Major Catastrophe

I have a spare neck lanyard -- the kind used for ID cards -- that works a trick for the GPS. When not actually looking at it, I can drop it in a shirt pocket where it (usually) still gets reception.

The IQUE is a PDA.... Next question, please. With a BT GPS, you can change PDAs later on. If you get tired of the IQUE, you've lost your GPS as well. Also, you can toss the BT GPS onto the car's dashboard while your passenger can hold the PDA in a more comfortable position (where the IQUE's antenna might not work as well.) All of these things tend to be battery hogs, so the more sets of batteries in use, the better. That would legislate in favor of separate units. The less drain you put on the PDA's batteries, the longer it will last. (Hopefully, you're looking at my last sentence and saying, "Well, duh....")

Congratulations! My best puzzle cache only lasted 11 days. I'll try to do better next time. Hints are optional. I like to put the cache out with no hints so the faithful have a chance at it without any temptation to cheat. I add hints a month or so later until it looks like people are finding it without undue difficulty.

The xray machines at US airports will have no trouble seeing inside a steel ammo can. Steel is not particularly opaque to xrays (just crank up the power a little) and besides ammo cans are pretty thin.

As noted, it's been (temporarily?) disabled because it's busted. Meanwhile, bookmark the threads that you post to using your browser's bookmark feature. Not as easy, but workable...

These are the same people who drive some particular brand of car, and loudly tell the world that any other brand of car is garbage. They should be suspected of having latent mental instabilities.

If it (the container) once contained food, then it still smells like that food. A racoon or a bear will be able to smell it.

If you count the advisory for freezing rain tonight, then 100%. If you ignore that (it's going to warm up tomorrow anyway) then 33%. That one's well-buried by now.

Well, on the theory that this thread is about "Swag Ideas for Big Containers," you could turn your garage into a cache container. Get a Hummer for the first finder.....

I suppose you really have two choices: Put the caches back when some dummy moves them, and ignore the logs. Put the caches back and delete their logs. It might be worthwhile to also add explicit instructions to "put it back exactly where you find it" in the online description. Though I'm sure there will always be people who know better than you do, where you want your caches hidden...

Nope. It don't make no sense. The only REAL reason for not logging a DNF is if you don't want to admit that you just couldn't find the cache. If you try, and fail, to find a cache, then log the DNF. There are a few of us who deliberately hide 'em so they're hard to find. By not logging your time spent fruitlessly flogging foliage, you deny us the validation of our efforts.

My mental image is of some jerk laughing his donkey off because he just dropped a few CDs into the cache, which he has loaded up with viruses and trojans. Ha ha. I wonder if I could launch a homemade CD with my clay pigeon trap? Fer sure it'll never make it into my computer unless I know and trust who made it.

Actually, I would expect the price to be much higher if more memory were included. Besides, SD cards are really cheap. Ask me about the Mac Plus I had; the one where I paid $100 per megabyte for 4 MB of RAM. (How many people would pay $100,000 for a 1 GB SD card? ) And remember that you can have multiple SD cards, for versatility you wouldn't have with just onboard RAM.

Have you checked that the baud rate on the serial port is set to the same speed as the GPS?

Do you have the correct version of GPXSonar for your PPC? There are versions for Windows 2002 and for Windows 2003; your 3835 is a 2002 machine. I've used both versions of GPXSonar on different PPCs and both worked OK. The wrong version might install but not work.

If you're at a point and need to go 200 feet at 30 degrees, first set a waypoint on your GPS (if it isn't there already) at the starting point. Then go off in approximately the right direction and wander around until the GPS says your initial point is 200 feet away at 210 degrees!

Yup. First, use GSAK on your PC to manage all the stuff from your Pocket Queries. I like to set a filter that gives me about 450 caches in an area of interest (my GPS can hold 500.) Then I have GSAK upload to the GPS and also export the list to a new GPX file. This GPX file gets synced to the Pocket PC. On the PPC, use GPXSonar. To find the caches nearest to one you're already at, tap and hold on the current one, then from the popup menu select "set as center." Cheers!

The most versatile file type is GPX. Practically all software for GPS applications can support the GPX format. You can find the entire specification and much more at: http://www.topografix.com/gpx.asp

Never had it happen to me, but a friend had a compass that was reversed like that. That guy never had any idea where the heck he was unless he was on a road had a dotted line in the middle. Not sure if that was the compass' fault, tho. No idea how it happens. It seems like it should take a lot more than "normal" magnetic fields to cause reversal, but... Well, I guess if you're sure you can remember that it's backward, when you're wet, cold, hungry and lost, then it might be OK to keep it. But if you forget and walk a mile in the wrong direction, you might maybe could be a little bit dead before you find your way back. I consider my GPS to be a neat techno labor-saving device. My compass is a serious tool that I might need to stay alive someday. The best idea, IMHO, is to toss a bassackward compass in the trash and go buy a better one; then you won't miss the old one.

I think that is freakin' awesome. My hat's off to ya!

For a Pocket PC, try GPX Sonar. It uses the GPX files you can get using pocket queries on the website. Better still, add GSAK to your PC so you can mix and match to create your own custom GPX files which you can then upload to both your Pocket PC and your GPSr.

You mean they talk to you, too? All this time I thought they only talked to me...

I just placed my first B.A.S.E. cache. It's located at ACK!!! GGGGGKKKKK!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think JPatton is right about EasyGPS messing up the GPX file. There is a lot of information in the file as it comes from geocaching.com, that isn't used by EasyGPS. A suggestion: get GSAK and forget about EasyGPS.

I tend to agree with the idea that you want a unit that uses standard batteries. Of course that is only of value if you have spares along. The other important thing is to remember to store your location when you leave the car. Bloody things are great at finding their way back, but not worth a darn as car divining rods... I've got a Magellan SporTrak. Any small handheld unit that claims a modicum of water resistance will do as well.