Grimmy

Might want to read the fine print. Verizon slanted their speeds. the DOWNLOAD speed are about 100k in a good coverage area near a major city but the uploads are around 14.4k. Edge is supose to run around 100k down load and 60k upload. Currnet platform that most companies will kick back to is what you have now on GSM. In rural areas expect 56K max down load on a good day. 24k on average. It will get better and do it in a hurry.

WELCOME TO THE LIBRAL MEDIA. Lets sensationalize and write in a durgotory way to make more waves. Jerks. Ask any of the Offroad people on here that Cache. We are pretty use to this sort of junk out of the media. To hell with the facts lets take a slanted libral veiw and see if we can start a fight.

I work in the Wireless industry and I will be traveling some in the years to come. I'm also a avid off road nut but my trail truck will have to stay home for now. I'm currenty outfitting a tow rig for our 1959 Airstream we are restoring. It will be equipped with a laptop for navigation and that was the final justification for getting my GPS in the first place. It will also be plugged int o the ASDL port on the tow rig so I can real time the engine managment system and hopefully catch problems when they are small. Anyway back to the on the road internet. All of the major carriers are headed towards data avialablitlity on their systems. I happen to work for Cingular but AT&T as well as T-Mobile run simular technology. What will be avalable is a PCMIC card that will function as a modem. Right now you can get 56K reliably in most coverage areas. A new Data protocall called "EDGE". Depending on system use and distance from the towers you could run at 100k speeds. There are also phones that can be hooked to your laptop by cable, Inferred or Bluetooth already on the market. THe Nokia 6800 being Edge equipped. There are also many things like the Treo, Nokia 9000 series etc that have full internet access. The sweet thing about these products is you only have to have a single acct with your carrier. In the case of the PCMIC card you would take the SIM out of your phone and put it in the card to be in buisness on the computer. Hit some of the manufacture web pages like www.nokiausa.com and check out some of the stuff available. Here is the 9290 Nokia. This is a full blown computer capable of running CE programs and Smart cards for storage. Full internet access. It's a little bulky but it does it all.

GeckoGeek: Yeah I am kind of narrow in what I'm looking at I supose. I run a repair shop for a Major US wireless carrier. I have a lot of dealing with the clueless that do stupid things like leave their phone plugged into a Cig plug for a month. Charge every nite even if it shows a for nearly full charge. A quality charger for the average products I deal with out there is non existant. Most come with a trickle charger. The ones that don't have inferior rapid chargers that beat the snot out of the batteries. Most batteries for phones are multi cell and subjected to the problems you pointed out. Most Cig chargers are cheap junk that charge WAY too fast and are not regulated in any way. As a result I see a LOT more problems with rapid chargers and Cig chargers then I ever do on the home trickle charger. The difference is we are talking about people that are clueless to how things work. They plug it in till they tear it up then they come to me and complain about how bad the product performs.

I'm using a set up that is branded Xtreme that I picked up from Batteries Plus. I have seen this same charger with several brand names on it including Energizer. Also picked up 8 NiMh 2200ma batteries for around $45 out the door. I'm happy with them. They give me about a weeks worth of use between charges on both my digital camera and my V. In the grand scheme of things a PROPERLY treated NiCad will have a longer useful life time then NiMh or LiIon or LiPolymer. The key here is the "Properly Treated" part. That means the battery is properly formed when it';s first put into service. That basicly means full charge and full discharge the first three charges this applies to NiMh as well). If the NiCad is fully discharged and fully charged each cycle it will be better The problem is nobody does that. Your always worried about running out of Juice so they get partly discharged and you throw them on the charger. This forms a memory and if not conditioned this memory will be perment. In comes NiMh. It does not have as many potential charge cycles as NiCad BUT is is not nearly as prone to "Memory" as the NiCad. You can form a Memory if your repetative enough in poor charge habbits. Li Ion batteries have no memory as long as they are formed the first few charges. They howver have up to 40% less available charge cycles over a NiCad. In real world use by the average consumer they have better luck with the Li batteries so they are percieved as "better than". I personnaly don't like rapid charging. Most rapid chargers do not give the battery a full charge. A good charger will but your talking a lot more cash for a battery that monitors Delta V and resitance and adjusts it's charge rate to accomidate. A slow over night trickle charge in most instances is a better charge and you will get more use out of the battery in both over all life and how long the charge will last. Fast charging just boils the chemicals out. I recomend to my customers to use cig charges as an emergency item and not a primary charger. People who listen to that advice usualy get 2-2.5 years of usefull life out of the batteries. Those that don't listen are usualy on their second battery at about 13-17 months. Most people don't realize that there is only 3 main battery manufactures in the world. There are smaller manufactures but I'm talking companies that Supply cells for Energizer, Duracel etc. They make over 80% of the Materials for batteries sold each year. They build to spec for Energizer, Duracel, Radio shack etc. So yes your getting a different battery but it's still manufactured by one of the 3. They will adjust the amount and quality of the chemicals and purity of the metals used and this effects the cost of manufacture. So yes you are getting a better battery when you buy Duracel over a Radio shack branded battery and the price reflects that.

