redsox_mark

My sister (who lives in the USA) is coming to the UK next week, and returning to the USA on 28 Sept. She's not a cacher but my brother-in-law there is... so if I could get it before the 28th she could take it to the USA. But I'm not in your area. If you would like to post it to me send me a email message. Mark

I live in Bath and have a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx, I'd be happy to meet up and show you how it works. I'll send you a message. Mark

Yes it is a Google option, if you have Google toolbar installed it shows up on all web pages. And it is useful; though the translations can be quite rough.

Great idea!

Ideally, somehow require that the user registers on geocaching.com. But as the product is already out, and bypassing the need to go online seems one of the features of the unit, I can't see that happening. So the next best thing would be to encourage registering. For example, when a cache is marked on the unit as found, display text saying "Congratulations! Now log your finding on geocaching.com". Or perhaps some financial incentive; get a discount on the upgrade kit if you register. And the documentation, as suggested by others, should include basic information on things like how to handle trackables. Including the important fact that they should not pick them up unless they plan to register. Make it as clear and concise as possible. It may not get read by everyone, but it can help.

This is a good point, and maybe this will limit the amount of "drama" caused by offline only users of the GeoJr.

Many interesting points have been made in this thread. The thing that interests me (and somewhat concerns me) is that it changes the role of the website and logging etc for owners of this device. Before this device, cachers pretty much needed to have an account, and thus encouraged to log their finds, read about etiquette, trackables etc. Part of the advertised value of this device is that you don’t need to go online, ever, to cache with the Geomate.jr. I’m most concerned about trackables, only because I (and my children) find them fun. We like finding them and hiding them, and seeing where they have been. Even now, not everyone correctly logs trackables when they find them, so they often show as being in a cache where they are not, but generally the system works. The documentation with the Geomate.jr makes no mention of trackables and how to handle them. So it is reasonable to expect that many Geomate.jr users may take them without logging them. How much of a problem this turns out to be will depend on the sales success. If the sales are small, then overall I would expect little impact. A few more trackables go missing, etc. But if they sell loads of these, it could really hurt the whole concept of trackables. The other factor will be what percentage of Geomate.jr users will register online with geocaching.com? If most of them do, then I don’t see a big problem. The worst case scenario is they sell “millions” of these things, and very few of the users create accounts to log their visits or trackable finds. That could have a very negative impact. So I’m hoping sales of this are not too successful, and/or that the majority of Geomate.jr owners still manage to discover the value of being a member and logging their finds/trackables online. I think Groundspeak is taking a risk here in allowing a device which by design bypasses the need to use their website.

I also get much more than 500 caches on either location or postcode query.. Using the "look at the last item on page 25" approach, 10.5 miles for me (Bath).

Ok - thanks. Now that I know that I can't put them on the card, I will use either the Send to GPS (I've installed the plug-in, and it works), or mygarmin.com. Both work as long as I put them on the device and not the card. That was my problem; I thought you could put them on the card. All I'm looking for is the basic location information and title, so I'm happy now.

Thanks Martin. I just got a Legend HCx today, and loaded these; they work great! Mark

Progress - I can now download and use the GPX files, but not to the SD card. I had assumed I could save the files on the memory card - and both the mygarmin and geocaching.com (with plugin) recognize the memory card when in USB mass storage mode, and copy the files to the SD card Garmin\gpx directory.... but as I said, the unit doesn't seem to be able to use these. So I tried it without the unit in "USB mass storage" mode. This copied the files on to the built in memory somewhere. And doing it this way, I see the waypoints on the GPSr! So I have managed to solve my problem (or at least work around it). Does anyone know if it is possible to store the files on the SD card with this unit?

I downloaded the GPX files in 2 different ways: From geocaching.com, using Firefox (it does download the files even for non-premium members; I've seen threads that say that may not be for long), and also from mygarmin.com. When I try to find geocaches, it says there aren't any. Find my name tells the the same. So it seems like a problem with the GPSr.

They don't show up at all on the device; not as Geocaches, or as Waypoints, or POI. But I can see the .GPX files sitting in the correct \Garmin\gpx directory.

First post from a newbie. Just got a Legend HCx. I would like to download cache coordinates. I'm not concerned about full paperless caching, just want the cache name and coordinates. I can download .gpx files to the Garmin\gpx directory on the memory card, both from geocaching.com and from mygarmin. I can see the files are there. But when try to find Geocaches on the device, it doesn't find any of them. All of them are close (within 2 miles) of my present location. They don't show up as waypoints either. There is nothing in the manual to help. Am I missing something? Is it faulty? Mark