phern47

I hope the postings in french will attract some geocachers and gps users who only speak french. Canada is the world's biggest and nicest playground. Where else can you go that is safe, clean, and reasonably priced? It's a renewable ressource that needs very little investment to create capital. All it needs is protection. Lets not give it away for quick profit.

Je suis allé à la pêche blanche pour l'éperlan dans la Rivière Saguenay aujourd'hui. J'ai eu la chance de pêcher env 10 minutes avant que la marée soit trop basse. Au début, il y avait assez d'eau pour permettre aux éperlans de voir 2 hameçons. J'en ai attrapé plusieurs 2 à la fois. Vers 9:30, il n'y avait plus d'eau. La glace était acottée sur le fond. Vu que la marée basse (2.0 pieds) était pour 12:35 et que la marée haute (15.5 pieds) était pour 17.55 hres....j'ai quitté les lieux avec une vingtaine d'éperlans. J'étais décu. Il faisait beau aujourd'hui. J'espère qu'il fasse aussi beau demain. La marée basse va arriver env 45 minutes plus tard qu'aujourd'hui. Voici l'endroit où je pêchais : http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlo...itude=-70.88451 Voici où se trouve la rampe d'accès pour se rendre sur la glace : http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlo...itude=-70.89176

I went ice fishing today. Temperature was beautiful. I went fishing for smelt in the Saguenay river. The smelt were biting real good. There was about 6 inches of water under the ice. Only 2 hooks were visible to the fish and I was catching them 2 at a time. 5 minutes later.....no water under the ice.....the tide was too low. It was 9:30 a.m. and low tide (2.0 feet) was for 12:35 p.m. As you can imagine it was a real low tide. High tide (a little over 15 feet) was for 17:55 p.m. so I quit with about a dozen smelt in my bucket. Tomorrow, I will have to get out earlier. Also, low tide will be about 45 minutes later than today. Here is where I was fishing: http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlo...itude=-70.88451 The access ramp is here : http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlo...itude=-70.89176

Even though I live in Quebec now, I still prefer the first image with the larger trilium in the upper left hand corner. I have always been partial to the "trilium". As soon as I see one or see an image of one, the word "Ontario" immediately pops up into my head. I am sick of seeing flags....U.S. flag, Confederate flag, Quebec flag, Canadian flag, Red Cross flag, Blue Cross flag. I would prefer a more tangible or familiar "compass" image on the logo and the word "Ontario" be a bit more visible and on the upper part of the logo too.

Oui, je vais en placer des "géocaches" dans ma région. En plus, je parle de "géocaching" dans mes forums de discussion sur la musique et pêche. Je ne t'oublie pas "Halden", j'ai finalement reçu des CD du démo de 4 chansons que mon groupe de blues a enrégistré. Je vais t'envoyer une copie dans quelque jours afin que tu le mets comme "travel bug" dans une cache dans ton secteur. Là que je suis sur le bord de cacher des caches ici dans mon secteur, je vois que le choix du site, le type de site et le contenant pour la cache n'est pas si facile a choisir que je pensais. Surtout l'hiver. Les 3 géocaches qui se trouvent dans un rayon de 100 miles de chez moi sont accessibles qu'en été.

I bought a 1 dollar holder from a dollar store. I then cut out a portion of the back with a soldering iron with a plastic cutting tip. The Garmin 45 I have has the power connector near the base at the back of the unit. I made a power cable with a plug available on the internet for a couple of dollars. If I had bought the cable and the holder at a GPS store, it would have cost me close to 120 dollars plus 15% sales tax. Everything worked fine. I went ice fishing this morning. Caught myself some supper and came home. Here is where I went : http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlo...itude=-70.88451

I bought a one dollar GPS holder at a dollar store. I cut out a hole in the back of the holder with the aid of a soldering iron and plastic cutting tip to let me plug my power cable into the GPS. Looks fine. Next step is to set it up on the dash. From the looks of things, the antenna will have good view of the sky.

Je suis décu de voir que le "geocaching" n'est pas encore bien connu au Québec ni en France. Je débute dans le "geocaching". Je n'ai même pas encore eu la chance de trouver une cache. Je suis convaincu que le "geocaching" (francophone) va devenir populaire. J'espère que ma petite note ici dans le forum "Canada" va encourager les francophones a m'envoyer un message. J'ai l'intention d'ajouter des caches dans ma région du Québec bientôt. Je vais inclure un CD (travel bug) de 4 chansons que mon groupe de musique de blues a enrégistrées le 28 décembre passé.

Wow, Thanks for all the responses. Every response was helpful. I now have a whole bunch of different projects in mind that would resolve my problem. Since the Garmin 45 is known to be slow and needing lots of sky to do any tracking, I will definately go to some electronic stores to see if I can make an extension for my antenna. If I can, I will stick the tiny antenna on the dash and then install the GPS vertically on the front of my dash with one of those cell phone holders. I will take my GPS with me when I go to the store to make sure I get a holder that fits right.

Isn't the Magellan 2000 a rather old gps? How much is a new Etrex?

You should have no probem getting some gov grants or subsidies, some old gps units for free from some company or school commission.

I know someone who has a good gps for sale. Non-smoker too. However, the seller is a gay black woman. Does that pose a problem? I just don't see what the problem is if the person who sells an item is a smoker or a drinker or stinker or a thinker or a tinker as long as they are not a dinker.

