Kohavis

The topic even has this bogus cacher's name in the title, and all the arguing is giving him what he wants - attention. The OP should have mentioned the problem in more general terms without throwing the spotlight on someone who would abuse the sport. I'm a forum admin myself, and one rule of running a forum is that you don't call attention directly to people like that. It feeds their egos and likely will create a situation where they'll try something even more outrageous next time - to "outdo" themselves. They thrive on this kind of thing.

I've got a new cache I'm about to hide, but I'm debating about the location. The location I found for it is a park a couple miles from home. Like most parks in New Mexico, it has only three trees and a park bench Maybe a little bit of an exaggeration, but not much. There aren't too many hiding places. The park is rarely busy on weekdays, so muggles will be at a minimum. But the problem is this: My first location choice is close to the edge of the park, and right across the residential street are houses. The nature of the hide is that it will take some time poking around to find it, and possibly the homeowners might spot the cacher. The name I've planned for the cache is a real groaner/play on words, and should be fun for whoever finds it. My second choice is towards the front of the park, with very little likelihood that the cacher will be seen. But it's an easier find. Maybe too easy. Possible what many here would call a "lame" hide. I don't want curious muggles watching a cacher poking around, then find the cache later and possibly disturb or take it. But on the other hand, a too-easy find isn't what I'm after either. Should I just scrap the location and find another, go with the clever hide, or the lame one. I'm really on the fence on this one.

If the bogus cacher mentioned in the OP is reading all this bickering, I'll bet he's laughing his butt off. Moderators - This thread needs to be ditched!

Thanks for the help RRLover. Maybe my question was confusing. My main question is: What exactly does the supplemental map add that the basemap doesn't already have? Is it greater detail/accuracy, more features, etc.?

Pardon my newbie question, but my first ever GPS unit is on the way. In the meantime I've been reading up on additional maps that are available, like Mapsource TOPO US 2008, Metroguide and City Navigator. I'm thoroughly confused now. The unit on the way is a Garmin eTrex Venture HC. It says it has a basemap. Is that available for real-time tracking mode (have the streets scroll past on the screen while the cursor remains centered)? And if I load additional maps, do they merely augment the existing map? What I'm looking for is a real-time display for when I'm using the GPSr for other than geocaching. Like a road trip we're planning. I figured I could use Mapsource to design and then download just the maps from my planned route to the unit, using the available 24MB memory the unit has. But if the unit already has a basemap, what's the point of adding maps? Garmin claims that the basemap can't be removed or replaced. I'm completely confused. Could a resident GPS sage help me out with this? Thanks

I agree. While it may not be spamming the climbing place, it might be seen that way.

In a cache I'm about to place, I went to Walgreen's and bought a Kodak single-use camera and added instructions for finders to take their own pics, and when full, I'll develop and post on the cache page I also am leaving a FTF prize since it's the only cache large enough. The other four I'm about to place are micros. I'm waiting for my first GPS unit to arrive. That's the reason for the delay

Probably for the same reason we call it "Jhissy Pinay" (JC Penney) Same here. Like when the weapon is pronounced "NEW-kyu-luhr" When my youngest son was small, he pronounced queue as "kwee" I explained it was pronounced like the letter "Q". He asked "Why does it have all those extra letters, then?" I couldn't answer him

Thanks mailgirl. That's a better deal than I got

It is great. What's amazing is how quickly time flies when you're out there hunting

I found a unit.

You're right about that, in most places. The same with cloud cover, and there's about 1 mile less atmosphere between us and the satellites. But just to the east of us is mountains, and on the other side is dense forest. I don't think I'll be going out that way after caches (there's about 500 caches within 7 miles or so of our house), but you never know. I'd hate to be limited. Especially when the price difference is so small. I do have a serial port, but I'd much prefer USB and its speed over serial. I think the Venture HC is becoming the obvious choice for me Thanks, briansnat

Too bad. DOH! If it was $99.99, I'd be ordering it right now

There is some confusion about model numbers, as briansnat pointed out here: No, I mean the Legend. The old blue one with monochrome screen and serial port. They go for about $65 used on E-bay. Here's the Garmin product page on it: https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=173 It worked very well for us, and my sister even powered it up and acquired satellites from the inside of a moving car. I don't like the serial port, and it seems to be a bit dated. But it's a nice, inexpensive beginner's unit. and here ... No, I mean the Venture HC. The color screen, high-sensitivity yellow job without the microSD port. Here's the product page at Garmin's site: https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=8707 I don't need the card reader, and I'm primarily seriously considering the Venture HC because of the better receiver, and the color screen and larger internal memory is nice for downloading something like Topo US 2008 maps. I like the fact that if I get this one, I won't have to upgrade again quite as soon as if I get a model like the plain eTrex or the eTrex H, or even the Legend. I like the mapping and waypoint features.

