Sue and Bernie

I did the survey but was not able to view the result. I can guess that we all end up in similar "boxes", we all eventually pay for the good stuff that we really like and use regularly - and all have a big library of hookey stuff (software, music and DVDs) that we never really use once we get to see and try it in earness... and then we're glad we didn't actually pay good money for the stuff!

Being in the military, I get to travel around a bit. I always take details of a number of caches in the area because: a. It keeps me out of the bar! b. Caches take you to interesting places. c. You get a bit of exercise. I have chased caches in the US, Canada and am preparing for trips to Cyprus next month and Turkey the month after... ...and I had a bimble around Cornwall a few weeks back courtesy of Betty Windsor Bus Tours. I get to go back there again in Nov.

I've run into this little problems several times on my laptop when I've plugged other USB devices into one of the 4 ports available. The quickest way I've found to resolve this is to run one of Garmin's Mapsource programmes and use the auto-detect function to determine what comms port is today's choice! Once it finds where the GPS is hiding today, note the comms port number. Then you can go back to Updater, Memory-Map or GSAK, whatever and plug in the answer from the Garmin programme - and Bingo!

Gaz, The unlock code for City Select, I believe, is dedicated for a specific GPS unit with each issue of the software. This is the case with the "upper" end of Garmin's software such as City Select - and the City Navigator that came with my Streetpilot 3. The symptoms you describe are what you get when you use a legitimate unlock code that is issued against the serial number of a GPS unit - obviously not the serial number of the GPS unit in your hand! If the software is legit, you need to talk to Gamin. If it isn't, you have exactly what Gamin want you to have, you can see it but not use it!

We concur. I got one just for geo-geeking, liked it so much that I bought another for Sue. Both were second-hand from eBay and they're great. The batteries don't last so long when you're playing Scrabble duing your long holiday flights (brilliant playing by beaming back and forth) or playing backgammon (the Palm cheats quite brazenly). Get "CacheMate" and "GSAK", both shareware and cheap to register. They pay for themselves in a few months of neat, organised and paperless caching.

Haggis Hunter got it right! It is having your eyes opened to the treasures sitting on your own doorstep that it the most surprising and eye-popping aspect of the whole affair. Usually the caches are placed at a location that someone has found interesting - the long forgotton railways of East Anglia are getting our attention at the moment as the caches draw us to the lost corners of our own backyard. Perhaps this is what irritates so many about the frantic hunt for numbers, usually chasing caches placed within yards of each other in and around the cities. For example, out in the wilds of Yorkshire recently, cache placers drew me to corners of the county that I would never of seen in a million years. Up to Druids Temple, Yorke's Folley, down to Ripon racecourse, the riverside and up again into the hills in the middle of nowhere. I saw quite a bit of the area in the few days I was in the locale. To Sue and me, this is what caching is about! I always wonder what the overseas visitors make of our public footpaths, criss-crossing the country for reasons long since past - I know I look at the OS maps and wonder what caused them to be laid down.

Just to reinforce the comments in here, I have recently joined the Palm/Cachemate/GSAK throng and can, as a real newbie to paperless caching, state it is easey-peasey and is the only way to go... I went down to Cornwall for a working trip and had time to take a day out caching. I stuff 200 caches into the Palm (gotta think positive) and ended up logging 6 that day with two geo-virgins I dragged along. Thanks to the data on the Palm, we gave up on one cache (last 3 logs were no finds). We also dumped a multi when we failed to find the first clue and read of the difficulties other had at the other stages - we did not want to commit too much of our singe day out to trying for it. I am also impressed with the functions on the Palm IIIxe. It is no longer the must-have it was but it is still a little marvel. I cannot believe the power of the small, compact programs that download in a trice over my 56k modem. Exploiting a "mature" technology has some distinct advantages - it is cheap and there's plenty of solutions abounding. I was so impressed, I have bought another Palm IIIxe for Sue to use (this one cost a whole €17 with €5 p&p! I sent €30 cos that's what I had left in my wallet). ...I might well have to get a bigger, better Palm on my next trip to the US...

As as final word, this is me actually using the black box of tricks: ...with only some map printout, otherwise completely paperless. Hoorah!

Sue & Bernie claim the inverse prize! We cycled 50 miles to visit 2 caches in Norfolk (Abbie Cache GCFE45 and Wellington Boot GCDBC7) on 27 May 04. We all do this geo-geeking thing in different ways and enjoy doing so. I do find myself getting a little lathered up when one section of the community hogs all the forum time and space banging on about just one small area of interest - the numbers game! Guys! Moderate your burbelling please, there are others parameters in the world, please contain yourself and use the forums to say something of value or interest to the community as a whole. We are not all interested in hearing how many caches you can each spot while remaining firmly seated in a comfy armchair. Sorry! been on the beer this pm, therefore cannot resist a sitting target... Please excuse spelling and ranting... I just had to speak out for the silent majority...

Sue & I do something similar - we knock out keyrings to leave as calling cards. We use our avatar on the other side, the same one we use on the forum...

Thanks for that pointer, downloaded this freeware from PalmOne.com today - only 275kb! Amazing! Lots of software available on the web too...

I like the Palm IIIxe so much - I've bought another one on eBay: My great buy... ... is this a cheap way to go paperless or what! This second Palm will be for Sue, I was so impressed with the perfect synchronisation with Outlook that I think this will be the way to keep work, home, him & her all singing from the same hymn-book as well as making the geo-geeking easier.

...and of course, if you do not have the cable to attach the GPS to the PDA, you can always revert to simply inputtting the current co-ordinates into the search faclility in CacheMate. I maintain a memo page in my Palm to record a list of co-ordinates for friends and family. A simply cut and paste from there does the business for the most common repeat searches.