I intentionally don't own a car with Airbags. My wife is 5ft tall and because of her seating possition so close to the wheel it greatly increases her chance of injury or death. The latest trend with airbags is eye injuries if you dont get your arms and wrists broken. It happens so fast that people don't get their eyes closed. The surface of the airbage is rather rough and acts like sand paper to the cornia. Have you ever seen a bag go off? I have deotnated a few. My buddy was in Warranty parts testing for a Auto Manufacture. If the Airbag trouble light went of this manufacture replaced the airbags. He would bring those bags home and we would detontate them. The wheel bags have a steel backing plate. They weigh about 8lb. We had to retrieve them off the roof of his house a few time.....His 2 story house. They sound like a M80 going off and that's not far from what they are. They use the same propelent used in the solid rocket boosters for the space shuttle. You must understand that Airbags were designed to protect a UNBELTED person 5'6" tall and 160lb. It can and has killed belted drivers that are of short stature and weigh around 100lb (like my wife). I believe in belts and I believe airbags should be an OPTION. Then I'll buy a new car when I don't have to pay $2k for a device I don't want. Till then I'll just pay cash for older cars that are either disposable or worth dropping an engine in when I wear them out. Reguardless it was good that this information was posted. It is important to understand that airbages can create projectils of anything on the dash. I install Car phones and the location of the phone is something I do have to concider the airbags. Fortunatly there are several companies that sell specialized mounts that locate the equipment out of the way of the bags.

Hmmmm Good idea and does leave someone over their head if your not getting anywhere. How about a data base of places that approved and the contact for that area that people could print off. Present that to any Park/FS/ BLM person you approch for permission. It would give them somebody to contact that does the same job as they do and can share first hand knowledge on their level.

ju66l3r Point taken and yes you are correct, it is not cut and dry. I'm actually pretty hot under the collar about anti access junk. I didn't think I was going to get involved in any of it with Geocaching. In fact I was looking for something else to do to get away from this sort of junk for a while. I have about 6 years of dealings with the FS and working on stuff like the 10 year revision for the Chattahoochee-Oconee forests in GA. I have been involved in battles with the anti Access groups that are the primary group that is going to cause you issue. I also have some dealings with Nantahala in sw NC. I'm the past land use person for the 4x4 club I am a member of. My club is very involved in things like Adopt a Trail program. We are the primary group that maintains Beasley Knob OHV and we help out with several other areas including Tellico in NC. The FS/BLM/Parks service has evolved and not for the better. Their original intent was to manage the resources for the betterment of the US and to provide recreactional oprotunites to the American public. Now there is a good many FS people that work towards just the oposite goal and limit access and are involved with groups that bring frivolus lawsuits against the FS/BLM and local governments that cost this country billions of dollars each year and have put millions of Americans out of jobs and caused a lot of our money to go out of the country to places that the land is available and they are welcomed buy the governments instead of taxed out and hassled by special interst groups. As a very large example, These are the people to thank for the LACK of resource managment in places such as California and the result manifests itself in the fires they have had. It is normal for the forest to burn however if man wasn't here they would burn much more often and never get to the point of having that much fuel to get that far out of hand. Man will not let the "Normal" fires happen because of the threat to human life and property. Well that material is still there and needs regular controled burns and harvesting of overgrown areas that suscumbe to disease and insect infestation to keep exactly what just happend in CA from happening. But cutting down a tree even if it's dying or overgrown is fought tooth and nail by the GAG's. Sorry but I am 10 times the steward of the land as 99% of the people involved in these groups. I give my time, energy, resources and hard earned dollars to keep the areas I use open. What you are atempting to do and the way your are approching it is admiral and of sound reasoning. Unfortunatly the government entity your dealing with does not subscribe to the same principles of common sense and ability to come to a reasonable middle ground. As I pointed out, Many of our civil employees work against access and atempt to limit use. Good luck and you have my suport 100%. Get some letter campaigns going to hammer on our elected officials and get some concideration for use of OUR forests at a federal level. That will blanket all forests and limit the amount of little people you have to deal with. Take note at the sneaky way the GAGs have managed to slide things under everybody's noses before they relized what was happening. Make sure peopl understand the "Not going to happen here" people relize that it is going to happen here and they will get the shaft as a result if they don't show suport by showing up and contacting their appointed government representatatives. When dealing with the and elected officials, be sure to point out the money your spending. Politicians like money being spent and improving the local economy of their area. If the people that live in the areas they represent our happy they get to keep thier jobs. Money makes people happy. Use examples of your spending in areas that you normaly would not visit and wouldn't be able spend if locked out. Stuff like Fuel, meals, parking fee's do make a big impact on local economy's. Off my Soap Box. Grimmy

