60North
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Posts posted by 60North
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Shetland – If you live here or are coming here on holiday or work basis then I am more than happy to show you around. You will need to provide the transport though for Unst, Fetlar, Yell or North Mainland, or be prepared for a good walk around the Lerwick Area!! I have a spare GPS, so if you don’t have one and want to see what it is all about before lashing out the money you may borrow it whilst we are out together.
Offer is open until end of November 2005, after which time I may be becoming nomadic again. Scotland beckons! I am usually available from Friday afternoon to Wednesday morning.
Andy
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I started setting micros purely on the grounds of cost. Things really are that tight, nearly 18 months of part time work means plenty of home-made soup and lasagne! The micros each contain a pencil and a logbook. One contains some miniature trades. I then looked at it from the point of view of a youngster who would be pleased with their find, but there would be no reward for them at the end. I decided not to hide any more. From an adults perspective there aren’t many bad views in Shetland so my advice is just to walk to the top of any hill.
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Before you head off for the cache, save the position of your car into the GPS. People have been known to have difficulty finding their way back to it
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I hope that she will be impressed when you admit the Cave Troll was the resultant love child from your time with Anne Widdicombe
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Might be something for GeoHikes then?
Shame really as I saw loads of wildlife including about a dozen seals. Tried to get some photos, but if proof were needed that a digicam with no optical zoom is mostly a complete waste of time for my sort of photography, this was it.
Also saw a different type of wildlife. A taxi driver who decided that the road closed sign didn't mean him. He drove his minbus onto the grass. Only got the fromt two wheels onto the grass and bogged his van in. He looked really wild
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Ooh that's harsh.
Some years ago my boss p*ssed me off big time, so being the total git that I am I picked up a contact magazine ringed a few local "lovelies" and left it in his glove compartment. Three days later his wife hadn't gone in the glove compartment, so I retrieved it in his presence. He was ashen faced, told me that his wife would have kicked him out on the street straight away if she had have found it. He treated me with a little more respect after that.
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I have just been for a walk around Lerwick and have recorded some points of interest into the GPS with questions.
Can they be logged as a virtual multi as some of them are quite close and I know that there is a 10th of a mile rule between caches.
Thanks
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Plan B
Buy a load of those plastic windmill things that you give the kids to keep them quiet
Cover the vanes with Bacofoil
Attach to car
Vanes will spin considerably faster than the car is going.
Radar detector shows your Vauxhall Viva HA van is doing 960mph
Police laughed out of court
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Take it from me, electronic devices to detect speed traps are a waste of money. Just do the following.
Strap child to roof of car with bungees
Give child a black bin bag full of torn up strips of Bacofoil
Sound horn when coming into speed trap-likely areas
Child knows this is the signal and tosses handfuls of Bacofoil into the air to confuse radar
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Yep, I'm afraid that the yellow etrex only allows one route of 50 waypoints. So even if you split the route into pieces, you can only load one at a time. I think most of the other etrex models allow 10 or more routes, with more waypoints.
Yes I forgot to say that you could only carry one route on the GPS. I always carried a sub-laptop in my rucksack and was able to upload routes etc, but my GPS2+ could handle 20 Routes with 30 waypoints. I see that LegendC and VistaC do 50/250 each
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3/4 I'm afraid - must be why I am on my own, or it could be that I have been in so many relationships that there is no-one left
The other reason though could be that I have threatened to put a table of ex-girlfriends and their preferences on my web page
Well I think that it is funny
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It is a limit of the eTrex Gps'.
Either split the route or upgrade I suppose. Use the comparison tool at www.garmin.com to see what has what compared to yours.
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Cable 23xn at www.serialleads.co.uk would suit you by the looks of it.
Or have a look at www.gpsbitz.co.uk
I have used both of these companies and have been happy with the service
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I bought a Garmin GPS2+ and it has been a very rugged piece of kit. Mapping GPS units were very rare back then and not up to much. I had several handheld computers that I have been able to connect the GPS to including Psions, HP Jornadas, Palms, Handspring. With the exception of the Jornada, all of them have had mapping software installed, so I have never had a need for mapping on a GPS.
I bought an eTrex Camo, don’t you just love the colour? So much better than that awful yellow, higher spec and all for less money! I always end up pressing the wrong buttons and unlike the GPS2+ you can only go around the menu in one direction.
Both GPS units can only be connected to by serial (or USB/serial convertors) to PCs/Macs. I have old PCs laying around with serial ports and USB/serial convertors are as cheap as chips these days so it shouldn’t be a problem.
I would have liked the Garmin 12XL. Similar to the GPS2+ but without the Toblerone profile. I even considered the Geko 301 for the compass, a feature that neither of mine has got, but I was put off by the AAA battery requirement. Batteries in Shetland are stupidly priced. I have never liked NimH batteries because of the way the power drops off, but needs must and I have bought 8 x AA and 8 x AAA from eBay as well as a charger.
I went into Dixons when the first Bluetooth iPaq appeared on the market and it was being bundled with a jacket with mapping software, voice directions and 128mb (?) CF card for a mere £1,100. I was ready to hand over the money, but asked for a demo. Strange as it may seem, the MS software crashed halfway through the demo. I put the money back into my pocket and left the shop. The moral of the story for me was to get something cheap and wait a few months, getting used to the device, then buy a gadget which is not the latest on the market. In the end I realised that I did not need anything better than the GPS2+ / Camo.
GPS units have a strange ability to keep their prices when second hand.
As has been said previously, make sure that you know what you want it for. And remember that for all the extra functions, colour, compasses, altimeters etc., there will be a (battery) price to pay as well as the extra that the unit will cost.
