PandyBat

I'm absolutely no help here, but I wanted to say I just love your avatar, kevmikwa! That's so brilliant and funny! Thanks for the giggle!

I think I know which one you are talking about, n00b. I read it too. It was sad. The people that were related to the dead man asked that no pictures be posted of him. It's pretty sad to think that someone actually had to request that because I almost guarantee that had they not, pics would have been posted. Put yourself in the families shoes for a minute and imagine how you would react to a thread like this about your loved one.

I assume when you say I need to start a command prompt, you mean in DOS, right? I'm tellin' ya, if you don't spell it out very specific, I almost freeze before attempting anything...lol GPSBabel version: 1.2.3_beta04092004

Why put a new container with a new name in the same spot? Doesn't make sense to me. I don't think it's fair to be able to log the same cache twice which is basically what would be happening with this one.

I like finding unusual beads in caches. I like to think that someday I might have enough to make a cool memento of my geocaching adventures. Now, everybody go out and buy some unusual beads so I can reach my goal someday...LOL

I am very excited about the tattoos! I plan on ordering a few packages of them and a couple other things as soon as the next batch of cache stickers are off back order. Whoever makes those stickers needs to make them more often.

Farm trout! Thanks for the links to those lists, woof n lulu and DavidMac! That is exactly what I was looking for!

Congrats on your one year anniversary, katguy!

Anytime you can't get a cache to close or it is overstuffed, take something out, especially the golf ball, to get the cache to close tightly. Otherwise the next person might find a soggy cache. EDIT: Sorry...forgot to answer part of your question. If you consider it geo-junk, take it out. If you want to trade for it, go right ahead. I consider them junk so I will take it out regardless of a trade. In any case, take it out if the cache won't close because of it.

Oh, yummy, just what I want to see..... Don't touch the brown golf balls you find!

I think it sounds like a great idea! I'd travel for it.

OOOOoooh...ok. I didn't know it was something you had to buy. I thought it was a program download somewhere on the net. Darn...just my luck! Thanks for explaining, Alan!

Funny to me that this came up tonight. I was just looking at locationless caches and trying to figure out how to keep track of all of the subjects in them in case I see something on the road that would fulfill a locationless cache. If anybody has any idea on the easiest way I could do that, please let me know. My question is this......don't get me wrong, I like the idea of locationless caches and intend on doing some. You find the subject of the cache, take a pic of it with your GPSr and log it as a find. You don't even need to use a GPS or co-ordinates to do locationless caches. I could use a broken GPS and still log locationless caches...lol So, what is their purpose in relation to geocaching? How did they get started? Why are people doing them? I hope if they don't come back to GC.com, they at least get started on their own seperate website.

Just goes to show you there are some things you are still a n00b at....LOL j/k ya! I make a habit of not putting the old batteries back in my pack to begin with. I stick them in my pocket or somewhere else so that I can throw them away or recharge them when I get home. When you going to change that name anyway?

I am using Win98. GSPBabel does not show up in the CTRL>ALT>DELETE menu. Just GSAK. I am assuming that means it is not running at the time I am sending waypoints to my GPSr, is that right? In the Babel.bat file, the "close on exit" box was already checked. I unchecked it, checked it again and hit apply just to make sure. Tried downloading a waypoint to test it and although the transfer went through, GPSBabel still did not shut off the transfer after it was done and still wasn't available in the CTRL>ALT>DELETE menu. I don't know what's going on here. This is probably a very dumb question, but was I supposed to download anything else along with GSAK, like the GPSBabel program, when I downloaded GSAK? From what you've told me, GPSBabel seems to be a big factor in some things not working properly here. And I wasn't aware that anything else needed to be downloaded when I downloaded GSAK and I'm not sure what GPSBabel is anyway, so I thought I better ask. Also, the new download for GSAK that you announced today, do I need to uninstall GSAK and download the new version or will it overwrite? I'm not too literate on these things. I'm actually surprised I've gotten as far with this topic as I have....LOL

GSAK will allow you to enter the com port manually, so you can just key in COM3 for the com port. Give it a try, but as GSAK lists the com ports that windows recognizes I still get the feeling this will not work. IT WORKED!! IT WORKED, CLYDEE! IT WORKED!!!! Far out!! I can't believe the fix for that was that easy. The co-ords are showing up in my Garmin. (You won't believe how freaked I was when I saw "Transfer Complete" on my GPSr....LOL) Thank you so much! Now, I have another small problem.....the GSAK transferring part of the program doesn't shut off when the transfer is complete. Actually, it still doesn't show that anything has been transferred at all and I wouldn't have even noticed that the co-ords were transferred to my Garmin if I hadn't been looking at my GPSr at the time. It still just sits there acting like it's transferring without anything actually happening. So how come GSAK doesn't notify me that a transfer has taken place? I have to use CTRL>ALT>DELETE to get it to stop and that ends up shutting the whole program down. When I go back into it, it does its own defrag and repair (which is a cool feature, btw). Any ideas? Clyde, I am all smiles right now. Thanks so much!