I have just returned from my 2 week war in Cornwall using my newly acquired Palm III xe for paperless caching. It was simply brilliant! I had just 4x A4 maps back-to-back in 2 poly pockets and no other paperwork. No muss, no fuss, just looking up each cache and the recent logs on the box as you travel to each location. The Palm lived in my back pocket while walking about. A really neat and effective solution. Thank you all for your pointers and making our caching so much more organised and neat - and saving all those printouts. I've not got the cable to link the GPS to the Palm - at £25 it is more expensive than the palm! My solution is to keep a memo of useful co-ordinates and cut-n-paste them into the CacheMate search function as required. I actually find the Palm quite useful too...

I get to visit the States and Canada fairly often courtesy of the UK tax-payer (that include me too before you start...) with the Royal Air Force. You will not be surprised to hear that we always have a shopping frenzy while we are there - cameras, MP3 dodads, CDs, DVDs and all manner of electronics are the order of the day! ... and coffee for Sue and me. Wal-Mart were selling huge tins of the stuff for a couple of quid. A few years back, my main function in life, along with everyone else on the Sqn, was to equip our extended families with the old gray Gameboys - for a quarter of the price in the UK. ... and of course, filling the monster gas-guzzlers for pennies (but they do have really lousey performance and excellent sound systems).

Well Done! We're slow too, mind you, Sue & I cycled a 50 miles loop last week to visit 2 caches. There are many cachers that would not get out of bed unless they could do it the other way round - visit 50 caches in 2 miles! Whatever cranks your motor, as long as you enjoy yourselves and get out in the lovely countryside. We might crack a hundred by 2010 - if we get a move on....

It is really nice to see an interesting and informative thread in this forum amongst all the spam. You lot have have really broadened out our geo-geeking outlook - and got me carrying one of them there yuppie things that I never expected to bother with! I've really enjoyed "playing" with it, particularly the effectiveness of the hot-sync function. I have made a memo page and added all the GPS co-ordinates of my family and friends so that when we go visiting, it is a simple copy-and-paste to find the nearest caches in CacheMate. The only problem is, Sue is showing an interest in my new toy, er...equipment, er...accessory. ...now I've gotta find some-one else with one an do some beaming!!! Scottie? Scottie?

As a final comment, I have just uploaded another load of caches into the Palm IIIxe - 450 caches with all the data you get on the printouts (or webpages) and it fill 1.4 mb of the 8 available. I am quite impressed so far...

Spoke too soon... While my 200 caches are neatly in the Palm, the last 5 cache logs for each cache are not! That page is blank for every cache. I have loaded the Palm through GSAK (which will display the logs so the data is in the GPX file) and I have loaded it with a file converted with CMConvert. Both produce files without the cache logs. What button have I failed to press? Doh! Forget it - I've found it, the default setting for GSAK is "0" - zero logs! Isn't that a daft selection? Changed that to 4 and all's well! Hurrah!

I am pleased to report that I am hot-to-trot with my new (second-user) Palm IIIxe. I had GSAK already installed and CacheMate downloaded. The Pocket Query arrived and was imported into GSAK and spat out again in the PBD format. All ready to rock... It arrived today, getting the Palm hooked up and sync-ed was easey-peasey! The registration details for CacheMate arrived, sorted out on the Palm - another hot sync and Bingo! 200 caches in Cornwall stuffed into the Palm. Brilliant! Thank you all for your insight and pointers, it enabled me to get things ready in true military manner and, in minutes, I am ready to trundle off to my "war" in Cornwall. On the days that "peace" is declared there, I will be wandering about the hills with a Vista in one hand and the Palm in the other... ...and it's all your fault! Thanks again people.

Forget the basemap! You will never want to use it, it is very crude in all respects. You are correct in assuming that any maps you download from Garmin's data discs will overwrite the basemap. However, the Legend will only hold 8 mb of data, the Vista will take 24 mb and has a couple of extra features.

Thank you all for your assistance, particularly TartanT for his emails that put me in the right direction and Clan_ Barron for the all-embracing article that cleared up all the mysterious bits. Now I have all the bits in place ready for the arrival of the Palm IIIxe - and once I have sorted out the mystic rites of determining my "hot-sync name", the last piece of the jigsaw, registering "CacheMate" will allow us to join the paperless fraternity. Thanks again people... P.S. Sue's not impressed - another gadget on the rack!

I live just up the road at Coltishall, Mum and Sister in Cossie - I would be happy to assist you with PC and GPS software if I can. Email me with details and we can discuss....

Right you lot! On the strength of this debate, I have just bought a Palm IIIxe (for the statutory £20 from eBay) because I too have suffered with the paperchase thing. Why do the neatly printed and organised sheets of A4 refuse to slide neatly back into the folder in the right way and in the right place? Like a tetchy child, the more the weather is unfavourable, the worst the data and pages behave! I get back to the bike/car with everything all over the place - so I would like to get the hang of this more organised way of doing things. Any chance of a quick overview of the best way to get a number of cache pages around a given destination into the aforementioned Palm III thingey (my first electronic PDA). I get hold of the box on Wed and Fri night I'm off for a quick "war" in Cornwall - so I need to do this job quickly... Cheers

I hope you had your personal contact details stored in it. In addition to that, I also still use the "GPS Warning" utility: GPS Warning ...to include my details into the software data before uploading a new update into my eTrex Vista. Yes! This does mean my details are displayed twice during the boot-up sequence but I do add my email address to one set and my mobile number to the second. Two bites at the cherry...