Will I ever buy a 60CS? Yes probably, but I am too poor at the moment!
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4:46
Is there a prize?
Yes
1st Prize - 1 day trigpointing on Shetland
2nd Prize - 2 days trigpointing on Shetland
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The problem would only happen if I went out setting a cache with it set to British Grid.
Am I right?
If not I'm really confused about something that I've not had a problem with in over two years. Probably best not to reply if I am wrong!!!!
No not really, if I have read your words correctly.
The problem happens if you use British Grid with WGS84. There is no reason why you cant use OS grid refs, but some of the Geocaching community seem to frown on it, but just make sure that if you are doing this the datum is set to OrdSrvyGB. When you upload the co-ords take them from the GPS as HDDD.MM.MMM with the WGS84 datum set. As you say this is automatic on your GPS, but don't assume that this will always be the case on all GPS units.
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I have a similar problem with a lot of the waypoints in my Garmin GPS 2+
Having been in the military for a few years I have always worked with OSGB. When I got the GPS I knew nothing about datums so I left the thing on WGS84, but had the position setting set to British Grid. I put the co-ordinates into the GPS from the Geocaching page manually and had entered all of the ones from this area into it. I then learnt about datums (or rather what it should be set to) and changed the GPS so that both were matched properly.
Recently, when I went to an adopted cache, I drove past the cache, got out of the car, then wandered in completely the wrong direction. I knew that the location of the cache from the hint was in or around a plantiecrub and the only one that I had seen was the one that I had driven past. I had my Jornada with me with the web page downloaded for this cache. I checked the grid reference on the GPS and sure enough it was wrong. When I punched in the correct grid it took me back towards the car and thence to the cache.
This is a very long-winded way of saying that as far as I can see, if you entered an OS grid ref in whilst you had position set to British Grid and datum set to WGS84, then you subsequently changed one of those to the correct one to pair with the other i.e. BritGrid AND OrdSrvyGB OR HDDD.MM.MMM AND WGS84, it would display a different set of figures to what you put in. I am just going to nip outside and test this ………
…….. biting NW wind tonight up here! ….
OK, I apologise to those that this is obvious to, but I will get to the point soon I promise!
With the GPS set to BritGrid AND OrdSrvyGB my front door is at HU45794 41866. If I leave position set to BritGrid and change the datum to WGS84 my front door becomes HU45879 42331.
And the point of all this blurb I suppose is to say that anything you have marked with your GPS when the settings were wrong will be hundreds of yards away from where the GPS says it is. On the eTrex Camo model (and presumably all eTrex models) changing the position to British Grid automatically changes the datum to OrdSrvyGB. Its people like me that benefit the most when things are idiot proofed!
I think that I prefer it when WLW explains things. It makes much more sense!
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Don't even own a TV I'm afraid
We only just got the motor car up here
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When I am clambering to the top of a hill to find a trig point the last reason in my mind for getting there is to be able to log this into a table, the main reason is my fitness (I have asthma).
I can see you're something of a special case 60North. The Shetlands can't be an easy place to cache -
You must know my therapist
Vote 10 Points for trigpoints - you know it makes sense!!
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Is it the WGS84 issue, where you are not changing the datum to OSGB?
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You could try THESE as an alternative. They're the same diameter as a 35mm canister but about twice as long. Also the lid is attached so it can't get lost.
I get a product not found message - what is/was it that you were pointing us towards?
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so for me I am not playing on a level playing field with the rest of you.
Is there room for a level playing field in Shetland?
The main island is about 75 miles from top to bottom, nothing is more than 3 miles from the sea, but yes, there is a problem with a lack of flatness.
I suppose that I could always put goal posts at either end of the bowling green in Lerwick
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Slightly off topic, but I'm curious. What reasons do people (by which I mean we forum users) have for not taking part in COTM? Is it a question of feeling the rules/points are unfair, or that they don't want to be bringing up the rear of the table, or they just think it's a daft thing that does nothing for caching. Or D, none of the above. As I say, I'm curious. For the record I'm not thinking of any individual (promise) and even if I was, I respect his, her or their reason(s) for not taking part - I'd just like to know what that or those reason(s) is/are. Why am I asking? I notice three people who didn't enter COTM in 2004 have voted on Deego's poll. I'm not saying you need to have taken part to have the 'right' to express an opinion on it, but I did find it interesting.
SP
Edited to add the 'why am I asking?' bit.
I have not entered COTM because: -
1. I have only recently discovered the UK forum
2. With the exception of 2 caches on Shetland I own or have adopted all of them
The only way I can therefore get points is: -
1. By hiding caches
2. By finding Trig Points
3. By taking a 12 hour ferry ride to mainland Scotland and finding some there
I suppose that there is also a feeling that I am just not sufficiently a competitive soul unless I know that I can win. I could make 65 caches with my stash of film containers, hide them all over a number of weeks, then register them all at the same time. If I hide a large amount of them by trig points then the chances are that I will win that month.
When I am clambering to the top of a hill to find a trig point the last reason in my mind for getting there is to be able to log this into a table, the main reason is my fitness (I have asthma).
I have total respect for those that want to enter COTM. Its interesting to see what you are all up to, and for all of the effort that goes into the production of the figures, but to be honest I don’t feel sufficiently motivated to enter it. It is probably because I seem to be the only active geocacher here on Shetland, so for me I am not playing on a level playing field with the rest of you.
Most Difficult Area Of Uk To Cache?
in United Kingdom and Ireland
Posted · Edited by 60North
52 points, 48.9 miles 13 caches of which 11 are mine!
Andy
Should get extra points for the number of ferries too!!