bnolan

My wife created some magnets out of dominoes for me to leave as signature items. 5 different designs...collect them all. If your cache skunks me on the first try, I'll leave the skunk when I eventually find the cache.

My family draws names from a hat. This year my Mom buys for me. She asked my wife what I would like. My wife asked me. I got on ebay and showed her a gilsson amplified gps antenna that comes in under the $30 limit including shipping. So I didn't buy it for myself, but I got to pick it out. And nobody better tell my Mom.

Just put my Garmin Mapsource Topo cd in the drive so I could answer your question: The 4 topo map sections that cover Oahu take up 528 KB. The 27 topo map sections that cover all of the islands take up 2.28 MB Hope that helps. Added later: Dang, Neo Geo types faster than me.

Falling in the mud, twisting an ankle, being scratched by thorns, losing things and getting the truck stuck is exactly the kind of adventure I am looking for when I go hunting for a cache. I am most disappointed when I get out of the car, walk 100 yards on a paved path and find the cache without even having to kneel in the dirt.

I had the same kind of questions when I first looked into getting a GPS. I ended up buying a book on GPS land navigation then spent hours and hours reading web pages before I figured out enough to make a purchase. I think the answers to this question would be of interest to most people first looking into GPS, so I'll give it a shot. Receiver Accuracy - All 12 channel parallel receivers will get you within 20 feet most of the time. WAAS can get you within 10 feet under good conditions. Antenna type - the two types are Quad and Patch. A quad antenna works best when held upright while a patch antenna works best when held flat. With a clear view of the sky, neither type is better than the other. Many prefer a quad antenna for use under tree cover. Some units allow external antennas, which is very useful for cars, since the signal may be blocked by the metal roof. Waypoints - The number of waypoints a GPS can store ranges from 250 to 1000. If you want to dump all of the geocaches in your county into the GPS, go for more waypoints. Routes - A route is a series of linked waypoints. this ranges from 1 to 50 different routes, with between 30 and 254 waypoints each. You will use more routes if you use your GPS for driving . Tracklogs - This is like dropping a bread crumb trail, so you can find your way back to where you parked. The number of points varies from 1500 to 10000. You will want more trackpoints if you plan on recording your trails as you hike/bike etc. Mapping - This is the biggest question in terms of price, to map or not to map. Most mapping receivers will have a basemap that has major highways. You can then load additional road maps or topo maps. GPS maps are no substitute for a paper map, but many find they help you orient yourself to your surroundings much more easily. Map memory (mapping units only)- This determines how much map data you can load at any one time. This ranges from just a few meg up to 128 meg. Some units use SD cards so memory is expandable. You can never have too much memory. Auto Routing (mapping units only)- Some units will generate point to point routes using the street map data stored in memory. On units without this feature you will use PC software to generate the routes. Compass - Some units have extra sensors that act as an electronic compass. A GPS without a built in compass cannot tell which way it is pointed, although it can tell which way it is moving by comparing the last two measurements. If you get a unit with a built in compass, you won't need to use a handheld magnetic compass when you are standing still, which can be useful for geocaching. Altimeter - The vertical (elevation) accuracy of GPS receivers is not as good as the horizontal position accuracy. Some GPS units have a built in barometer that helps improve this accuracy. This feature is probably most usefull to climbers and skiers who want to plot elevation profiles. Computer Link - some low end GPS units do not have any way to link to a computer. With a computer link you can transfer routes and waypoints, load map data, and load firmware updates. Without a computer link you will have to enter your geocache corrdinates by hand. Most geocachers suggest getting a computer link. Battery Life. - GPS units use 2 AAA up to 4 AA. More batteries and bigger batteries means more weight, but longer battery life. Some have 12v dc adapters for use while driving. Electronic compasses and altimeters increase battery drain. Screen - You can choose color or B&W. Some units allow a portrait mode for handheld use and a landscape mode for on the car dashboard. Most units have backlight for use at night, but this draws down the batteries. Some units have screen settings that allow for larger fonts, good for those with poor eyesight. Water Proof - You should consider all GPS units to be only water resistant. Some units the battery compartment is sealed, these will float if dropped in the water. Other units, the electronics are sealed, but not the battery compartment. If these are dropped in the water, they will not float and will not function till you dry out the battery compartment, but the electronics will probably survive. Put your receiver in a waterproof cell phone case if you will by using it on the water. Size and weight - Backpackers want light weight. For car navigation weight doesn't matter. Geocaching is somewhere in the middle. Audible Alarms - Some units will beep to alert you when it is time to turn or when you arrive at your destination. That should get you started. I would be interested to hear what features other people think are important.

It sounds like you maps may accidently been turned off. Try this: - from the map screen hit menu - select Map Setup - choose Source from among the tabs Do Basemap and Mapsource show off? If so, set then to on and you will be happy. If not I have no idea what is wrong.

I use the Garmin handlebar mount for road biking, but I would not trust if for mountain biking. You might also check out Ram mounts. Ram Mounts for Handheld GPS Scroll down for a handlebar mount for GPS III+

When I need a bright focusable light, I use a Petzl Micro. When I need long battery life I use a Princeton Tech Matrix with 3 leds. I think I need to put the Yukon on my x-mas list, then I will only need to take 1 headlight. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time. [This message was edited by bnolan on October 27, 2003 at 09:41 PM.]

