Bob Blaylock

I assume that by “121.29.353”, you mean 121 degrees, 29.353 minutes. That would be, in decimal degrees, 121.4892167. Assuming that's a longitude, (too big to be a latitude), and assuming you're at the equator, the difference is about 14 inches. (The difference is less the farther from the equator).

Are you sure of this? I recall a news story a short while back, about the closing of the original Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. This was the very first of the chain, and it stands to reason, therefore, that this is where the company was originally based. Salt Lake City, Utah.

GPS Connect doesn't know .LOC files. Try MacSimpleGPS; that seems to work just fine for me with both .LOC and .GPX files.

I hope someone will be watching for, and will post links in this thread, to any follow-up stories.

A few more: Mac SimpleGPS MacGPSBabel

I've had good experiences with the two cables I purchased from this source.

Looky here!

Have a look at the 08 January 2005 entries on this cache. Apparently Hynr and Teachermom found the cache exposed, in a bad state of disrepair, and without any obvious indication of where/how it was supposed to be hidden; and knowing that the owner of the cache was going to be at an Event Cache later that evening, took the remnants of the cache there to return them to the owner. Seems to me that they followed a reasonable course of action. The cache was damaged beyond their immediate ability to repair it, and exposed beyond their ability to properly rehide it. If they had left it there, it might have been damaged even more, or lost entirely. Now, it is apparently in the hands of its owner, who will most likely repair it and put it back in its proper place.

The web site was quite obviously designed by an idiot. Would you buy anything that expen$ive from a company with such an incompetent web site? I doubt I would.

I just joined a few days ago using PayPal. I received a member number by email almost instantly, and had my Premium membership fully activated in mere minutes. I guess PayPal subscriptions are automated, and subscriptions using Credit Cards more directly are not. That'd probably be a good thing to mention clearly on the sign-up page, if it isn't already.

Alas, the Nice Yellow eTrex does not include cables (at least mine didn't). Garmin will be quite happy to sell you the cables separately, but at unimaginably high prices. Just within the last few weeks, after a couple years of using my eTrex the stone-aged way, I finally bought a data/power cable, and then a separate power-only cable, from this eBay seller. Even by foolishly buying these cables in separate transactions*, and spending more than I otherwise needed to on shipping, I still got both of these for about what Garmin charges for a data-only cable. * It wasn't until after I got my data/power cable that I realized how useful it would be to have a separate power-only cable to keep in my car. Had I bought the two cables at once, this seller would have charged me only the same shipping for both of them together (about $5.00) that I ended up paying separately for each.

When, from my Pocket Queries page, I hit the “Preview” link for a query, the results I get are current, as of the time I hit that link, and not simply the results from the last time the query was run automatically; is this right? Does hitting that link count against my limit of five queries per day?

It does seem to me like we've got a thread here full of people with solutions looking for a problem. I think I agree with you about the use of the SBA log, but I have one quibble. Should Be Archived; basically, a call for the death penalty for a cache. As named, it amounts to a statement to the effect that the person logging an SBA believes the cache to be damaged, abandoned, or otherwise unfit beyond any reasonable effort at repairing it; and that the only thing to do is remove it. I think that there may very well be many caches that require the sort of attention that can only be drawn (as the system currently stands) by logging an SBA, but that upon receiving that attention, could readily be repaired, assigned to a different owner, or otherwise corrected. Perhaps a new log entry type should be defined for the case where the person making the entry believes that the cache is in serious need of attention, but that with such attention, the cache could readily be restored to proper condition.

Cache Maggot has been working for me. To call those who destroy caches “Cache Maggots” is unfairly and unjustly offensive to fly larvae.

