make another mistake. edited to add: Port Morien is also in the Geographical Names database and the question was also a where question so also geography. JD

All of my FTFs have been accidental, never really tried because its just another cache to me. A new cacher has come along in our area this year who gets all of the FTFs now because they have a Blackberry (I think or a Treo) and get notified before any of the rest of us who don't so its not a competition either (yes its a small area with about 7 caching teams total). Not sure what the point is for rushing to get them under those circumstances but he enjoys it. That's just the way it goes. JD

You got it lewis82, now its your turn. Great picture of the bridge! The bridge was apparently built by Alcan to demonstrate the strength of aluminum. JD

Thanks for the link to Port MOrien page. That is the plaque as I remember it. On to the next question: Where was the first aluminum bridge in the world built? JD

Nope, not fooled knew this one from being in scouts as a kid and thus going to see the place when we last visited Cape Breton. Its Port Morien in Cape Breton and founded in 1908. Nice plaque and sign about it as I remember. JD

Allow the Menu link.