There is only one correct way to interpret the phrase "Trading Up" We all know that maps are printed with north at the top of the map. So when I travel north to Lewiston, I say I am going "up" to Lewiston, even though it is a lower elevation. I am going "Up" the map. When it comes to "Trading Up" a cache, that means the person traded the location of the cache to someplpace north of where it was originally. There can be no other interpretation. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

This site uses hddd mm.mmm ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

Clearly there is only one way to interpret the phrase "Trade Up" When we use the word up we mean north. As in I am going up to Canada. So to trade up must mean to move the cache to the north. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

There is quite a bit of desert in Eastern Oregon. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

Today I am caching with my daughters and we find three caches. The first one has matches and a piece of candy in it. The second one has a bag of nuts in it. The third has several pieces of candy and three packets of spiced cider. The smell of cider that has been locked in an airtight ammo can in 90 degree weather for several weeks is pretty strong. We could smell the cache 10 feet away. At each of these caches, I took the offending items out, but felt obliged to leave something in trade. Do you leave a trade when you take out forbidden items ? Should I just leave the food in the cache and let wild animals smell them ? How do we get people to quit putting food in caches ? ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

I had one of my caches go missing a few weeks ago. Shoshone Base So last week I replaced it. It is a category 5, so it is no easy task to get there to replace it. Also, I had spent about $50 on the original cache, and about $35 bucks on the replacement. Not to mention 120 miles each way on gas. (just explaining why I sound so grumpy.) Today somebody logs a find and tells me they moved it 4 miles upstream. The trade item they took was in the original cache, so I know it was that cache that they moved, and not the replacement. But the next person who wants to find this cache is probably going to think it was the replacement cache that was moved and they will not go to the right place. What should I do about this ? Should I delete the log that says the cache was moved? Should I add a note to the cache page explaining to people that the cache is still there? Also, do I send a note to the person who moved it explaining the error in their ways? Or do I send a note to an admin and have them handle it? And what do I do about the moved cache. I guess I could go back there and get the coordinates ( he doesn't give them ) and log it as a new cache. OK, done ranting. Thanks in advance for all advice. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

My guess would be that the internal algorithm that calculates the magnetic declination is different between the units. A fraction of a degree of difference in declination would account for such an error. I remember there was a firmware upgrade for my garmin III+ that updated the way declination was calculated. My local declination changed from 16 degrees E to 15. So if you had two of the same GPS with different firmware versions you could also get different results doing projections. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

My first cache was placed by canoe Shoshone Base You have to paddle upstream 2 miles, carry the canoe around Pillar Falls, then paddle 2 more miles upstream to the base of Shoshone Falls. There was already a cache at the overlook above shoshone falls. You can drive to that one. Mine is .1 miles away, and 200 feet down. The first group to look for it kayaked upstream, but were skunked. One member of that party later bushwacked his way on foot and found the cache. Another party tried to make it on foot and one person suffered broken ribs. The latest group to attempt on foot reports the cache has been stolen so I am going back tomorrow to replace it. I'm wondering who could have been down there to stumble across my cache. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

I've seen snakes, salamanders, marmots, deer, and a variety of birds and insects. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

It is easy to get a topo.zone map of a cache using the correct datum. On the cache page, right underneath the cache coordinates is a link to jeeep.com that automatically converts the coordinates to NAD27 On the jeeep.com webpage, there is a link to a topo map. This will be the correct coordinates. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

When you buy a new digital camera so you can take pictures of Caches, Cachers and benchmarks. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

Do you have a friend you can borrow a GPS from for a few days? It really helps to try out a few models before you slap down the cash. Whether you buy or borrow, you will need to learn to do 3 things with the GPS before you can use it to find a cache. 1. Mark a waypoint at your current location. There is usually a mark button, or hold down the enter button. 2. Goto a stored waypoint. Again, there is usually a goto button. Walk a few hundred feet away from the waypoint you saved in step 1 and hit Goto and select that waypoint. The GPS will calculate a straight line route back to that point, even if the path curves. Page through the screens to the arrow. It will not point the right direction until you start walking. Notice how it starts flipping around as you arrive at your destination. 3. Enter the coordinates of a waypoint. Usually you do this by creating a waypoint where you are standing as in step 1, then edit the coordinates before saving the new waypoint. When you can do these 3 things, you are ready to hunt for your first cache. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

To find out what I take, I grabbed my fanny pack. Here is what is in it. - GPS - extra batteries - Printout of cache page - small trade items - sun screen - lip balm - bug spray - whistle - water bottle - flashlight - swiss army knife - lighter - mechanics inspection mirror - compass - altimeter/barometer/wind speed tool - monocular - small first aid kit - granola bars - emergency blanket (silver foil) - trecking poles All of this fits in the fanny pack (the poles strap to the bottom when I am not using them) If my wife comes along, she wears a camelback with more snacks, trades and a larger first aid kit. Plus binoculars and a bird book and wildflower book. And a camera. I bought a water purifier/filter for our next major expedition. We once ran out of water before we reached a cache and had to turn back. The whole time we were hiking along a stream but didn't dare drink the water. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

I always check every 10 minutes to see if my cahce has been approved. On my last hide, I checked at 10:45 pm and it had not been approved. After brushing my teeth I told my wife "I'm going to check one more time before I go to bed." As the page was loading I commented "I can't believe there is nobody approving caches at 11 at night." Then much to my suprise, I found that my cache had been approved. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

Why do TNLN ? It is usually because I bring good things to trade and I don't want to trade them for that gum wrapper or soggy bandaid. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

Garmin GPS III+ ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.

The important thing is that your GPS and compass match. If you are going to have the GPS give you the headings, then set the GPS to magnetic and you won't have to adjust the compass for the local declination (the local difference between true north and the way the compass points). If you like to read your own headings off a map, set the GPS to true north, but you will have to adjust your compass reading for the local declination. Mils are a military unit, instead of 360 degrees in a circle, there are 6400 mils. ____________________________________________________ I may be lost, but at least I am making good time.