There are a BUNCH of Org's that are already doing this. They all promote MULTIPLE USE. Most are vehicle travel but a lot of them also include Equestrian and mountin bikers (they are targed by groups like ELF, sierra club and other anti access groups. The biggest would be United www.ufwda.org They have a full time lawyer that interpets new bills and how they would effect the public. Carla Boucher, The lawyer has compiled a book called Land owners users manual or something like that. It appears they have been sold out and no longer available. It basicly tells how to handle many access problems and much of that would apply here. Here is a very good person to contact. http://www.delalbright.com/ruleworld.htm Del's main objective is keep the Rubicon open but what he's doing is going to apply to Geocaching. http://www.fmdac.com/ would be a good one to read. It's linked oof of Del's site but they are in the same boat with access being blocked. Another excelent group to hook up with would be Blueribbion Coalition http://www.sharetrails.org/ Again a excelent group promoting multiple use and fighting for access rights to public land. And http://www.treadlightly.org/ Tread Lightly is another group promoting responsible multiple use. Any of the above groups can offer help on how to protect access rights and would also be excepting of the Caching groups. SEMA (Yep the auto thing) is a big access/ multiple use suporter http://www.sema.org

I have had some dealing with access and legalities of the "use" and how the area is managed. First thing to point out that will help explain the apithetic return that didn't take the time to finding out what GeoCaching is. If you used a generic e-mail like Info@fs.gov There is no telling who is going to answer that. There is the very strong possibility that your going to get a droan. It may not even be a Office droan in the same state that ever set foot in the area your asking about. They may well be at the head office in Atlanta. The point is take the time to Find the person/s who work that park and send any questions directly to them. Now my next point is it's PUBLIC property. As long as this is not causing damage to sensetive areas there is no reason that it should be banned. It should be embraced because it brings visitors and it may generate revenue in the form of entry and parking fee's. Those dollars usualy go directly into that area. There is a BIG problem right now with the FS, BLM and parks service. It has been forgotten that these are public property. Many FS,BLM and Park personel Are affilited with GAG's that bring endless garbage lawsuits that cost tax payers money and lock the public out of public lands. While I have no problem with areas being protected that are sensative, a city park is not one of them. Stay out of the flower beds and don't disturb others and there should be no problem. Where there is concern with human impact needs to be and is listed. They have no right in telling you you can't enjoy the park/area in the way that you chose as long as it's not bothering others, altering the property or against the law needs to be fired. GO OVER THEIR HEAD. I'm a firm believer in "What they do not know does not hurt them Do you ask permission to play catch in the park? Do you ask permission to jog in the park? Why do you need permission to play hide and seak? Don't bring attention to yourself. If your asked....Explain the game and show them a cache and what it's about. Point out your just there having some fun at the park with others. They give you anyproblems. Go over their head and write your reps and tell them that your being discriminated against. Hell anybody can write a bill and submit it to be a law. How the heck do you think we got the laws that actually have some common sense behind them? It sure wasn't the goof ball butt smootcher we elected I can guarantee that. Half the stuff that has a reps name on it they don't even know about it. They are on a commity that handles bills of that type so their name got put on it. Most things they don't get much info on till about 10- minutes-2 hours before they are supose to vote on it. Their assistant fills them in on it and most of the time makes a recomendation as to how they should vote. That recomendation may be a reflection of letters from voters on that bill and what they think of it. Serious that's how our Government works. I had a Rep tell me that when the local clubs fought a bill in GA that would have effected some auto hobbiests. We were hammering the guy who's name was on it with letters and if we had not done that he would have not know what had his name on it till time to present it to the others and vote or table it. Turns out some group that doesn't like people to be individuals and express that in what they drive that thinks everybody should be driving Saturns (No offense to Saturn drivers ment) submitted the bill. Back to the cache. If this ever made it to court as long as you were being sensetive to your surounding it will probably get thrown out of court. Think about it and what they would attempt to charge you with. Judge: What were you doing? Cacher: playing Hi Tech hide and seak and enjoying a public park. Judge to FS/BLM/PAR person that brought charge: what did they do wrong? "They were hiding things to be found by others"....that would go over well with a judge. That's the point of hide and seak. Tresspassing? Uhhh it's a public park/property, you own just as much of it as any other US Citizen and you have as much of rite to be there as anybody else that is using the area as long as your not bothering others. Littering by leaving a cache? Come on the point is to find it. That means it's hidden from veiw and only those playing will ever know it's there. Who is it hurting? There is nothing you can be charged with that would really stick as long as it's in appropriate areas. If it's a heavy used area then that point is mute. Don't step on the horney toad and wear a hat so the spotted owl doesn't crap on your head. Ohh for the record....Most Parks/FS/BLM people have no enforcement ability. They have a acutal enforcement groups that are for the most part Police. Most parks people cannot detain you. How do I know? Because some of the other goups I am alingned with that volenteer to maintain a couple public parks have tried to get enforcement in those parks to try to curb some illlegal dumping, vandalisim and trail blazing. The "Enforcement" people were bassed 1-2 hours away depending on who was on duty. The local ranger point blank told us he has no enforcement autorization. To get the enforcement to make that drive takes a murder. They are useless. In the one place we do see enforcement all they do is hassle people to write tickets to generate revenue. The park is in one state but it borders another. The FS people from the bordered state sets check points at the state line and hassle people as they attempt to cross the state line into the park. Only time we see the FS people from the state the park is in is when somebody is hurt or has rolled a vehicle on the main road. Serious! 5 weekends in a row theifs broke into the day use pay boxs and cleaned them out. Understand that this took a cutting torch to do because the pay box was a 8 inch diameter pipe set into a concrete footer. They could't be bothered to be out there trying to catch these knuckle heads. This area is a $5 a day parking and see's a hundred or more people a day on the weekends and sometimes more if there is a large event. Please excuse the spelling and gramerical errors.

