lil'hobo

I am getting excited to get back out on the bike again, especially after talking (writing?) about it. I didn't think I was missing any necessary goodies for the bike, but I thought I'd ask. The motor suggestion is a good idea. The ride back home always seems to be into the wind. I second the stealth factor. It seems I can act much more incognito with the bike than with my car. Thanks for all your input and encouragement, I'll check out the other post on bicycle caching too, not quite sure how I managed to miss that one.

While winter still has my area firmly in its grasp I will be taking some time soon to do some way overdue maintenance on my bicycle. I really enjoy caching on it, much more than by car. There are hundreds of caches within bicycling distance from me. My question to those who also like to cache on their bikes is: are there any special accessories you like for caching by bike, or any ideas/suggestions? Any must haves? I do have a handlebar mount for my gps and it works great. Thanks

Was a boy scout.

Bass Fisherman.

Great, thanks for the info!

I have a Venture HC and I noticed for the first time that on the satellite page in the indicator bars for each satellite, some will show a small d in the bar. Anyone know what that means? I read the manual but it was no help. I'm just curious what it signifies. Thanks

Well, this is cool. I am enjoying all the stories. It seems many geocachers stumble into this game on accident. And then it becomes an addiction! Thanks for sharing and keep 'em coming.

Over the holidays I had lots of relatives in town and the subject of hobbies came up and I told them about my newest, Geocaching. After explaining what it is (it's interesting how many people never heard of it) they asked how I got into it. Well, I found about it on accident, I was searching for an owners manual for my old Garmin GPS 12 on Garmin's website and I stumbled upon the term geocaching. After some investigation I wound up on Geocaching.com, created an account, found my first cache, and was hooked. So, how did all of you get get started in caching?

A Venture HC. I know there are much more sophisticated GPSrs out there, but I love it. Quite a jump up from my old GPS 12. Thanks Santa!

Yep, you're right on this, thanks. I just tried it and it works just like you all said. Thinking about it now it seems kind of obvious, I guess the thrill of a new toy kills common sense. Thanks again.

I have been customizing the different screens on my Venture HC and have found that in the data fields there are two choices for locations. The first one labeled "location (lat, lon)" is quite self explanatory, however, the second is labeled "location selected." What's the difference? If I set my data fields to those, each shows the exact same position. The reason I ask is because I would like to display the coords of a waypoint in conjunction with my actual location on the same screen. I thought that location selected would do that, but it doesn't. Thanks.

Maybe a little of topic, however, I too received a Venture Hc and I discovered how to turn on the WAAS, but where is the battery save off feature found? And what does turning it off do, such as does it more accurate in that function? (my coords are currently right on with some known spots) Thanks

Santa came through for me! I memorized the manual and I'm playing with all the different settings. What a difference from GPSr's from 10 plus years ago. This unit even gets a signal in my house, I am sure that some trees will cause no problems. Also, loading caches straight from the Geocaching.com site is instantaneous. How cool. Thanks everyone for your advice. (edited for spelling)

Well, I just got a Venture HC for Christmas (Yes!) and it has version 2.7 software in it and I was going to update to the 3.0 they have, but after reading this thread I'll wait to update mine. In fact, it hasn't displayed any of the problems the other updates claim to fix.

Oh, I am getting excited about the Venture HC now. The idea of it actually holding a position more accurately than my current GPSr is exciting. I mean, I appreciate the hunt of geocaching and don’t want an unfair advantage; however, any little bit helps. Chrysalides, thanks for the tips, I think the tip on adding my info to the start up page will definitely be used. Unfortunately, I have been known to lose a thing or two, but I am sure I’ll hang onto the Venture like gold. Also, cool ideas for how to organize the menus. GrnXnham, great tip on the screen saver cover (and Chrysalides too). I will certainly protect the screen, as I hope to use this unit for a long time to come. Being a broke grad student requires extreme frugality. As for the additional maps, it seems like everyone recommends at least some add-on to the base map. Cool pics, Coggins, are those what the topo series from garmin looks like? They seem quite detailed.

Santa’s bringing me a Venture HC for this holiday season and I am beyond excited about it. This will be my first experience with a modern GPSr. My current unit is a late 90’s Garmin GPS 12, which I love; however, it has many shortcomings, such as no base map, cannot download caches to it (I’m unwilling to spend money on cables for it), loses signal under light tree cover, etc. I have looked over the forums and this unit seems like a great step up, but I am dying to see some screen shots of the Venture HC in action. Garmin’s website doesn’t show enough. Anyone with screen shots that want to share would be appreciated, as well as any tips and tricks on using it too. Maybe it’ll tide me over till I get my new toy! Thanks!

I too use a Garmin GPS 12, and it works nice for me. While it does tend to lose some signal quality while under heavier tree cover, it gets me right to the cache (at least so far). The trick I found is that the guided "Goto" arrow screen will get you in the general area, however, not as close as you could be. To counter that I switch over the screen that has your actual postion, lat long etc, and the use those readings to get to the closest possible area to the caches coords. It will get you quite abit closer that just the guided screen. Well, that's my two cents, hope it helps and good luck caching!