Archer4
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Posts posted by Archer4
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Does this mean my family will be safe to eat the wild mushrooms I pick from now on?
No, but you'll have an excuse/alibi*
*Please delete as applicable
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Our youngsters spotted an interesting spotted feather on the way to a cache t'other day. identification eluded me
but I'd heard about an Open University nature identification/sharing website on Radio 4 and tried it out tonight...Quick easy registration, upload a photo, reply with identification and second confirmation in less than 20 mins
Neat
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I've done a few at silly o'clock and would agree with all of the above - especially the spare torch bit! A head torch and a big hand Maglite work for me but you can't beat a frosty night and a decent moon when you might only need the torch to sign the log
If you're going by moonlight then only check the PDA display with one eye - you'll keep night vision in the other that way, it can take a while to get enough back to watch your feet otherwise.
Keep all of your pockets zipped up - you'd hate to drop your car keys or anything else crouching down or climbing a stile etc and watch where you put things down at GZ, or preferably keep them on you.
Take the cache sheets even if you don't need them. I haven't met the boys in blue yet but I'm sure they'd be amused at someone with a silly reason but suspicious of someone who felt like a walk in the dark.
As above, Harry the mad axe man isn't going to be sitting in the middle of a wood waiting for custom. Having said that, if you're walking with the head torch lit and shining in his eyes then hopefully the big unlit Maglite in your hand would come as a surprise
Watch your eyes. Low branches and thornbushes can be tricky in the dark. I've been known to wear clear cycling glasses in the woods at night after a couple of near misses.
Mrs Archer 4 always knows where I am going, a dropped phone and broken ankle in a wood in January wouldn't be much fun.
(I like the idea of a light to get you back on the path BTW)
Things scurry. You're bigger than them.
Take a change of underwear in case a Barn Owl kicks off as you pass its tree. Been there and it sounds like someone having their throat ripped out in the bushes behind you. Nearly brought a whole new meaning to marking a waypoint
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I'll be straight on to ebay for that sextant.
You will also need:
1. Experience in removing or minimising the errors in the sextant
2. Nautical Almanac Data
3. Sight reduction tables
4. Nories Tables (or equivalent) if you are not going to use sight reduction tables
5. A highly accurate watch chronometer
6. A mercury bath to create an artificial horizon
7. Knowledge of navigation for using a sextant.
That'd be easier than a lot of his previous ones
We were hoping to start your Manchester Invasion Multi today (it's going to take a while at toddler speed
) but didn't get out of the Lowry soon enough. I'd printed out the bumph last night and as well as the GSAK street level map I also found that there was an A-Z map demo with my copy of Memory Map which happens to exactly cover the area. The waypoints are flagged differently on each so it'll be interesting to see which, if either match up with GZ... -
Wow - seriously impressive stuff
Nice to see you can rack up the numbers while still putting in the quality - we met you (hobbling) around a particularly evil aRRKS cache (tautology!) that took about 3 hours for one find - hope the other 3999 were easier and less painful - but as good
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Me too to the Aquapac - I've seen an Otterbox in use and went for the Aquapac on the grounds of cost and weight as I didn't feel the need for it to be rugged, just waterproof. You would be able to manipulate your iPaq around in it and so access all buttons and I've literally held it underwater in the bath (and been walking with it in the Lakes - a sterner test!) It is waterproof, but you can't park your car on top of it
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I was wondering how good they are? & if anyone had one for the same model we have. I looked on the Otterbox site and saw thier fitting guide but our model is not mentioned. I dont obviuosly want to buy one if its no good.
Just one more thing the power button for our Ipaq is on the side can these be turned on/off while inside the otterbox or does it have to be removed.
Chris
Otterboxes are considered to be pretty much bombproof & state of the art...
Haven't handled a 5720 but have had two other iPaqs both of which would switch on by pressing any of the software buttons on the front - which were all reprogramable - so one press would switch it on and start MemoryMap or whatever. The blurb for the 5720 mentions 4 software programmable buttons - but it looks like they're on the side too so unless the ones on the front also switch it on you'd be opening the box...
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I don't know, do you think things are getting a bit too mainstream in the UK?
You do have to admire the way that the guy has built in his GPS so that he just has to follow his tie to the cache though
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Just back from Cornwall where they're obviously getting on top of the situation!
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There's a free Spot trial here - looks like it works with "integrated GPS that emulate a serial port..."
Might do the job
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This one any use? Spot The same site has a free trial download of AFTrack but as you say it does seem to state that it needs an external BT GPSr
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They must be wimps up there!
My wife used to live in Taff's Well where they (allegedly) know how to deal with that sort of problem
The man who went up a hill and came down a mountain
Get up there with a bucket
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An awesome performance
. Are you sure it's not 010 DNFs and he just wrote it down as 100 by mistake ?Congratulations!
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With discussion of the UK's projected cache growth - if you want a foretaste then try Pieman's phenomenal
The Cache Death of the UK which has got 10000, yup that was ten thousand, different ways through the 4 stages you do out of the 202 physical stages. I wonder what the MM track of a maintenance visit looks like Must be the only cache where the difficulty/terrain rating is higher for the setter than the finder!
Anyone know one multi with more than (or anything like!) 202 containers...? Respect!!