Hummers are worthless except in the desert. To wide and they drive like crap. The brakes are inboard so when you come to a moderate quick stop the truck feels like it goes forward a couple feet and then bounces back like it's hooked to a rubber band. The fact is it acutually is doing it and the older they get the worse it gets. It is driveline slop through portal hubs and CV's. We had a couple show up at a local 4x4 event. One left on a roll back when he granded a Hub assembly and both took HEAVY body damage including about ripping a D piller on a wagon clean off. Same spot these too guys trashed their trucks I walked in My 75 Jimmy I paid $1 for.. If I was going to go with a vehicle that took up that much realestate I'd get a Unimog 416 or U1300. At least it would be usefull if I needed to haul something big or heavy. They can be picked up used from anywere from $7500 for a retired swedish Military 404 to a 100K camper conversion or a Dakar Ralley mog. From places like this. http://www.eurotruck-importers.com Cheaper if you buy from a private owner. I know the guy that use to own the Silver Streak mog. Cool Centurian. I'd keep ahold of that. They are getting pretty rare. A friend has one he pulls his trail truck with. He out ran me in the hills one day while i was in my trail truck. The real insult is he had a EB Bronco with 1 ton running gear on a very heavy trailer. LOL Did you have the tailgate problem yet? To build such a unique truck and then skimp on some rust prevetive stuff.

I repair Wireless phones for a living. What you ask for is not far off. There is a big push to require that Phones report their location for 911 (Big Brother at it's best). I susbscribe to the old Addage "Jack of all trades, Master of none". To pack that much junk into a small portable chassis there will be comprimizes.

A buying tip that is 3 for three with me and saved me over $400. Find the model you want. Then goto www.dealtime.com and search for it. You will get a list of prices. My V lists for $499 when I bought it. Circuit city had it for $404 after rebate Garmin was offering. I found a place on dealtime.com that had it for $402 BEFORE $75 rebate. I printed that and too it to Circuit City and made them price match. After rebate I ended up paying $335. I did the exact same thing for my Olympus Dig camera and my Sony Video cam. The Sony I really scored on. It was a discontinued model. So there was several online places blowing it out. It was cosmetic changes to the new model...EXACT same features and specs. Most places had it for $399 that had it in stock. I ended up walking out of the store (*Target) for $250. Same exact deal with the Olympus camera. Discontinued model. Found a place online blowing it out....Printed it and saved $100 (Target again).

well so far I have done 100% alone but I have just started this and only looked for 4 and found 1. I have been trying to hit some near my work at lunch and usualy run out of time and have to get back to the office. I plan to take my 11year old on the weekends and hopefully my wife and 3 year old. There are a few I plan to hit near our house that will be easy so they can get a feel for it. I'm having fun with it. I hope they do and in our travels camping we will have this to do in new places.