Please don't do this. Golf balls are dangerous for dogs, especially bigger dogs. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...og_040423171804 British vets find 28 golf balls in dog's stomach MANCHESTER (AFP) - It was the mysterious rattling sound from the 18-month-old German Shepherd's stomach which first alerted the British vet to what might be wrong. A subsequent operation removed no fewer than 28 golf balls from the dog's belly and -- unsurprisingly -- the mystery ailment which made her stop eating has been cured, her owner said on Friday. Mike Wardrop said he was "gobsmacked" to discover what his pet, called Libby, had been up to during their daily walk around Didsbury Golf Club in Manchester, northwest England, where he lives and works as a bar manager. The German Shepherd had developed a habit of hunting down golf balls and bringing them back to her owner, Wardrop said. "It got to the stage where she would pick up four or five balls every day. She loved fitting them in her mouth. "She would bring them to me and I'd have a laugh. I had no idea she was wolfing them down as well." Libby stopped eating properly and when she began coughing blood was rushed to a nearby vets' surgery, where the problem was swiftly diagnosed. "The vets didn't even have to do an x-ray because they could hear the balls and feel them rattling around," Wardrop said. "They were having bets about how many would be in there. I think the highest bet was 11, so they were shocked when 28 came out." Wardrop said he was keeping the balls -- which weighed a total of six pounds (2.7 kilogrammes) -- as souvenirs. "They are all brown from the stomach acid but we are keeping them to show people," he said.

Excellent idea! Too many times we have seen police departments and ambulance services that don't even have a GPS to use when someone calls in their co-ords. You could donate to a department and teach them how to use it and maybe get a few interested in geocaching. EDIT: That's very generous of you, El Diablo! I hope others follow your lead.

Congrats mrmnjewel! Hopefully, I'll be there soon with spring hitting hard and summer coming on. Sandy (with only 24 under my belt so far)

EasyGPS does not use GPSBabel. If you can't get it to work with EasyGPS then you definitely have a problem at your end. As you said you only have ports COM1 and COM2 available, it sounds like to me that you system is not recognising the new USB=>Serial adapter. Are you sure you loaded the necessary drivers - I would have thought this would appear as COM3 or some higher number. Thanks for helping me, ClydeE. I really appreciate it. Ok....let me see if I can explain this correctly. I uninstalled the driver for the cable this morning. When I uninstalled the driver, the little green light on the cable would not light up so I am assuming it was not being recognized on my system. So then, I reinstalled the driver for the serial port cable and it is showing recognized on my computer. (My Computer>Properties>Device Manager>Ports (COM and LPT)>Serial on USB (COM 3). When I go into the Serial on USB (COM 3), on the general tab, it shows that it is working properly. On the Port Settings tab, I'm not sure what settings it should be set at. I've just left them as they were installed. Bit per second: 57600 Data bits: 8 Parity: none Stop bits: 1 Flow control: Hardware On the Driver tab, I tried updating the driver using the CD that came with the cable and it is showing the newest driver as being used. I'm almost positive that this cable is working. As far as connecting another device to the serial port cable to make sure, I don't have anything else here available to attach to it. Maybe I could borrow something from someone in my family to hook up to it. What kind of devices use 9 pins? When I go into GSAK, it only gives me the option of setting up my Garmin on COM 1 or COM 2. GSAK is not recognizing a COM 3. Is that possible? Would uninstalling and reinstalling GSAK help it give me a COM 3 option? Under the GPS tab in GSAK and EasyGPS, nothing works except the "GPS set up" in GSAK. I can't test serial connections or send or receive or anything. In GSAK, it acts like it wants to but it doesn't go through, just sits there. In EasyGPS, when I hit send, nothing happens. I can set up my Garmin in GSAK but in EasyGPS, that is not an option.

ClydeE, do you know if EasyGPS also uses GPSBabel to send waypoints? I tried sending waypoints to my GPSr using it also and it doesn't do a thing either. No windows pop up or anything. I even tried testing the serial connection through EasyGPS and still nothing happens. I just can't figure out why neither of these programs seem to respond to anything I want them to do as far as sending or receiving waypoints.

Thanks ClydeE....I'll try there and see what they say.

I'm not sure if this would help and you being a geneologist, you probably have already checked here, but I thought I would throw this out there for anyone else needing some information on a gravesite: http://www.findagrave.com

Where and how do you do this? I'd like to do the same thing. Thanks!

Ugh, I'm having problems again. I've got all the files set up in GSAK. When I try to download them into my GPSr, it just sits there. A little window comes up saying "Sending Waypoints..." and it also says Label1 and the little icon moves but the whole program sits at 0%, doing nothing. I don't know what to do now. I have the Garmin PC Interface cable connected to a USB to 9 pin serial converter hooked into a 4-port USB hub. Is it possible that one of these cables does not work? The hub works just fine. I have used it with other USB items. The little green light on the USB to 9 pin serial converter lights up. I assume its working. I have a tight connection to the GPSr with the Interface cable. The only COM ports available are COM1 and COM2. I have tried both of them and I get the same results when downloading. What am I doing wrong? I assume I am supposed to have my GPSr on when downloading, right? If so, is there a certain screen I am supposed to have it on when downloading? (Yep, I'm resorting to thinking about stupid little fixes like that...lol) HELP!