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It would have been a lot more but this pen only works half the time...
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Get hold of Franson GPSGate.
Once you've turned on your bluetooth and connected to the GPS, turn on GPSgate and everything else runs from there. (once you've initially configured it, obviously)
I've been using it for about 6 months, and haven't had any probs or glitches. Plus I get to run MM, BeeLine, and Destinator or TomTom - all at the same time
What they said (and put GPSGate in Windows>StartUp so you don't even have to turn it on)
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There's a nice little oasis that we did as a quick detour when visiting The Tower of London St Dunstan's Garden
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Pharisee's tale of being directed onto a flyover reminds me of the first time I realized that Tom is not infallible when he/she instructed me to turn left while on a flyover in Chester - but the road suggested was 20 feet below!
Then one got interesting instructions on the M6 toll road before the TT database was updated to include the road.
Does anyone know to whom one can report errors or changed roads to TomTom in the hope that they may be updated in a future edition?
Does seem odd that they don't advertise for feedback. Obviously they'd need some sort of verification but could work on greater trust after mutliple good reports from a registered user. There must be plenty of competent users around to tell them that road X is one way now (like the one through the middle of our town has been for a few years) or that where road Y is supposed to be a right turn it's really just following to the right. Would at least target where they do their checking.
I used it a lot on familiar journeys just to get used to its little ways on roads I knew well. Helped to know before it mattered that it may advise you to keep right on motorways, that it may skip about like a spring lamb under spaghetti junction or that that unexpected right turn might just be a bend in the road etc etc
Would have been nice to feedback that where we used to live was actually **** Grove not **** Grave as well...
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After nearly a year of scrawling details on scraps of paper I went paperless and got a PDA. I had not had it long when one trip resulted in a cracked screen (and I didn't find the cache!). There's no black ink anywhere but of course its not resonding very well to the stylus. I know the moral of the story is to get a hard case for it but in the meantime I would like to repair it. It's second hand so there is no garuntee.
There are various companies online offering a repair service but there is quite a big difference in cost.
Has anyone ever used any of these?
or does anyone know anywhere you can take them in to be repaired in the North West?
Thanks
Paul
I used ipaqrepair for a cracked screen and they were exceptional
It turned out that the LCD was damaged as well as the screen (it was a nasty "point" impact) as I discovered when it was returned (very quickly) - with a new refurbished LCD as well as the touchscreen and a note saying there was no extra charge. I'd also ordered a replacement stylus clip to fit myself and they'd bunged that in while they had the case open, again at no extra charge
Highly recommended
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Once they're old enough then back carriers are the mainstay but get a good one - you wouldn't want to carry a 25Kg rucksack with nasty thin shoulder straps and a grot hip belt. (We got a Kelty Kids one from Brighams which works fine) A decent one will be in use a lot longer - we were still using it for our eldest when he was 4 or 5 years on the basis of doing longer walks and if he hit empty after 3/4 of it then instead of cajoling/dragging/carrying in arms/on shoulders he just got loaded up to finish off. Don't forget that they are just hanging there in the cold while you're exercising to keep warm, an all in one wind/waterproof (Togz for example) and an attachable sun/rain hood help too.
Having said all that our ordinary on road pram goes most places. Mud hoses out of the wheels easily enough and the rain cover always comes even on the sunniest days as it keeps little fingers out of the nettles as you brush through that awkward bit of path...
Best trick we've found with the pram is to have an old climbing sling and a couple of karabiners. Tree roots/long grass/stones and uneven ground can be a pain so we clip a krab to the frame by each front wheel then someone in front can unweight the front wheels so the pram pusher doesn't jar to a halt every few metres. Works a treat, anything would do but the sling/krabs technique is quick and easy and they do sleep better in the pram)
Last tip - don't walk them into any low branches in the back carrier - I've done it once, having got our eldest through 4-5y in it unscathed I walked our youngest into a thorn tree going over a stile. The deep scratch started over her right eye, across the bridge of her nose and below her left eye. Having not damaged either eye it was still an unpleasant couple of weeks waiting to find out if she'd scarred (she hadn't) - slow down and preferably have a spotter when you're around trees...
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Whilst caching yesterday I attempted to use the direction finder (go to mark). Although my actual location on the map was being updated, the numerical location only changed every say 20 secs or so. This was a pain when getting close to the cache. I also only seemed to get the pointer arrow very sporadically. Admittedly it wasnt in a great reception area but is this normal behaviour. The realtime location on the maps now is fantastic!
Same problem? Try the fix from the link...
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Nice summary
Have you got MemoryMap and TomTom running at the same time? Either via the Windows Mobile utility (that I can't get to work) or Franson GPSGate - you can have the dot moving on the OS map and spoken turn instructions coming out of TomTom...
but I'd heard about an Open University nature identification/sharing website on Radio 4 and tried it out tonight...
. Are you sure it's not 010 DNFs and he just wrote it down as 100 by mistake 
HELP! GPS over board!
in United Kingdom and Ireland
Posted
Must be a magnet in there! This guy's GPS went into the water at Poole today Linky but the Harbour Commissioners and RNLI got it back for him just a couple of hours later - OK, it was in his car at the time (and doesn't look like a subtle retrieve) but shows willing