Bob Smith

BBC News Tuesday 12th July

I'm going to be in Joburg for seven weeks from May 26th and hope to get some caching in. I'm staying near GC1BH5K Arch Old Fort. Be grateful for any advice on safety etc whilst caching in Joburg. PM me if you want Bob Smith

Make your own? Another couple of things I've just noticed, don't know how long they've been there... You can have a Lat/Long label showing by your cursor, and you can drop a stationary Lat/Long marker at any point. In both cases the display is +/- decimal degrees, but we all know how to convert to H DD MM.MMM don't we? Not obvious how you do this. Here is what I found out, click on the green 'bottle' top right and select "LatLng Marker" from new screen which opens and select enable. Right click to drop co-ords.

I've just had a look at the motorway junction near home and the map about three years out of date.

I've just returned from Vancouver, prior to going I created a calibrated memory map format file for the area using google maps which served me well. The file is about 45megs and covers all of Vancouver including the noth side and most of Richmond. PM me if interested Bob S

This link explains the different models http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quicksp.../12532_div.HTML Bob S

I can buy specimen containers from my local chemist for less than the cost of the pepper pots and they are waterproof! Bob

It's just a bit of light hearted fun, nothing more nothing less. The question was what has it got to do with caching. I know it's fun, but caching items have been closed by the mods in the past so why not this one?

I may be being thick, but can someone please explain what this topic has to do with caching?

Cache owners name is a must in my opinion

HP RX 5720 and RX 5935 can be found on ebay for around £90 or less if you are lucky. They are excellent for caching, come complete with Tom Tom. The SIRF3 chipset can be set to turn static navigation off, important for caching. The differences between the two are that the RX5935 has 2gb on board rom and wifi. Both take SD but not SDHC card. Edit to say that these use WM5 and there no need for port splitting to run multiple applications needing GPS

PM me if you are interested in the memory map I did for Tenerife. It's about 16 megs Bob S

I've had a lot of success making MM maps using google maps. I use google earth to get a 'rough' calibration and then download a loc file (doesn't count as a PQ) for the area in question and use the small map at the bottom of the cache page to do the 'proper' calibration. As HH says once you get the hang of it it's quite easy and accurate too, big plus it's free! The one I've done for Adelaide is accurate as far as I can tell to a street width. Bob

Bud It's possible to make your own MM maps using Google maps, these can be calibrated quite easily using the European version of MM and google earth. I've had success making maps for some Australian cities, the calibration seems to be about half a road width. When are you going?

How about this one? EBUBYRBGF Which decrypts to ROHOLEOTS

The best bet of all is the HP travel Companion RX 5720, runs WM5 so you can use Cachemate and Memory Map. Has SIRF3 chipset and Tom Tom. Ok not as robust as a 'real' GPS but fine if you take reasonable care. Lots of SE cachers are using these now.

Be careful using this discharge circuit. No battery likes to be 'overdischarged ' which is exactly what this circuit will do unless you remove the battery as soon as the watch stops.

My Garmin 60 has a set up for the type of battery. if it's set for normal alkaline and you use rechargeables it will indicate a flat state prematurely

Have you a link? I checked the Smittyware page and the one for the Palm is still the same version. Maybe it's only the Windows version that has been updated. It appears that there have been no changes to the Palm version for a number of years, the one I was referring to was the Windows Mobile version. Bob

A new version of cachemate is now available. The changes apparently are Added - Corrected coordinate indicator in record view Added - Confirmation prompt before clearing travel bug log Added - Option to stack HTML links vertically (workaround for PIE 6 bug) Added - Option to decode hints by default Added - List view menu option to launch navigation plugin Added - List view menu option to acquire center point from GPS Added - Ability to manually add travel bugs to cache record Fixed - Removal of GCxxx duplicates while deleting child waypoints Log timestamps in exported GPX files are now expressed as GMT I also noticed there was a plugin to generate a TomTom overlay files, not sure if this is new or not. Bob S

You can use the same registration info as long as you have the same owners name on both devices. I have two PDAs and cachemate works fine on both. If you have a Palm then you need another code, but it is free if you email smittyware. Bob

I'm using an IPAQ RX 5720 PDA. It's got everything you need for caching, and includes Tom Tom for the UK I paid about £150 for it (new). I was talking to non caching friend last evening and he recently bought a couple on ebay for about £80 each. If you can get one for that price I go for it. Bob S

Whilst on holiday in Australia earlier this year I did a FTF on GC18Z5P, 15427kms from home. Bob S

I claim not a FTF but a FTB (Buy) for our guest. Nice to see so many people there to say farewell and many thanks for everything. Oh and if you passenger is who I think it is he gets no sympathy Bob S

Just to put the record straight. I was asked by Rodz to delete my comments about Wherigo (the program) on his cache as he felt it was not appropriate for the cache page. It also seems to be important to make sure you have the latest version of the cartridge and downloaded for your specific GC user ID. I described the beta software as flaky at the best, tries to be too clever, it decides on the GPS for you and if it can't find it too bad. This actually happened on Saturday when I tried Mr Dewdrops BT gps with my PDA, and it could not be found although it was able to find mine which was not suitable because of the well known static navigation problem. It will be a long time before I try again, certainly not until the software is improved. I can live without it.