One of the reasons I bought the Unit I have (GPSV) is the antenna jack. THe signal is not going to go through that sheet metal roof. This system is line of site and if anything conductive it can't pennetrate. It won't go through the glass on most sunroofs because of the UV tint. Being under the roof is only going to alow the receiver to get 50% of the available sky. I run a Mag mount so it can go car to car. With it I don't have any issue of not staying locked. I can put the unit where it's easy for me to read. It on my dash about 6 inches from my right hand. That lets me look at it without having to take my eyes to far off the road. I am really happy with my GPSV. It has performed well for the way I use it. It's great for my directionaly challanged wife. I can program her destination and hand it to her so she doesn't get lost. It will tell her turn by turn how to get where she is going. It's great in the car and I really like the Mapsource CD it came with. Loaded the areas I travel into it and not only does it show thwe street I'm on it shows things like resturants, gas, local attraction etc. It might be a little heavy and combersome for bike riding and I don't know if there is a mount for that application.

Thanks prime for helping me out. I did some more playing to see what results I would get. I went back to the same place I had issues this afternoon. Drove around till I got as close to the point (distance too reading) as I could. I was still over 100ft away. I guess that must be 100ft up or down because no matter what direction I headed from that point it told me I was traveling away from the target. I then went to where it showed on the map the location of the cache that was 225ft south. Zomed in to 20ft range. I was showing accuracy within 10ft. Unit showed the cashe was about 25ft away. I walked to 15ft to what I thought would be a good hiding spot and found the cache. I figure the person who hid the Cache set their GPSr right on the end of the object that the cache was hid. I hit a second cache and simular results but less distance off. So I guess I answered my own question. The map it displays is just about dead on and drops me withing 20ft of the location that the owner of the cache listed. It is still throwing me the logic that the GPS is using. I guess it's the map, like you said, and the direction/distance it refferences off of something that the map does not refference. That's what throws me I guess. It shows me (map) the correct information but it doesn't tell me (distance and direction) correct information.

Where is the unit mounted? Where is the antenna? Were you carrying the unit with you when you located the Cashe? The roof of the vehicle really throws off the accuracy if your using the antenna on the GPSr. It cuts off at least half the potential satalites it can use I bet the unit was out from under the roof when you located the Cashe. After getting a mag mount GPS antenna and throwing it up on the roof I rarely see the curser off the road. Without that antenna my GPSV acts the same as you describe. Even with WAAS off it stays put at 300ft range with the external antenna. The suction cup antennas up on the window help but still not as good as geetting the antenna where it can have clear line of site 360degrees.

Ok I'm new to the Geo world. I have had my GPS for 8 months. TIll now I was never doing things that required any sort of accuracy. Just locations and letting it lead. Most of the time it's telling me I have around 10ft of accuracy. Now I am confuesed about what I should trust because my GPSr gives me conflicting information at under 300ft. I understand about Drift and I'm not looking down to the foot. I know there will be 20 ft off regularly and I'm doing good at that point. So don't need to pound me on over optimystic about sensativity. I tried to search but did not come up with anything like the problem I am having. Just the "it's not getting me within 2 inches posts and WAAS or no WAAS. I have a GPS V and I am running it on a Antennex Mag mount antenna. It's on the roof of a Suburban. I show great signal unless I have a physical obstruction like trees or a bridge etc. What I have been doing is loading in the location of the cashe in the "Find" feature and hitting GOTO and letting the GPS guide me. Now twice I have had the map show I'm right on top of the Cache but the directions are telling me where I need to go and telling me I'm over 200ft away from the cashe. First time I this happend I went back later in the day and they both seemed to agree. Last wrong reading I tried turing WAAS off and on and it did not effect it a great deal. Well 200ft feet can really thow you off. What reading is more trustworthy? The Map or the Distance too? Thanks in advance

I'm just getting started with this but a ton in Atlanta Metro. Some other things to do like visit the Coke stuff downtown, Sci Trek, Fernbank and a few other things. Within 10 miles of my Zipcode (30066) I have 75 or more Caches. Personnaly I would head south to FL this time of the year. THis is when Atlant starts getting the real cold weather.