KG7JE

I've been known to bend over and tie my seemingly loose shoelaces. Have to tie the other side when I put something back though! Works great for those magnetic caches on the bottom rail of an iron fence. Guess I can say that since the one I know about has been archived!

PPC = Pocket PC 2002. I should have been more explicit. I'm just tightening up on the number of caches the .gpx file has to make it easier to find when in GPS Tuner.

The supplier of my GPSr (a CF card) claims 10'. The FAA (http://gps.faa.gov/Programs/WAAS/waas.htm) claims 1-2 meters horizontally and up the 3 meters vertically (almost as good as following the glideslope down a localizer to the runway). Now, if somebody would teach me a little web language so I could put the above link "here".

Nolenator works near there and has several caches nearby. Perhaps an email directly to him might elicit an interest.

I have an IPAQ 3670 (yup, an ancient one) with PPC 2002. Run only GPxSonar and GPSTuner. Use the .gpx pocket queries. I get two, one I rename work.gpx and the other home.gpx (about 25 miles apart). They are copied into the synch directory on the PC. ActiveSync ensures they are copied to the PPC. Use GPxSonar to write out the .loc file that GPSTuner needs. Now, it looks like Mapopolis may come in handy if I decide to cache out of my local area(s).

Was in a park taking readings for a cache I wanted to place. Some teens came by and wanted to know what the gadget did. So I hatched a story of checking out the GPS signals in the area and measuring how accurate they were. I also tend to wear my company ID hung from the belt. They can't really read the company name but it seems to lend some officialdom to it. Once walked right through a police action (didn't realize 'til I was half-way through) with only a side glance from the main guards. Probably thought I was the upgraded version of that guy, "Can you hear me now?"

There have been times that I couldn't get a signal within 100' of the cache. Then there was the time with great signals that I walked up and settled the GPSr within 0.5' of the cache (a micro hidden...mmm, better not say so you can enjoy the hunt). Most times I (if I have the 3D turned on with WAAS) can get within 10' before having to start to search. Please note that 0.001 minutes is about 6'. Many times I have set and averaged a 100 or so readings at a spot, then done it again, and again, and again. Often the numbers will vary by +/- 0.003 or more. That's a variation of 18' or more without moving the receiver. If your GPSr can average a whole lot of points, then sit down with it in the open and try a bunch of repeated averages. Then walk away and come back an hour or two later (or next day at a different time of the day) to the very same spot and do it all over again. Try it out in the open, then under a light leaf canopy, then under a heavy leaf canopy. If you can average within 10' of each other over a period of time, then you are doing excellent. (Most likely have 6+ sats in view and WAAS turned on.)

If I know (or think) there will be poor signals at the cache site, I take my hand-held compass from my sailing days. My unit will calculate the true course to the target waypoint. It doesn't take much to transfer that (with appropraite variation) to a magnetic heading for the compass. Also helps if I'm in a good signal spot that's directly on either the latitude or longitude of the cache. I can sight down the compass to get an idea of where that bearing really lays (as opposed to where the GPS thinks it lies) <<spelling intentional>>.

Not a problem. We found a way to make it work via the system. Folks have had fun with Wits End. And that soon to be 40 year young Nolenator pulled another FTF with Lost in Seattle! And he did it without good GPS signals!

Try something up Seattle way. Next week I should get everything pulled together for "Lost in Seattle". But I'm beginning to think I made it too easy. Perhaps there should be some search in S&R.

A fellow cacher emailed me about a local problem. Turns out that the owner of two caches moved away about 6 months ago. I'd found one of their caches close to the house and was maintaining it for the owner. Didn't know about the other cache until the email. The owner kindly archived both caches and I was able to pull them out, refurbish (had to completely replace one), and put them back with new names and slightly new hiding spots. You might have better luck getting TPTB to archive the cache for you. Then you should be free to replace it -- perhaps even with the same physical container. I don't know if you could use the same name or not. Anway, "Auburndale the 2nd" and "WITS END" have both been approved as replacements for "Auburndale Park" and 'Pumpkin Patch". --KG7JE

I watch for TB in my area that I can help move along. Guess I'll start looking for the TB Hotels in the area. Sounds like they need a cleaning every so often

I'll log a DNF if I gave it my best shot. However, if I couldn't get close due to some muggles or other complication then I'll just log a note (especially if the comments help the story on the cache). There is only once where I logged nothing. There wasn't any story and I gave up before getting close. Then there were the two DNFs I logged back-to-back only to have somebody else find it!! That hurt since the 2nd DNF was a 2+ hour search in the area (didn't help that the GPS kept losing the signal). Its just part of the hunt. A piece of the story. Go ahead and tell about the time you slipped on the banana peel, hit your head on that fake rock and woke up 72 hours later in the hospital under armed guard. Both the CIA and FBI waiting to question you as to country of origin, plans, and why you hit your head on a fake rock! Or did I dream that last night?