I've just put my money where my mouth is. I received an semi-unexpected windfall today. Someone in Switzerland wanted to use sixty copies of a small shareware program that I wrote ages ago, and sent me a check for $250, which arrived today — not enough to make a serious dent in my general financial troubles, but enough that for now, I could (and did) squeeze out the $30 for a year's Premium membership. I didn't do this because of any additional features; I did it because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of geocaching, and I think it only fair that I do my part — as I am able — to help support it. Having said that, now I have tasted the Pocket Query feature; it is indeed a very useful feature for anyone who is serious about this hobby. I bet that if more non-paying members were able to get a good idea of just what they would be able to do with Pocket Queries, we'd have a lot more paying members. And in any event, major kudos are due to Jeremy. Thank you, Jeremy, for making this hobby happen. I understand that there's a great deal of time and work and money that goes into making this site run. I'm impressed, in particular, by your apparent dedication to making sure that as many people as possible are able to get as much enjoyment out of this hobby as possible, and to the principle that Geocaching should be available even to those who are unable or unwilling to pay for access to the site.

With my eTrex, anyway, it only mesures distance while it has a satellite lock. If there is a temporary loss of satellite lock, then any distance traveled during that time is not counted. I bet that the odometer is also off by the same amount as the speedometer, in the same direction. So if the speedometer reads a higher than actual speed, then the odometer will almost certainly record greater miles than are actually travelled.

This would have the effect, in many cases, of denying non-paying members any chance at being FTF on a cache. For my wife and me, trying to be FTF on a new cache in our area is a fairly significant part of the game. As it is, I think I understand that the Pocket Query feature allows much quicker and easier finding of FTF opportunities, which already puts non-payers at a disadvantage when trying to be FTF.

I'll bet that the answer is not in what new features to add, but communicating to non-paying members what benefits they would gain from the existing paid-member-only features. People are more likely to buy, the better they understand what you're selling. For example, Pocket Queries. I understand this to be one of the biggest benefits to being a paid member, but as a non-paid member who has never had access to this feature, I have very, very little understanding of what this feature is, or how I could put it to use. Perhaps an idea would be to offer some very limited use of this feature to non-paying members; a use that woudl allow anyone to get some sense of all that could be done with this feature, but which is limited enough that anyone who wants to make significant use of it would find a strong incentive to pay for unlimited use thereof.

It now appears to be a handshaking issue of some sort. Same thing happens from the command line. With my computer frozen as previously described, it occurred to me to put in a diagniostic device that has LEDs showing activity on the differnet RS-232 lines. When I did that, my computer unfroze almost immediately, the LEDs showed activity in both directions, and the transfer completed. Doing further experiements, I see that when I begin a transfer, there's a little activity in both directions before it freezes. If I disconnect and reconnect the cable, the system unfreezes, and the transfer completes. I wonder if it would help to loop the handshake lines together, since the GPS doesn't touch them at all. [Added later, after a few more experiements.] Nope. Looping back the hardware handshake lines doesn't seem to do it. Only completely disconnecting and reconnecting the whole thing at the relevant point.

The “-t” switch; that's what I was missing.

Thanks. I downloaded that one, tried it out, and was indeed able to get track data using it.

