missionMode

Funny... you must watch as many movies as I do.

Thanks to your post I have realized that my account was also set this way. I figured out how to fix it: 1. On the lefthand menu choose My Profile. 2. Then on the bottom of the righthand menu pick "View My Account Details". 3. On the bottom of that page you will see a box that says "My Account Preferences" with a link that says "Change". Click it. 4. At the bottom of that page there is a checkmark that says "Allow friend requests". 5. Save your changes and you are good to go.

I am realizing that I am still new to geocaching. I've been following it for a year or two and have a number of friends who geocache, but until recently my only experience was at a winter church retreat last February. That was a controlled set of caches with novices in mind so it didn't teach me everything I need to know. This year I will be helping to organize that activity so that's been my excuse to invest in a new PN-40 which is coming in the mail. In the meantime I have discovered that my Blackberry Bold and BlackStar do fairly well. At this point I find myself getting ready to go and realizing late that its a puzzle cache with requiring me to recalculate coordinates. I've found at least one fairly hard micro but there is another I have visited twice and I just can't find it. Since most of my caching is urban, my biggest struggle is wondering how careful I need to be about stealth. I did some caching last weekend in a provincial (I'm Canadian) park and it was great because at this time of year there was almost nobody around and muggles aren't really an issue. Today was a different story. The temperature dropped to about -15 C during the day (from 2 or 4 C last week) and there is now light snow on the ground, so finding ground caches is more difficult and in the time it takes to decide whether snow cover is making it unfindable, there is usually some foot traffic around. I guess mostly I am wishing I had known about apps for my BB back in the spring, and I could have cached all summer long. Now I will be more selective about what is realistic in the cold and snow.

FWIW, those maps will only load into a garmin gps. Sigh.. good to know in advance. I still don't think I will need them much, and if at all it won't be until July so I have some time to either figure it out or for Delorme to release more international maps.

I am in the same boat with my PN-40 which is coming next week. I also have never used mapping software before. My first endeavour will be to transfer the pre-cut street maps for Canada from the DVD and I am hoping that goes smoothly. Then I can take my time figuring out if there is a way to get some Aerial maps for Manitoba and Northwest Ontario on there. I've already downloaded the Ibycus topo maps but I am not sure that I really need them for what I do. Regardless, I am an IT professional and very comfortable with most software so I will try to report back on my experiences with Topo 8.

We are still troubleshooting this issue. Bump... I've got a PN-40 coming in the mail and I wonder whether I will be running into this. Is it still an issue? Was it related to ANY HTML in the description or just specific HTML? I actually went looking for issues like this because I have seen GSAK macros to clean up/remove HTML for the Magellan Triton series while I was playing with one for a few days and I was curious whether something like this was going to be necessary for the PN-40.

Toy? I thought the PN-40's were so serious?

Well... I ignored this advice and just ordered one for $229. As I had hoped, my ex brother in law is still maintaining a US postal address right at the border and he has plans to go there next week to pick up some of his own parcels. I talked to Caleb from Delorme and he insists that I won't have any warranty issues using this method. That was enough for me. Good thing too... the closest unit I could find locally with those features was the Magellan Triton 500, and I bought one last night at Wal-Mart to test. It's got great paperless features but those teeny buttons are driving me crazy already. There is just no way I would use that. Too bad because otherwise it was actually pretty easy to use, if not a little slow on the redraw. Looking forward to holding my PN-40.

That's great news. I just ordered mine and I won't have actually used one due to lack of availability here in Canada, so its reassuring to see somebody so happy with it.

and.... now its $239? Is this a new game or something?

I was geocaching with BlackStar for a few hours this weekend. I found it to do a really good job. I actually found it easier than Navigator because the act of uploading the caches gave me more control over my list. Navigator wanted to connect directly to GC.com as far as I could tell. I liked Blackstar enough not to bother looking any further.

Thanks. I'm assuming you didn't attach an image that I can't see That looks like lots of detail.

Although I live in the southwestern part of the USA, I currently have many of the Canadian vectorized Street Level maps loaded on my PN-40. Is there any particular street or coffee shop that youare interested in? Thanks for the offer. I'll suppose that if sufficient street detail exists around my home then coverage is adequate... so if you were able to post or PM me a screenshot of a few blocks surrounding (lat=49.939895&lng=-97.075625) that would be very helpful. Thanks!

Are those the regional detailed maps? That definitely doesn't sound street level. Thanks for the offer Roddy. I'm not so worried about the trust as much as whether something goes wrong with the unit. Getting my brother in law who lives 10 minutes away to help with returns is a lot less hassle than working through you. First thing I have to figure out is the best Canadian price I can get, and then figure out how I expect it will compare with Amazon / exchange / possible Duty / shipping costs. It might just end up the same anyhow.

DeLorme now has maps for Canada included with the unit, and I think some higher-detail maps available for download in the Map Library (I don't have my PC available at the moment to check). You can also download shapefiles from http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/geogratis/en/index.html & convert them to layers in TopoUSA, then export to the device. I eventually found my way past the FUD and found 2 or 3 posts on the Delorme forums about how to install the maps (from the 4th DVD, only as of Topo 8). Now I just have to see whether I can find an affordable way to buy one I might know somebody who has a US postal address just over the border.

It's too bad Amazon.com can't/won't ship this unit to Canada. Amazon.ca doesn't list it. The Delorme's all have really bad regional map support for Canada so if I could get this unit at that price it would clearly be much better than other units which wouldn't provide me map support either, but without map support its not worth the price other online retailers want me to pay for these otherwise great looking units.

Some reviews I have read indicated that the screen had too much trouble in sunlight. Any experience about that either way? That is a great deal and I would be tempted to order one.