mchaos

Triton is good. The things you can't do are not necessary things. Mostly just bells and whistles. VP is pretty good software. works well. Its awesome for keeping track of every thing. Also, there is a way to mark caches found, I discovered it and it works. Every time I have used it, it has taken me right on top of that cache. Compact. Fits in mobile phone belt pouch. Comes with its own pouch as well. Cool looking. AND, if you get the Nat Topo, the maps are killer and super cheap. Get a bonus pack and you will get it free. And you will get 25 free credits for maps. 1$ gets you 25 credits, 1 credit gets you a map. I have a feeling that since Mio owns Magellan now, that the Customer service will get better. I had an explorist 200, its like another universe of goodness comparing stepping up to a triton. There is a big following of garmin lovers. Not a bad thing, its a just a popular device. I wouldn't call garmin superior to the magellon tritons. The both have their pros and cons.

me personally I like to keep track of everything I have found. Plus, if you delete it off the unit, and sync VP will put it back. I want to keep track of every thing on VP. I have to be able mark it found.

I always take my Mio off the cradle and put it in the center con. If its not seen, no one will try to take it. If some one did take my mio, they wouldnt get much use out of it. I have it hacked to s***. They wouldn't know what to do with it.

I used my unit and it worked very very well. It was super accurate. Took me right to the caches. There are some things you have to consider some times. Trees and large objects can bounce sat signals and give an in accurate reading. If you only have 3 sat's tracked then the trees will make it hard to get an accurate signal. The more Sat's you are tracking the more accurate the unit will be. you can get a location with 2 sat's, its called a 2D fix. With 3 or more its a 3D fix. Best advice is to track as many sat's as the unit can find so it can get the best triangulation. Then go for it. Carry spare batteries with you so you don't have to worry about turning off the unit to save power, and make sure the back light turns off in the minimum time, that will save most of the battery life. I make it a point to leave the unit on while I am out, especially if I am in un familiar woods. One day when scouting for a cache location, I went way off trail and was not paying too much attention. It was pretty deep in the woods. By the time I found a great location to mark I was disorientated and was not sure how to get back. With out a GPS I would have been able to find my way back, but it might have taken me much longer. Because I had the Unit on the whole time I hit back track and made light work of finding my way back to trail. In some instances I save tracks of the area as they may come in useful later. On my Mio I hacked it with Mio pocket and use BeeLine GPS for driving to the cache sight or letting me know when I am close on route. I leave it on the whole time I am driving and I save the track, now I have my own personal road map of all the area's I have cached. It has come in handy trying to find some caches.

Yeah, When all I had was my Mio car GPS, I used to just put in a zip lock baggie.

How did you make out with the found cache icon hack?

There is, but it is not initially available on the Unit. I got the same one for Christmas and found that the only thing lacking from the unit was the ability to mark caches found. By playing around I found that there is an icon on the unit, that is not selectable from the unit. There is a way to do it through vantage point. I have a thread on how to do it here. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=210827

I am working on trying to find other icons that are not out front accessible. Ill keep this thread updated.

I got the triton 400 for xmas too, and I love it. I think it works really well. I have no trouble with operating it at all. It also seems to be very accurate. It led me right on top of the first 2 caches I found with it. I don't know who the Garmin works with importing caches but the T400 Is go for paperless caching. It adds all the info from the page and decodes hints as well. The only problem with the T400 is you cannot mark caches found, and there is no icon to change it to, so that you can mark it found, HOWEVER, I found that there is a found cache icon on the unit, and there is a way to access it. I posted this in a thread in GPS and Tech about it. With that, I find no reason why the T400 isn't awesome.

No, the file is not on vantage point. Its on the receiver but no access to it. What you do is download a PNG icon. just google png icon. You should get a few sites with icons. Pick any icon you want it doesn't matter. you need 2 different sizes. 32x32 and 16x16. I just downloaded it in 32x32 and used infranview to make another 16x16 of the same one. Downloadable for free. Then you go into the root of VP, then into media\geocahing in there you will see 2 folders. one says 16x16 and 32x32. You name each one exactly " Found Cache.png " And put the correct size icons in the correct size folder. Now what happens is, when you set a cache to this in VP and sync it to the t400, it tells the T400 to use an icon called Found Cache.png, which is there on the unit, but no where to select when using the unit. It will display on the unit an open treasure chest on the ones you set it to that icon. Got it??

Well, I got my new Magellan Triton 400 for xmas, and I think its awesome. There is only one thing I am not happy with and that is that I cannot mark geocaches as found. And there is no icon selectable for found cahes... OR is there??? The work around for this problem is to set the icon as something else. I am sure most ppl choose the earth with the flag. but what if you come across the type of cache you have been marking yours found with? You will never know its there...... I wanted to find a way to add an icon possibly. I found where the icons are kept in vantage point, although this does not change or add icons in the GPSr. BUT I made a discovery. I added an icon for found caches. It was just a big green flag. I wanted to see what it would do. I changed a cache I had found to that Icon. Then I synced it. When I turned on the GPSr I saw that the icon showed up as a small chest opened up!!! At first I didn't think too much of this till I added another icon, and figured it would show up as the same thing. It showed up as no icon on the GPSr. I figured out what I did. Apparently there are some icons on the tritons you do not have access too, and by luck I had typed in exactly what the name of one of the icons were. Found Cache.png That is the name of it. If you add an icon to vantage point named that, in the media\geocache folder, on the receiver it will show up as an opened treasure chest. unfortunately you cannot set it to this on the receiver its self, it must be done through vantage point. But if when you get home you update it, you can make sure your next trip out that you will see the caches that you have found. I wonder if there is an icon for My Cache.png ??? thats my next try. If any one finds any more hidden icons or a way to select it on the receiver PLEASE POST IT!!! I am sure there must be a file on the receiver that tells it what icons it can use. I will keep hacking till I find a way. I have an idea on how I may be able to figure out these hidden icons names. I will keep every one updated.

