newts

EXACTLY what Triple Crown said would have also been my first suggestion. Also if the Dr Who filming locations have a common naming convention you can bring them up just by entering any partial part of the name. If WHO or DR WHO for example is common to all of them it will work quite well. It might bring up a random few odd fliers, but I suspect not many. I did the same thing recently for a CIVIL WAR series. I use a pre-programmed map card, so I have no first hand knowledge, but am fairly certain you could separate your files by loading them to different SD cards, and swapping them in and out as desired. Thanks for the tips. The first one only works for searching, not for what is shown on the map? If I had another chip I could swap that with duplicate maps on it. I thought of that but I only have one 1G chip and it won't work with anything larger. I was really there was a way to enable/disable gpx files like there is for map files.

I hope I am missing something obvious: Can I disable specific GPX files on the Garmin Oregon (550t)? Let's say I make a PQ for park and grabs and another for Multis and I only want to see the park and grabs. Can I temporarily (in the field of course) disable the multi PQ file only display the park and grabs? (that is hypothetical, what I am really doing is visiting Cardiff and London and I have a GPX file of every Dr Who filming location in addition to my usual pocket queries. That plus the Open Street maps POIs and the screen can get really busy so I want a way to select if I am in geocaching mode or Dr Who mode)

WHERE can I get this leaked 2.1!!? I am losing patience with the buggy stuff that came with the phone.

Excellent tips, moby thanks to all. And Elbonia is next to Freedonia, right?

So I went ahead and ordered a Garmin Oregon 400T. (New refurbs with warranty are $299 on eBay now...). The Triton looked interesting and the list prices seem to be a good value of features/$ although I was a little turned off by a CE machine. It looks like I can get maps from the sources mentioned although I am not sure I can find the kind of quality I am used to for US maps. I am looking forward to trying them and maybe I can contribute to the project. The commercial products seem to include city road data for major cities in the countries I am interested in or topo maps of European countries that I don't plan to visit. I couldn't find maps of Elbonia anywhere! Or Romania for that matter as I am planning a trip there this summer. The free maps and the ability to make my own should be enough though. My main goal is to have enough contextual information from a map to make geocaching more fun and also getting around without getting lost in places where I don't speak the language. Thanks for the help and suggestions. jv

I travel to Asia and Europe and I am looking for a good mapping GPS to use. It looks like none of them have good maps outside of the US but the Garmin allows you to make your own from JPEG files. As I understand it I can buy a Garmin, use free software from Garmin to load a JPEG and orient it and then it will chop it into tiles and load it onto a chip or the unit itself. Is that right? I am a Garmin guy from 1998 (GPS-20?) but mostly been caching using Trimble Outdoors [reference to unauthorized application removed by moderator] but I am frustrated with the limitations and irritations of phone GPS at times and still like a "real" GPS. Also the phones are useless out of network coverage in the wilderness or out of the country. So what is the best one to get for the money? I am looking at the Dakota 20 or the Oregon 450. I also looked at the Delorme PN series until I realized they didn't have world maps and I could also consider Magellan if someone makes a good enough case for it. Thanks and happy caching, jv

What do you mean "the motorolas"? I can share position information on my Motorola i605 to others using Mologo as well as get real time maps. Or with the RINOs you can easily see where your buddy is on a more normal portable GPSr style unit as well as short range 2-way. Have: - Nextel i605 With Trimble Adventure primary geocaching unit - (2) Garmin RINO 110 GPS/Radio alternate geocaching/outdoor use with kids. - Toyota Prius built-in nav unit. - Garmin 320C just bought for travel (rental cars) navigation. Used to Have - Nextel i730 using builtin and homebrew firmware - Garmin GPS-12 was my first GPS unit and served well into my first year of geocaching.

Excellent. Worked great! I use a Gilson case now with a clip and a velcro. Seems nice but I haven't taken it into the field yet.

Tiger is not a reputable company. I learned that the hard way years ago. I bought a LCD monitor from them along with a new computer system for my daughter about 5 years ago. It was advertised as 1024x768 and they even advertised "you would pay hundreds more for a monitor with this resolution". Well, it came and was only 800x600. I called them and they pointed me to the dislaimer about not being responsible for typos. They offered to let me exchange it for a better one for several hundred dollars more. I declined. I returned the whole order and vowed never to do business with them again. And to share my story. There used to be a tigersucks.com web site for similar stories but that domain is gone. I am sure there are others... jv http://volcano.newts.org/index.php?/categories/6-GeoCaching

I had a Rino 130 and a 110. Unfortunately I lost the 130 on a trip (dropped it on a plane or at the Chicago airport... I couldn't have it locate itself). Anyway, these are decent GPSr in addition to the radio features. I especially miss the digital compass feature of the 130. When you go below a set speed and signal jitter causes you to lose a good bearing on the display the 130 would switch to use a digital compass for bearing. Real nice for locating a cache. Of course now I have to use a manual compass again. Poor me. I have had only one problem and that is a very weak back on the 110. I never had this problem on the 130 which I used the most but on the 110 the belt-clip pin broke the plastic back when my daughter had it on her belt. Garmin replaced the back no questions asked but a few weeks later I had the same problem and this time it was just clipped to geocaching satchel. I think the 110 is just a weaker mechanical design that they might have fixed on the other models. Anyway, I currently epoxyed it back in so that I can use it on the bike clip and that works fine. I bought a neoprene RINO case to use portable and no longer use the belt clip. The other problem I am having is my waypoint memory is full and I can't figure out how to delete them. I would like to delete *all* my waypoints but I can only seem to delete one at a time manually. GSAK can't delete waypoints and the manual doesn't seem to be any help. Anyone else know how to do this? jv http://volcano.newts.org/index.php?/categories/6-GeoCaching