Had a ham radio delivered to me once. At least UPS claimed it had been delivered and they had the address and signature to prove it. Problem was that the address they delivered to was not the one on the package and was half-way across town. The sender took one look at their documentation and shipped me another one. I presume he had a long chat with the UPS folks. It is so bad here that I finally started shipping everything to where my wife works. At least I can get business delivery rather than residential delivery that way. It's a small office so everybody knows the delivery folks.

I'd like to go the other way. It would be nice to sent an updated waypoint back to GPX Sonar. I understand from the GPS Tuner folks that they may have something in their next release sometime this summer that will write out a waypoint file that GPX Sonar can read. Now, if I could just automate picking that up and dropping it into the field notes as a new waypoint.... <<grin>> call me lazy!

Oh, I guess I should add that GPS Babel doesn't appear to run on a PPC. At least I didn't see that in their list of supported O/Ss.

GPS Tuner still requires a .loc file. I understand that the next release will be able to read the .gpx file directly. My main problem was locating the waypoint to set it as a target in GPS Tuner. (GPX Sonar already allows the display to be sorted in a number of different ways). However, I stumbled across a shortcut in GPS Tuner today. When you tap the map a drop down menu appears. If the tap was close to a cache then the top item on the menu is the cache name. I've tried tapping or tap/holding on that with nothing happening before. However, that's without the GPSr card being installed. Today with the card in place and activily tracking the position I accidently held the cache name a little longer and another drop down menu showed up that let me set the cache as the target. Yippee! I may not have to scroll through that long random waypoint listing any more! Now, if only GPS Tuner and GPX Sonar would merge together! That would be an awesome package.

And to think that I set up an out of office appointment so I could grab a TB during the day and drop it off on the way home at night. Hmm. Maybe I'm sick. Doctor, Doctor, what is wrong with me?

GPX Sonar will sort the list for it's display. However, it doesn't update the gpx file and the loc file it generates is in the same order of the gpx file.

Help? We are supposed to ask for help? Hmm. Anybody want to help me find Wrong Way? I'm beginning to think I'm looking in the wrong place. But that would be true only if the top of the cliff hung over the site. (Besides, I think it's private property up there.)

Could a sort option be added to Pocket Queries? a. No sort b. Distance from Origin c. Cache ID d. Cache Name Since GPX Sonar doesn't sort the output to the .loc file and GPS Tuner doesn't sort period, I'm having a tough time locating the Waymarks in the drop down list. So, I'm going back to the source and seeing the the GPX file could be sorted in some pre-defined and optional manner.

I've had fun with a GPSr CF for my PDA. Works great. But the power drain is noticable. Be sure to get a sleeve with an extra battery in it. That helps tremendously. The other item would be a power cord off of the cig lighter when driving around. But separates are also nice. Do the hunt on the GPS and record notes on the PDA (GPX Sonar). You can buy a nice hand-held GPS for about the same price as the GPSr CF card.

Just to see if my avitar really does work.

Thanks to folks for their suggestions. Played with both Vito Navigator II and GPS Tuner. I went for GPS Tuner. Haven't seen much need for Mapopolis yet (still playing with it). Probably if I didn't know the area very well it would be more helpful. Oh yes, and GPXSonar. Now, if GPS Tuner and GPXSonar were integrated -- man that would be awesome! Get close to a cache in Tuner and it would be automatically picked when switching to Sonar. Update the field notes and have Sonar grab the coordinates directly from Tuner (say the High Precision). Maybe they already do and I just haven't figured it out!

I tried running GPS Tuner (Demo). Doesn't work on a PPC 2000. Guess I should have upgraded back when I had a chance.