I just want to see what every one got for geocaching for Christmas. List it here. I got: A Magellan triton 400. Nice hiking backpack. water bladder for the pack. A sweet walking stick. I got everything I wanted except the pile of ammo cans I didn't think I was gonna get any way.

You know, this kind of stupid stuff makes me think. I have come up with an idea. The problem arises when law enforcement has not idea what a geocache is and does not know the website exists. Suppose geocaching.com makes a program for geocachers in their area to go to every ones local police station and let them know geocaching exists, and show them the web site, and it can be kept track of on geocaching.com what stations have been notified. This way if they get a call about a suspicious container maybe they will check geocaching.com for the area and see if the suspicious container in question is listed on the site before the call in the bomb squad. Now I have something to say about the size of the container and explosives. I don't even think a film canister full of a very high explosive like centex would even take out the lamp post. The mythbusters tackled the james bond myth about exploding pens. even in a gigantic ridiculous sized pen couldn't obliterate a foam manikin. The normal sized pen full of centex did almost nothing. If some one could get their hands on c4 or centex, I am sure they would use a better container then a film canister. So logically it would most likely be black powder in the canister, as well a film canister would not create a very good explosion.

I haven't looked for any benchmarks yet, but I plan too. There is on in particular in may area that has not been found. Its a chiseled cross, and according to notes, in 1942 it was barely visible. I'd like to see if I could find whats left of it. If I find this, would it be acceptable to mark it with maybe a little bit of paint, or some sort of marker? I wonder about this for any benchmark like this on. Should we be trying to preserve them or restore them if we can? or are these something we are supposed to leave alone all together. I think it would be enjoyable to be able to restore some of the decaying ones. THOUGHTS?

I am a relatively new cacher. So far in my experiences, I have seen that more people are aware of geocaching then you would think. Also, in one encounter with a park police officer, her was completely enlightened about geocaching. In the case of the average Joe, when bringing out geocaching, at first they do not know what it is, but when I explain it, most people say they that have herd about that, just didnt know it was called geocaching. I think as the sport grows, there will be more awareness of it. I think the area has something to do with it as well. One of my favorite container finds was near a mine. right outside the entrance in fact, under a rock. The container resembled at first something that may be an explosive, or a detonator. But in large yellow letters it said. "NO DANGER!! NOT A BOMB. OFFICIAL GEOCACHE" I don't think it is a bad idea in the case of a cache that may seem fishy to a muggle if they stumble across it, to have something on it like "OFFICIAL GEOCACHE GAME PIECE". This way at a glance you will know it is nothing dangerous.

thanx. I thought I may have to do that. Was just hoping there was a one click solution.

yes i know about pocket querys. Here is the problem. It was set for loc, so i have to wait a week before it will run again. how can I download them all in one file right now.

yes i know about pocket querys. Here is the problem. It was set for loc, so i have to wait a week before it will run again. how can I download them all in one file right now.

Oh crap!!! I did not mean to post this 3 times? Site hicuped. Sorry Please delete the other 2 as it posted nothing in them.

Ok, I got my self a megellan triton 400 for christmas. It supports GPX and has geocaching built in. So I don't need LOC files any more. Here is my question. When you search for caches by zip code, then check boxes, how to download those as gpx?? It always comes up as a loc download. Is there a preference some where I can make it give it to me as gpx?

I have been thinking about it, and I have come up with 2 questions. Are we hiding these caches from muggles? Or, are we hiding these caches from every one? I figure that when we hide these, we hide them from every one else but other cachers. I can see wanting to make it a little challenging but why would you want to make your cache so hard to find, that no one can find it? I can understand being creative. If you hide is soooo blended in that it is almost impossible to see, maybe there should be some kind of clue to help ppl find it. If no one is finding it, maybe a better clue.

I am fairly new at caching, but I love it so far and consider my self well versed with the sport already. As well my equipment is evolving as well. I started out with my MIO Moov 200 hacked with Mio pocket. Since I have acquired simple explorist 200 which I like very much. Much nicer after getting a serial cable for it to upload files. I am now going for paperless caching, as I have walked around with a clipboard with printouts, which is cumbersome. Now I am using my GF's Palm tx which she never uses. After fooling with some programs online for geocaching, I find the best way is too put adobe reader on it and download the pdf files from the cache pages for it. This way I do not have to bring my laptop with me, however, I do anyway. And lets not forget my trusty walking stick... So I have a Mio Moov200 with Mio Pocket for driving to the cache. Also has program for paperless caching. Explorist 200 for hiking to the cache GZ. Palm TX for paperless, to look at clues ect at GZ. Laptop in case its needed or if stop for break in WiFi area. Walking stick for beating evil monsters that want to take my cookies ........ FOR WALKING I want to see what every one else uses and how it is beneficial to the hunt.

Geo-poser

fun or not, logging the cache helps with maintaining it. So when you log you are helping the sport. Am i wrong?

This really isn't a big deal, but it draws my attention and it just makes me feel like I need to do something or forgetting to do something or something is wrong. I understand the need for the disclaimer and I am not saying it shouldn't be on every cache page. it should. I was just thinking, could it be removed from the view of premium members? we obviously agree to it when we purchase a membership. It could also be something else you get when you purchase membership. I know this prolly will not happen. Just a thought/suggestion.