Gr8Scot

Excellent!!!!

That looks like the answer. Thanks!

I've got a similar situation at the moment with a cache I have permission to place that would involve driving on unmapped roads on private land. I want cache hunters to stick to the route approved by the landowner, so need some way of giving them a map. A downloadable track would be the answer. I seem to remember reading in a recent Groundspeak newsletter that it is possible to upload a gpx file of a track for download by others. This would solve our problem, but the rider was that the file would be deleted after 7 days, which seems a shame. I can't find the article now though. I just (yesterday) deleted all my old Newsletters (typical!). Can anyone assist? This could also be done in OSM, but the difficulty would be in doing it in such a way that the portion of a trail that you would be interested in would be identifiable. However, if the trail isn't currently on OSM, it could be added and maybe named with the cache name. Of course, a later mapper may later change the name! I'd like to invite anyone with gps tracks of mountain trails or back roads that are not already on OSM to send them to me if they don't wish to map them themselves. I'll then trace them onto the map. All I need is for the "tidied up" gpx file and a brief description to be mailed to me. Let's see if we can get the Table Mountain chain's paths fully mapped. It can only be of benefit to the Geocaching community.

The img file is for loading directly onto the GPS in the \Garmin folder (if yours has that capability). If you need to do it via Mapsource, use this link. You will need to choose the 4 tiles that cover SA, supply an e-mail address and click the "Build Map" button. You then get sent a link (valid for 48 hours) to download the files, one of which is a Mapsource installer file. You can use this to view the map on Mapsource and from there transfer it to your GPS. Note that if the SA map is already available (i.e. someone has requested it within the last 48 hours) , instead of getting a box to fill your e-mail address into, you will get a link marked "Download the map now"

A free routable OpenSteetMap for the whole of South Africa is available from here for anyone bringing their Garmin GPS to SA for the World Cup. I know that the new Cape Town Stadium and surrounds are fully mapped. Could anyone near the other World Cup venues confirm that they are also present and correct?

I've found the following site which allows one to chose a small area of the free Open Street Map and download a series of img files that can be copied directly to any Garmin GPS capable of handling "non Standard name" files (Colorado, Oregon, Dakota and I think the newer Nuvis). This allows quick downloads of small sections of the map covering an area of interest to you. This could be very useful if visiting somewhere for which you have no map, but don't want to buy one or need a whole country for example. The site is at: http://touren.mospace.de/kachel.html You just choose the area you want and it gives you links to the zipped img files you need. Unzip and copy these to your \Garmin folder on your GPS and enable the map. For those in Cape Town, the following two files cover the area from Cape Point to Saldahna and inland to about Paarl. Total download size shown in kb. IMHO the OSM map of Cape Town is far more up-to-date than any commercial map. Southern Cape Town (562kb) Northern Cape Town (980kb)

Yes they are! From the calendars buried under them, they have been there from the 70's. The sign reads "Do not touch the spider webs - we are trying to preserve them" or something like that.

Too easy (and super creepy!) Over to you

Where should arachnophobics never cache?

Rolandale on the N2 near Swellendam

Excellent thread Doc! I strongly feel that this should become a "pinned" topic. I wish there had been something like this when I started.

Read the cache description CAREFULLY and right to the end before even starting to look for the cache, especially if it's a multi or a mystery cache. Get an idea of what you will need to do and have with you before you start. It's very frustrating to get to the second last stage of a multi and then discovering that you should have taken a photo of something along the way to solve for the final co-ordinates. Once you've found the cache, take time to write a decent log and try to avoid putting in spoilers. Most cache owners would prefer a longer, descriptive log (even if negative) to just logging TFTC or "easy find". Think of it as a way of saying thank-you to the person who placed the cache.

Send an e-mail to Noddy (see higher up the thread). That's how I got added.

Are you not meant to pick the tiles you want on the world map (those covering DC & Holland) at the same time? You will then receive one installation file with those two areas in it rather than two separate files.

I got e-mailed the link to download the map about a hour after requesting it. The map contains all the changes I made last week, so it's really up to date. The mapsouce file also installed itself no problem. This looks like Malo Mystery's answer .