1. I went shopping for a holder to support my GPS while I'm driving my car. As it is now, the GPS is on the dash. It gets great reception but I have to be real careful because it could easily fall. I went to a store that sells GPSs and the holder they had cost over 60 dollars. Does anyone have any tricks or ideas to make a homemade holder? 2. I have a Garmin 45. I can remove the antenna and plug in another. However, I saw a small cable that would allow me to plug in my existing antenna on the end of the cable. The dadgum extension looks to be about 12 inches long and the darn thing costs over 60 bucks. Can a person buy the male and female connectors and make his own antenna extension cord? Where can I find the connectors for such a cable?

I had to put it into my pocket in order to carry all of my fishing equipment out onto the ice. Because it was "low tide" it was downhill on sheer slippery ice.

I went ice fishing today. I knew my batteries were getting weak but I did not change them. The fishing site is 3 km from my house. My old Garmin acquired it's position quite nicely and off I went with the Garmin on my dash. When I got to the site, I got out of the car I turned off the Garmin and put it in my pocket. When I finally got all set up, I turned the Garmin back on. The battery level was below 1/4. The Garmin was on "battery saver". Anyway, after a couple of minutes, I didn't have any signal strength from the satellites so I turned off the GPS. When I got home, I could see my route. It was "dead on". Now...2 questions. 1. When in battery saver mode, does acquisition time increase? 2. When batteries are very low, does acquisition time increase?

I just bought a Garmin 45 for 35 bucks. It works perfectly. Actually it looks new. The original owner only used it once or twice and gave up. All the waypoints that I have been downloading look to be accurate within 50 feet. All the waypoints were taken from inside my home (window sill) or from the dash of my car. It's -30 and windy up here and it's not much fun going outdoors. When downloading the waypoints on to programs like "MapQuest" and measuring the distances, I would say that it is accurate to 20 feet or less but I will say 50 feet in order to not exagerate. I made a PC cable and a power cable today. They both work perfectly. Now I'm enjoying myself with the freeware GPS programs. I think that those old cheap GPS machines are great. If you don't like GPSssing, you can sell them for the same price you paid for them. They are great learning tools. They are not complicated to use, yet have all the major functions without lots of bells and whistles. After a while, I will exactly know which model to buy if I ever want to spend more money. Lots of people buy what they don't need or not use because they were not familiar with all the aspects.

What is the best software for tracing out trips downloaded from a GPS to a PC? I have a Garmin 45. There seems to be a lot of choice for the U.S., but few choices for Canada. I tried all kinds of "free" sites and they were all crap (no detail). Someone gave me "Mapsource 3.05" and there is no detail at all. Just a few lines showing the major roads. I can always mark my wanderings out by hand on a 1 : 20,000 paper map that has all the details. It would take more time but then, there is no need for a GPS. I can do that with a compass.

A few days ago, I mentioned that I was going to hide a few caches in my area and use the 4 song demo CD of my blues band as a signature item and travel bug. The problem is that, geocachers are very rare up here. There are only 3 caches within a 100 mile radius from my home and are not accessible during the winter. If anyone wants one of these CDs to put into a cache, send me your address and I will be delighted to send you one by mail.

I would like to buy an external antenna for my Garmin 45. They sell for about 25 bucks on ebay but I thought that maybe someone here may have one for sale.

Well....after reading about the cracks in the Magellan, I guess Garmin wins "hands down".

I did some additional searches of Quebec and found more caches. 210 is still not many. I hope that in a short while, geocaching will catch on here in Quebec. I'm doing a lot of reading about "geocaching" and I'm learning new stuff everyday.

Bella, Send me your address and I will send you some copies. Hey....what better way to get known. You never know....maybe some rich Arab oil magnat will want to hire us for a gig. The CD has 4 complete songs on it. A total of 16 minutes 45 seconds. 1 tune is in French. It's a blues/rock protest song.

I don't understand what you're complaining about. If you live in an area 99% of the people speak french, and you don't, what are you doing there? How do you exist? Are you saying that french speaking people don't geocache? None of them speak any english and don't know how to use the translator sites on the internet. I find that hard to believe. I am bilingual. Not many up here can also speak and write english. I used to live in Ontario and went to school there. When I joined the armed forces I asked to be sent to where I am now. Yes.....there are few people who know about geo caching here in my area. Otherwise, there would be more caches. I would guess that there may be 1 or 2 people. I am one of them and I just learned about it a couple of days ago. I have had a gps less than a week. The 3 caches that are within a 100 miles from me were all made by one person from an other area of Quebec where the population has a higher percentage of english speaking people. Here in Quebec, english is not the official language. French is the official language. The official language in the work place is French. Have you ever tried to use the translator sites? They do not work. Ex. post office box translate into just that a post, and boxing. Imagine trying to translate instructions and ideas. The word "cache" is french for the verb "hide" or the noun "hiding place". This word is often used by woodsmen. Was frequently used by trappers. It meant a place to hide (supplies, food, fur etc). If you spoke another language and tried out the translators to see how well they worked, you would know that they don't. Right? (not the one that means opposite of left) (Left....not the one the word that means "no longer there") (means.....pluriel of mean)

I play in a blues band and we just recorded 4 songs to make a demo CD. Would this be a nice item to leave? I could make it a "Travel Bug". All the person has to do is download the songs to his computer if he wants them and put my CD into another cache. What do you think about this. Would it make a nice signature item and "Travel Bug". I am new to geo-caching so maybe CD are not recommended as a cache item.

Ok...thanks. I got some great answers. I did a search of Quebec and there are 211 caches. My original search was done by using my postal code. I only got 10 responses but now I see that I get all the caches withing a 100 mile radius. Yes, planting seed caches sounds good. However, in my area, there are close to 300,000 people and it is 99.% french speaking only. I may add a little something in french about "geo-caching" to my web site and see if I get any response before planting seed caches.