I think I really like Waymarking. A good way point out and share interesting places and things to people without the formality of a cache. But I feel a couple things are missing and either they are there and I missed them or (IMHO) they should be added. The categories are great but I would like to get an area search of N waymarks in an area and have them in a GPX file. That way I can see and be exposed to different things without searching categories from a location. And putting it into a GPX file would allow me use my existing tools to put it in the GPSr and the info into Plucker on my palm PDA. Maybe I am different but when visiting places my geocaching is usually secondary and the selection of places to visit is opportunstic by what the GPS tells me is near. Then I can read about it on the Palm. So, can we get general or cross category searches from a location and GPX files? jv

Everready makes a good charger that I have used for several years now with NiCD and NiMH. It is a 4-bay AAA and AA charger that runs off 12V and charges each cell indepentantly. So 3 cells are fine (I wish it did 6...). I spent some effort looking for chargers to use with the 3 cell Motorola Talkabout radios. Now, if I could get Sendmap20 to work with my RINO 130 to dl my map I would be real happy... jv

Excellent. Thanks for the quick response. After posting I fiddled with Plucker Desktop/Distiller settings and got what I wanted. What I do is this: Run a query on geocaching.com and save it as a .loc file. This I dl to GSAK and export it with my pocketcache information to html and dl to my GPSr. Then I have Plucker (an amazingly great web page grabber and offline reader for the Palm) configured to package up my local Cache file generated with GSAK and also go 2 levels into GC.com's site with particular spidering filters set to not run off into mapquest or other sites. Plucker takes about 2 minutes to do all of this getting the additional data from geocaching.com. jv

I am new to this whole thing but I have got GPS Swiss Army Knife working with pocket queries for caches and dl'd .loc files of the benchmarks to work. I export dl them to the GPSr and make a HTML file that I use with Plucker to dl and view on the Palm. Now I want more. The .loc files for the benchmarks do not have the benchmark log or original datasheet information. The descriptions are really the useful part of downloading the information to the Palm. Otherwise I already have the designation and coordinates going to the GPSr. Is there a way to get this information directly? I am experimenting with Plucker distiller to have it follow links back to geocaching.com to get this information but it is still 2 levels down and looks like about 2000 links to hit to get my information. There must be a better way. Thanks, jv

Wait, all new cell phones have to have a GPS? I haven't heard this. I thought the E911 was to get locations from cell phone calls but the cell equipment sends it based on its best guess or something, not that each phone has to have it. Do you have a reference for that? I haven't seen GPS in many other phones or actually any other phones besides Nextel. It would be neat if they did or kind of sinister if they had GPS that transmitted to the authorities but had no user features. From this FCC document I find: But I don't see where this mandates GPS. It looks like that is one way to acheive it and other is "network based" or some kind of RDF from the cell tower I imagine. Anyway I only googled for 5 minutes and the FCC document I found is several years old. jv

If you just go to the GPS (the satellite icon if you have icons enabled on the main display) and select "Position". It will churn away and give you a location. If you use the included TeleNav program for "Basic GPS" you can get speed/direction/location, breadcrumb map and compass. The software I am working on now will give you simple compass bearing and range to a target, either user entered or the current cell tower. jv <-- Ancient Chinese Proverb: Man with 1 GPS knows where he is. Man with 2 GPS never quite sure.

I have 3 now: primary is the trustly old Garmin GPS-12. I use my Nextel i730 phone mostly in conjunction with the Garmin to learn more about it while I develope new tracking software for it. I also use the Nav system in my Prius to get to the neighborhood and get an idea on the street map.

Actually there is a lot of capability in the GPS phones because you can program your own software. Yes, the major apps for it now are spyware, fleet tracking and street navigation services but how about a Geocaching application? I am working on some tracking/locating software now. Right now it is simple bearing/range to either a target entered at the keypad or to the current cell tower if you ever want to know where the tower you are using is. However, with a GPS, J2ME (Java) and network capability how about have your cell phone give you a list of closest caches? Then track them, map them, log them. How about show the real time location of other geocachers while they are tracking caches in the area? If you have a GPS and Java enabled phone and are interested in helping with this or field testing it get in touch with me. This is a spare time project so it is moving real slow but I have some software now I am fiddling with. jv

I was biking on my way to look for GCC45F when I ran across this: Actually I ran across one about every half mile or mile. The locals are puzzled as this "trail" was where they killed the grass on the side of the road. There's lots of ATVs in the area but the signs say no motors. The sand is too loose for effective biking. Anyway, being a newbie I wanted to ask if these are worth tracking as benchmarks or just a novelty? I have a couple more shots at My Geocaching Gallery. jv

Just by chance I stumbled upon one at Epcot. I used my Nextel phone to get a location for it but it looks like it is old news here. Still a fun find. http://newts.org/gallery/Geocaching/aak This is one near the bridge by the Mexico exhibit at Epcot. You know, right near the frozen margeritas... jv