In good condition with manual, cable, etc. I can buy a new unit for $127 with free shipping, so it must be worth my while moneywise to go with a used unit. Anyone have one for a good price?

My sister ("Dittersfeet" on geocaching.com) was recently visiting from out of state. My youngest son just got married and both sisters flew out for it. My sister, Dittersfeet, is active in geocaching and she has described it to me in e-mails and on the phone. I started getting interested in July, and have posted here about GPSr units. I still don't have one, since I was waiting to see how I liked it when she came out for the wedding. Well ....we went out last week and found four using her eTrex Legend. My first actual find was the first of a two-stage cache - a magnetic disc with the coordinates of the second. I was excited! Too bad the coordinates were smudged and we got the wrong numbers for the second and had to give up after 25 minutes. But the other four caches that day were found with no problems aside from a little digging through a few bushes. One had a travel bug that came from Germany!! My sister took it back to Illinois to stash it in another cache there I think it's a great hobby - a good, healthy one that offers plenty of exercise, fresh air, scenery, and a sense of adventure, not unlike the Easter egg hunt my dad used to provide for us kids. As soon as I can find a good deal on a GPSr, I'll be joining the ranks and getting busy not only finding, but making up caches of my own. I'm debating whether to go with a Legend like hers (I really liked it), or a Venture HC, which I think is a great value, and has a more sensitive receiver. What a great activity!!!

I'll admit I have an engineer's mindset. I love specs, and I dislike it when they're left out, for whatever reason. Call me a geek - I've been called much worse So do I. I'm using the specs as a starting point, not a finishing point. I would never base a purchase solely on the stated receiver sensitivity. Real-world use always wins out over paper performance. But, that said, it would be handy to see a correlation between receiver sensitivity and user satisfaction, if there even is one. More information is always good, never bad First of all, thank you for replying. I appreciate it. I think you misunderstood, though. I was referring to the actual receiver within the handheld unit, not the overall unit. Strictly speaking, a receiver is a circuit that receives a signal, applies AGC if needed, then passes it along to the next stage. In the electronics world, it's not an accurate description to call a handheld a "receiver" because a complete handheld has an antenna, a receiver, a signal processing stage, a storage subsystem and memory, an overall microprocessor/controller, a display subsystem, and a power subsystem. My fault - I already knew that "GPS Receiver" is the term used for the entire handheld. I apologize for the confusion. Those are not "receiver" specs, strictly speaking. They're overall GPS handheld specs that reflect design features of the signal processor and the overall unit control logic. Again, my fault for confusing the issue. The reason I focused on the receiver (strict sense of the word) sensitivity is because that is the starting point. Without good sensitivity, you have nothing else, since it can't process what it doesn't have to begin with I'm not slamming any particular brand. I've heard a lot of good things about certain models of all 3 brands. I'm just trying to sort it all out. It's mind-boggling to see the variety of hardware out there. And most of it is so inexpensive, too. I remember the early GPS days when you had to spend a fortune for a single-channel, big, bulky unit, and it wasn't even portable like a handheld. You had to lash a big serial GPS mouse to your laptop @embra - Thanks for finding that. I did Garmin first, then Lowrance, then De Lorme. I admit by the time I got to De Lorme, I saw a pattern and was starting to skim a bit. A bad habit. I must have overlooked that spec. While it's not a full sensitivity spec, it's a lot more useful than nothing. It at least gives a comparison point. @Miragee - Thank you. Now that's the kind of recommendation I would look for after narrowing down my list a little. It's user feedback that will ultimately help me determine which one to buy Thanks, all. You guys are great!

I found this fact a little disturbing - The handheld GPS manufacturers don't publish the sensitivity specs for their handhelds. It's the same for Garmin, Lowrance, DeLorme, etc. I've even downloaded the manuals and SDK guides and foraged in the appendices for this bit of information. No luck. They use subjective terms like "High sensitivity" and give accuracy specs in meters, with and without WAAS. But the "specifications" sections on their websites don't list the most important spec of all - how well it acquires a signal I'm an engineer and I feel uncomfortable, and even suspicious when there is a glaring oversight like that made Other GPS products make this information openly known. For example - the $41 Navisys GR-300 SiRF III USB GPS Dongle for a laptop: Beautiful. Thank you! That tells me everything I need to know about the receiver. And this wasn't even at the manufacturer's website. This was at Semsons.com - an online vendor. It's in the description of the unit. http://www.semsons.com/nagrusbgpsdo.html How can I make an accurate comparison of different models, aside from the "gee whiz" bells and whistles, if I'm not provided with the cold, hard facts about how it performs? I'm new to geocaching, and maybe I'm missing something obvious. How did everyone else here pick their model? Am I making too much of this?