Wow - cool site! I've sent a request for just the Western Cape and will report back on the state of the map. This looks like it'll solve Malo Mystery's problem, as it generates a Mapsouce installer that can then be combined with the Garmap tiles for the Cape to create the .img files needed to download to the Nuvi. The second site is the same as the one I listed previously, but it only supplies the whole of SA in a .img file with no Mapsource loader. Thanks

Normally I'd agree, but this time we were headed for the cache anyway and had the choice of boring tar road (mapped) and "exciting" dirt (unmapped) so my OSM mapping quest made the choice easy!

From what I've read it can be done by combining Garmap & OSM into one gmapsupp.img file using Mapsource. You then use the Map Info button on the Nuvi to chose which map to display. Trouble is that I haven't come across an OSM compiled map that can be loaded into Mapsource yet. The link I gave above doesn't have the Mapsource file. Anyone know of a site?

I also contribute to T4A, but get a little irritated when they sometimes don't process the tracks into their maps. Their focus is more 4x4 trails and overland routes (naturally) and so it's hardly surprising that new roads in suburbia are not high on their list of priorities. That's why OSM has grabbed my interest, as I can upload the track and then do the processing myself, which is pretty simple. Yesterday I deliberately chose back roads between Bonnievale and McGreggor to get to a cache, just because they didn't exist on OSM, so that I can be the one to put them there.

I just got into the openstreetmaps thing last week and am already hooked. I've spent the last week uploading my archived tracks and tracing the ways onto the map. It's really fun to then download the updated map to the GPS a day or so later and then drive the roads that were previously "missing" to see how accurate you were. I quickly learnt that putting a one-way (by accident) into a road plays havoc with the routing! Makes you realise just how difficult it is to create a routable GPS map. The map of Cape Town seems to be fairly well developed already. Out my way around Durbanville, some of the newer roads (last three years or so) were not shown, but now some of them are. It's an excellent by-product of geocaching to be able to help build something for use by anyone for free. It would be great if more cachers could get involved. As a special note to all the serious mountain cachers around Cape Town, it looks to my untrained eye that the trails already mapped on the Table Mountain chain are way superior to those on Garmap or T4A. I'd like to know a "mountain man's" opinion. If you don't agree, you can just upload your track and fix the trail. Strikes me that the table mountain chain's trails could be almost perfect in no time if everyone did that. To help those who are interested, here is a link to the zipped .img file for Garmin GPS's. If you are able to, rename the map before you upload it to your GPS. You can then have it to turn on or off as you wish in addition to your normal map. I know this is possible on the Colorado, Oregon and Dakota range. Not sure about the others. Can anyone advise? http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=e...2FosmGarmin.htm

Just installed GCVote. Very interesting. I think all that's needed is for more local cachers to be made aware of it, as I certainly wasn't before reading this thread. Especially as it's now available for other browsers. Looking at my caches found page, I largely agree with the ratings I can now see. This makes me think that the ratings on unfound caches will probably be a good guide as well. My suggestion - just spread the word and it'll get more accurate.

He must have worked for the City Council!

First thing to check that you haven't changed profiles. Could be that you were in Recreational and have now switched back to Automotive. In Recreational profile possibly check Settings>Routing>Calculate Route for: is set to Pedestrian and not Car/Motorcycle. Also could be that you need to change the guidance method to use the shortest rather than fastest route. Is the same map enabled as when the trail navigation worked? Could also be that you had chosen a saved track as your destination. The Orgeon wiki states that the following happens if you do this: "Navigating to a track you will give you a distance from your currently location along the track to the end. The pointer will point along the track as you follow it. Details here:" http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/Tracks#toc20 So there are lots of possibilities. Can you describe the situation more precisely and say which map you were using (Garmap or T4A maybe). It may then be possible to simulate.

It's not mentioned on the Wiki, so I don't think so. The beta was very buggy, so I think they've withdrawn that feature for the production release.

The anticipated firmware upgrades to resolve the missing street names are available for Webupdater. Reports are that the problem is now resolved. Changes made from version 3.70 to 3.80 (x00 models): * Added BirdsEye control to profiles. * Added screen calibration option to Oregon 200. * Fixed issue changing marine modes. * Fixed map display problems. Changes made from version 3.30 to 3.40 (x50 models): * Added BirdsEye control to Profiles. * Fixed map display problems. Download using Webupdater. http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4051