mattopia
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Posts posted by mattopia
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I purchased mine primarily for geocaching, but with a secondary purpose of <a href="http://www.netstumbler.com/">war driving</a>, and a possible tertiary purpose of APRS (although I'm not very active in ham radio these days, and I need a license upgrade before I can do APRS anyway). I've been so busy geocaching in my spare time that I haven't bothered with wardriving yet.
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My girlfriend broke up with me a few weeks ago, and to clear my mind I decided to do some geocaching. Since i live in a sparsely cached area, I have to drive about an hour in any direction to get to caches. I headed west to do a few. Started at a hard/tricky one I had tried before, this time armed with a few hints from the cache owner. Couldn't find it, gave up a bit too quickly. Then proceeded to a nearby 1/1. It was a bit of a hike to get to though, and I ended up not finding it either. I just couldn't get into the spirit of things as I usually do. Didn't log DNF's as I wasn't really giving it any effort. I gave up and drove home, wasting a good $5 in gas and about 4 hours!
Being outdoors helped a lot though, and I'm no longer in the DNF rut of that day.
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Run a business with my father. On slow days I have plenty of time to browse the forums, and I take Wednesday afternoons off for geocaching or whatever else comes along.
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Sounds like a good opportunity to upgrade your GPSr, and then eBay the old one when it returns.
If only Thales had a trade-in upgrade program....
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Ooh, I like that. Until someone drops $350 in my lap, I will have to stick w/ my SporTrak Map.
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I use a Handspring Neo. They are extremely cheap on eBay. I've had it for a few years, so my decision to go Palm was mostly because I already had it. I paid $7 for CacheMate, and can't say enough good about it. It imports GPX files with ease, makes sorting and viewing the data simple, and its search facility is great (i.e. Give me 20 unfound multi caches to the west of these coordinates or whatever).
My Neo has 2mb of RAM, and it's had no problem holding around 800-900 caches, including all data and last 5 log entries.
My suggestion is to look at the software titles available before making your decision. The two most common solutions for palm are Plucker/Spinner (which I personally think is a bit clunky) or CacheMate. There are quite a few available for PocketPC. I'm sure screenshots and feature lists are available, so investigate the various packages first. Then take into consideration things like battery life, durability, etc.
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These two are 6.9 and 7.5 miles respectively. I live on Lake Erie, and they are both on Kelley's Island. The lake is frozen this time of year, so obviously the ferrys aren't running. Plane rides are rather expensive. Walking it would take awhile. So, I'll wait.
Third closest not found I have 2 DNF's on. Someone who has found it previously e-mailed me that it is almost impossible to find in the snow, so I'll return when it melts.
Fourth closest one is in CANADA! It's on Pelee island, which is the southernmost part of canada. There is no ferry service that I'm aware of from the US, so I'll need to borrow a friend's boat.
The rest I just haven't made it to yet.
Edit: BBCode stinks!
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I live in the middle of nowhere, but was surprised to find that I have exactly 200 within 50 miles of my home coordinates. It helps that I am smack dab in between two bigger cities (Toledo, OH and Cleveland, OH). If I head either east or west an hour or so, I should have a pretty good cache density to work with.
Also, I'm really close to Michigan and Canada, so my search would include those. If the 10 closest to my home coordinates, two of them are on an island that isn't readily accessible when the lake is frozen, and one of them is in Canada, which would take about 20 minutes by boat. Again, with the lake frozen, the options are limited.
Since I am relatively new to all of this, 200 in 50 miles plus two nearby major cities should last me awhile.
I have friends in both cities, so I even have non-geocaching excuses! -
as you can see, i'm a very new cacher.
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Here's my list so far:
Magellan SporTrak Map - $160 (birthday present)
Used Handspring Neo - had it already
Cachemate - $7
Premium sub: $3/mo
TB 4-pack - $20
And in preparation for a future hide:
Geocaching stencils for ammo cans: $2
Ammo cans: $5 or so each (bought them months ago and finally have a use!)
Paint - not purchased yet, $6-8?
Lawnmower Man on DVD - $5 at Wal Mart
Disposable cameras - $10 for 4pack
Old computer parts - free, already have plenty scattered around
Blank CD-R's - $18 for a spindle.
(going to include a few Linux and BSD distributions in my "geek cache")
This is one of those hobbies that can be as inexpensive or as costly as you make it. An old used GPS will work for most beginners, and trinkets can often be found around the house. I think someone can get started quite easily for under $300, even if going paperless.
The benefits definitely outweigh the costs. My first full day geocaching would have been spent in front of the tube otherwise.
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A friend of mine (jslagle) has been mentioning geocaching to me for many months. I liked the idea and offered to go along on a cachehunt, but it never panned out. A few weeks ago I was bored and for some reason remembered that "geocaching" thing my friend was always talking about. I visited the site, not expecting that there would be dozens in close proximity to my home! I borrowed a GPSr from my girlfriend's father, found three caches, and was hooked.
Since my birthday was so close, I asked for and received a Magellan SporTrak Map, dug out my old Handspring, dropped a few bucks for CacheMate and a premium subscription. I haven't done much caching since the first three as it is dark around here when I leave work, and the weekends have not yet allowed for it.
I'm already glad I have a premium subscription. Since I haven't had opportunity to actually search for caches, I have the nearest 250 stored in my GPSr as waypoints, and have been watching for any in close proximity as I drive around for work and at night. This has given me at least a dozen to locate when I get a chance!
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I have a SporTrak map and would love the info as well. I'm interested in making a cable to go between it and my Handspring Visor Neo, unless there is any decent places online for such a cable.
I have friends in both cities, so I even have non-geocaching excuses!
Geocaching In The Movies
in General geocaching topics
Posted
While not a movie, the book Cryptonomicon has a part where someone gives one of the main characters GPS coordinates that take him to a massive pile of gold in the middle of the woods. It's a very, VERY good book. There are a number of other uses of GPS throughout the book.
Shawshank was an amazing movie. I'm in Ohio, the prison they used is less than 2 hours south of me, and I imagine the field has to be in that general area. It would be great if Coaster-COG could hide an actual cache there!!
mattopia