Thanks for the valuable advice. There's nothing like getting tips from people who have done it already @Matt - Thanks. I was hoping to avoid spending time, money and energy on something that wouldn't work very well. @shadefrog - Verizon charges $9.95 per month for their VZ Navigator, which according to my research would be almost useless for geocaching. Since Verizon locks the GPS chip for everything except their service, except for 911 calls of course, I would have to buy a separate Bluetooth GPS receiver ($40 - $80), either buy ($140) a separate application, or get a free one, coordinate my upcoming cell phone upgrade with the app that would be compatible ($0 - $100), hope that the app works well on my phone (not a given), and lug around not only the cell phone, but the receiver. Then I'd have to make sure the receiver is positioned so it gets the signal. It seems like a clunky approach to me. Cost: $40 to $180 and lots of effort to get it playing together. And this would be a non-optimum solution. @Wild Thing 73 and Miragee - Thank you Lots of good advice there @ao318 - Something I had not considered. Thank you Perhaps a policy of "Only buy used from E-bay". An added note - my sister has the Garmin eTrex Legend and she wishes she had bought an "H" model. She says tree cover and clouds disrupt her signal. While trees and clouds aren't a big issue here in the high desert, we do have forest areas and late summer is our rainy season, so cloud cover can be heavy at times. I'm leaning towards a handheld "H" model from Garmin, perhaps the Venture HC, but I will take the advice given here and look through a few profiles and see what others are using, before I commit to buying a unit. Again, thank you for taking the time to help out a complete geocaching noob

Thanks Matt. So in your opinion, going with something incorporated into the cell phone is a waste of time? This is the kind of advice I was looking for. I'd hate to invest time and money, only to find out that for geocaching it's pretty useless. I appreciate it

Hi. I just recently joined geocaching.com. My sister is an avid geocacher and she described it to me. It sounded like fun. She lives 1500 miles from me and at first I thought it might be just a fad in her area. Then I checked the website and found dozens of caches within a few miles of my house. WOW! It's really popular. So I might give it a try. She's visiting later this month and she already has two caches picked that she would like to find. I'll be going along and checking out the whole experience. But I'm being careful before I get started. I want equipment I won't feel I need to replace in one year because I've outgrown it. The way I see it, I have three options for my choice of GPS units: 1. Buy a handheld. I've looked over the E-bay listings and some online shops. The unit I would like is something along the lines of the Garmin eTrex Venture HC. 2. Utilize assisted GPS available on my cell phone. Geocache Navigator looks like it's perfect. The problem is, my cell carrier is switching us from Sprint (supported) to Verizon (not supported). That means using another third-party GPS app like GPSed. But from what I've read, the internal GPS chip is disabled by Verizon unless you subscribe to their VZ Navigator option, at $9.95/;month. I'm not interested because that's primarily for driving directions and locating the best pizza place or movie theater ...things I don't give a flying fig about. I'm just interested in getting GPS coordinates on the screen, and mapping if possible. 3. Use a Bluetooth external GPS unit with cell phone. They make receivers that go on key chains, mount to the back of the phone, or carry on your belt or in your pocket. Things get complicated here. The software has to be compatible with the phone, the GPS receiver does too, and both need to play well with a particular cell provider. This option gets expensive when you consider the phone cost, the receiver cost, and any software cost. Luckily the phone will be provided for free or for a low charge, and the software I'm looking at - GPSed, is free. But the receiver will cost about $40. The good thing is that they utilize from 20 to 54 satellites, so I imagine they're fairly accurate and fast. My head is spinning right now. I've spent several hours over the last few days researching my options, usually with eight or ten browser windows open. I thought I'd ask some real geocachers who are knowledgeable on the hardware side if they think I'm making it more complicated than it needs to be. Keep in mind that I'm a basic cell phone user. I throw it in the car when I leave, and have it in case of emergencies. That's about it. I use maybe 5 minutes at most per month. I would like having GPS for geocaching available on my cell phone because it's convenient. But if it's more trouble than it's worth to fashion a good, reliable system, I'll go with a handheld instead. Your advice is welcome, and requested