kayst

I like this site for mapping points - you can enter the coordinates in lots of different ways - Mapper

I hate the new maps. Slow, slow, slow, personalization is screwy - some caches have smiley some don't. Some have orange symbols which aren't in the legend so I don't even know what they are. Just hate it.

I really liked BeeLine GPS on my axim x50v. It's all I used for caching until I switched over to my android phone.

I've been using acme mapper http://mapper.acme.com/ to find lat/long coords. It works great and uses google maps.

The Android geocaching apps are fairly immature so perhaps you will find them better in time. Just curious, what features does BeeLine provide that you'd like to see in an Adroid app? (I'm not developing Android apps, just curious). I like to search for caches on the map page instead of the radar page and, except for the fact that BeeLine has no maps, its map page is great. It lets you zoom in really far and displays and saves the track you're making (rabbit trails), which lets me map out trails in parks so that when I go back to search for another cache I can use the trail for guidance. I've got saved kml/trk files for every major park I go to. It also has a readout at the bottom that you can configure to be just about anything you want - I use distance to cache, speed, bearing. You can also edit all the fields - location/notes/found logs. I guess mostly, it's that BeeLine does everything I want, and of the apps I've found, they all do just some of them, so I have to keep several and switch between them. I downloaded GeOrg today and took it out for a test drive. It does almost everything I need, including multiple cache databases and navigating in map mode. It got me close to GZ, but I had a hard time with the last few feet. Every app I had pointed a different direction to GZ. All were using the same gps/compass, so I'm pretty confused about why that would be. There are still a few things I wish GeOrg ahd: 1. On-road nav to a cache doesn't use Google Nav, so there's no voice navigation. On the other hand, it does show all the caches on the map, where apps that use Google Nav only show the 1 cache you're driving to, so that's a plus 2. It uses Google maps but for some reason doesn't support pinch to zoom. 3. It doesn't store/display tracks I think I've found my app. If I need to use voice nav to a cache I'll fire up GeoBeagle .

I've tried many of the apps currently available and just can't get excited about any of them. I want an app that works as close to the way BeeLine GPS does on my Win Mobile 2003 device. Am I the only one that used that program?

Well, I got my android phone and I've been trying all the free caching apps I can find. Haven't tried any of the paid ones yet because none of them have very detailed info and I don't want to pay for something I don't like. Anyway, I haven't found a single app that I really like so far. I did get MyTracks and record a track to My Maps. The layers in google maps work great, but the geocaching apps I've tried won't display them. I sure hope the official app comes out soon and does everything I want. This is becoming very annoying.

I haven't seen a geocaching app that leaves a rabbit trail but MyTracks works great for that purpose. You can run it in the background while using your favorite geocaching app. You can then save your track as a "My Map" in Google Maps to be viewed later. I'm thinking you can have it as a layer with geocaches in Google Maps but haven't attempted to do it. So, if I record a track to My Maps, then go back a few days later, I can have the saved map displayed while running Mytracks with new rabbit trails being created? I guess I'm not understanding if the saved map is a "live" map or just a saved image.

I'm getting my new android Incredible this week - my first smart-phone. Do any of the current android geocaching apps record your track? I currently use BeeLineGPS on a Dell Axim X50V, and since it doesn't have any maps, that's the only way I can find my way back out of the woods. How do normal people (those using real GPSrs instead of ancient windows mobile devices) find their way back to the car? I see that MyTracks will record a track, but will it show up on the same google map that caches show up on? Can I save the track file and reload it to use again on another trip? I'm excited to be getting a new toy to play with, but getting worried that all my techniques for geocaching will have to radically change. HELP!!!

I've been using BeeLineGPS with my Axim X50V since I started caching over a year ago. I keep thinking I should buy a Garmin handheld but I don't want to give up my big, readable screen and great database and paperless capabilities. The only thing I don't like about it is that if I want to see road maps I have to turn off BeeLine, switch to Iguidance to get oriented, then switch back to BeeLine. Once I'm on a trail tho, it's great. I have an extra battery for the axim and for my bluetooth receiver, so I can cache for around 10 hours with no problem. I can save tracks and waypoint databases on my CF card to be reused when I go back to a location. Entering coords by hand is easy, and BeeLineGPS imports gpx files from a pocket query. BeeLineGPS

Here is a cool tree where a flood has washed away the ground, revealing all the roots.

Thanks for everyone's responses. I guess it's what I was afraid of - some puzzles you have to figure out at home, some you can go to the posted coords and then have to figure out there, and for some there's really no easy way to tell which kind it is. I guess for now I'll just stick to the ones that make it clear which style it is.

Well, I wasn't really asking for help on that specific puzzle, just in general. If a puzzle doesn't say "coords are bogus" and the coords don't end in 000 can I assume that I should just go to the posted coords and start looking? And by the way, I've seen MP & the Holy Grail about a billion times!

On most puzzle caches it says "coordinates are bogus", which makes it clear that I have to figure out the puzzle before going out to find the cache. OK, that's pretty clear. Some puzzle caches tho, don't say that the coords are bogus, and don't have a clear puzzle on the page (see GC13665). Does this mean that the puzzle is something at the posted coords, or do I still need to try to find hidden coords on the cache page? Most of these puzzles just don't make any sense to me.

I've been mulling over whether to change from PDA-based geocaching to using a Garmin and have been reading these threads about using GSAK, etc to upload the waypoints to the Garmin. Can you just load a PQ GPX file directly onto your micro SD card and upload it to the Garmin or do you have to manipulate it first with GSAK?