At this point, I've just been downloading and trying things to see what works. MacGPSBabel seems to work for converting files from one type to another (though I cannot seem to find the Geocaching.com .LOG format in the MacGPSBabel menus, though I've successfully converted from that format using the command line version of GPSBabel build into MacGPS Babel); but so far, every attempt I have made to talk to my GPS via MagGPSBabel has resulted in my system freezing up. I haven't yet tried talking to my GPS using the command-line version, and I'me not entirely sure what to give as the -f parameter to do so (Probably something like “/dev/cu.printer”). There are a lot of answers, I'm sure, that are there waiting for me when I take the time to look fo rthem, but I haven't done so yet entirely. I'll gladly take whatever answers you're willing to hand me on a silver platter. Let me give you some background and system information: The system in question is an old beige Power Macintosh G3, 266 MHz, 384 megabytes of RAM, running MacOS X 10.2.8. This is the earliest model to support MacOS X (but alas, not MacOS X 10.3 or later), and it is the last Macintosh model to have built-in RS–422 serial ports. I connect my eTrex (the basic Yellow version) to the “Printer” port (there being a fax modem already on the “Modem” port). GPS Connect, another freeware program, talks just fine to my GPS over this connection. Now, when I use MacGPSBabel, I click the “Use GPS receiver for input” check box, select the output format, and click the “Download” button. I get a dialog that lets me select the GPS type (“Garmin”) and the port (pre-set to “Modem”, I change it to “Printer”). I click the “Continue” button. I don't remember all of what exactly I see after that point, but I know that the spinning ring thingy (I heard it described as a “Norelco” symbol, which makes perfect sense to anyone familiar with that company's famous electric razors), which spins for a few seconds, then stops. At that point, my mouse pointer will move, but my system doesn't respond to anything else I do. The clock is stopped in the upper right corner. If I go to my Windoze system, I can ping my Macintosh, and get a response, but I cannot telnet into it. Left with no means to perform an orderly shutdown/restart, I am forced to do the Cmd-Control-Power sequence to do a cold reboot, hold S 'til I get to the single-user command line, and run fsck -y to repair the damage done by the improper shutdown, before doing a full reboot. I suppose it might be worthwhile to try using the command line version of MacGPSBabel, in order to determine whether GPSBabel itself is the problem, or your front-end for it. I'd guess “/dev/cu.printer” is probably the right thing to specific for the -f argument. Do you know any differently? Also, I have spent some time playing with the Windows version of GPSBabel. I was able to get it to talk just fine to my eTrex. I tried downloading data from it into many different file formats, then looking into the resulting file for track data. In every case,I found all my waypoints there, but no track data. If GPSBabel in either form is capable of getting track data, the answer is most likely the same for both the MacOS X and the Windows versions thereof. What amI missing?

I would very much like to be a Premium member, but my own financial situation is very bad at this time. I suppose I could find $30 to squeeze out for a membership if I really tried, but this is, after all, just a hobby — just a luxury — and I have much more pressing demands on what money I have. I'm not sure I'd gain much from the Premium membership, but I do get a great deal of enjoyment out o fthis hobby, and would very much like to do what I can to support it. If MO caches made up a very substantial portion, I'd be bothered. As it is, there are more than five thousands caches in my general area, and as far as I know, maybe three or four that are MO. I can live with that. The one thing that does bother me is that the owner of one of these MO caches recently used it to sequester a pair of travel bugs (not belonging to him) that bear clues to a puzzle cache (not his). Not a direct problem for me, as I've already found both those bugs, and collected the clues therefrom (I have yet to go after the cache, but I'll get to that…); but it did seem to me like very bad form to use a MO cache as he did to interfere with someone else's puzzle cache. I may have an unexepected windfall coming soon. Not enough to make a sizable dent in my general financial troubles, but perhaps if it comes, I'll queeze out the $30 for a Premium membership.

I just recently finally got cable to connect my eTrex either to my old beige Power Macintosh G3 (running MacOS X 10.2.8) or to a Windows 2000 system that I also have here. I'm on an extremely tight budget, at this time, so I can't spend very much on this hobby. I've got EasyGPS on the Windows system, and GPS Connect and MacGPSBabel on my Macintosh. MacGPSBabel works for converting file types, but it freezes up my system if I try to use it to talk to my GPS. GPS Connect works great for what it does, but what it does isn't very much. Between the two, at least I can now download waypoints from Geocaching.com, and send them to my eTrex; which seems to be about the scope of what EasyGPS will do for me on the Windows system. What I would really like to do is to download the recorded tracks from my eTrex, and put them into some form that I can examine in detail. Anyone know of any free/cheap software that can do this? I prefer using my Macintosh, but I can use the Windows system as well. I'd be quite happy just to get that data into a form that I can import into Excel.

iCab.