Nighthawk700

The Post usually has it's articles on line (for two weeks anyway). Might require registration. (there are some sites out there that give out pre-registered usernames/passwords to use, I forget the names). I'll look for the link tomorrow and try to remember to post it.

Unfortunately I'm heading out of town for the weekend so don't have time to take a picture of my mount with the power cable, but the power connector is held (screwed in so it can't move) in one place, unmovable in the Touratech mount. When you mount the GPS, it is also held in place. (on the Garmin V, I also screw the bolt in the back, in the Quest mount, it looks like there is a pressure bar or something that holds the GPS in place). As a result, the power cable can't come out of the GPS until you remove the GPS. I'll try to take a picture or two and show you what I mean when I return. If Garmin comes up with a solution, that would be great too.

What kind of mount do you use on your bike? For my Garmin V, I have a RAM mount, but the cradle that holds the GPS itself is a Touratech. Sold Here The neat thing about this is that you screw in the power mount, so it becomes "permanently" attached. (you can unscrew it, or unplug it where you have it hooked into your bike). I have left the power connector on my Concours for the past 3 years, and never had an issue. I have a seperate power cord for my car. Granted, I got the power mount that ends in bare (Pos/Neg) leads, rather than a cigarette/power outlet type thing. Is that available for the Quest as well? I looked over the Touratech mount for the Quest, and they have special directions on how to screw in the power connector for that as well. (have to make a modification to the end of the power connector) The other pluses to the touratech mount are it dampens vibrations, and supports the antenna. (My GPS III+ which I mounted with a regular cradle has "floppy antenna" because it was not supported). I don't work for them or anything, just a happy customer.

When researching the Quest, I thought I read somewhere that it could not be charged through it's USB port, it was for data only. (I went through many websites and forums, of course now I can't find the source) Have you used any of these charging devices you are talking about? (also, where would I find them? I did some searching, but may be using the wrong terminology to get hits). Still, since I mostly use my GPS for driving, and only an occasional Geocache here and there, (with no hunts going longer than an hour so far), I'll probably be getting the Quest 2 the next time I get a 10% off coupon at Buy.com. Well your are wrong, Garmin explicit stats that usb is not for charging. Then why am I wrong? I said I read it does NOT charge through the USB, the others were saying it does, so I was checking.

When researching the Quest, I thought I read somewhere that it could not be charged through it's USB port, it was for data only. (I went through many websites and forums, of course now I can't find the source) Have you used any of these charging devices you are talking about? (also, where would I find them? I did some searching, but may be using the wrong terminology to get hits). Still, since I mostly use my GPS for driving, and only an occasional Geocache here and there, (with no hunts going longer than an hour so far), I'll probably be getting the Quest 2 the next time I get a 10% off coupon at Buy.com.

In some of my older Garmins (the III+, and I think the III) one of the data options was voltage. This was useful not only for seeing how the battery was doing, but when hooked up to my motorcycle, I was able to tell when I was overdrawing from the battery (using the GPS, an electric vest, external lights, and my highbeam... one thing had to go). They stopped offering that feature on my Garmin V. When I asked about it, I was told my request would be forwarded to the engineers, and that was the end of that. I'd like to see it back in, if it isn't already (haven't checked the model features recently)

What kind of a cradle do you use on your motorcycle? With my first GPS (Garmin III+) I used a Saeng mount. The GPS vibrated like crazy and the antenna basically became very floppy, there was no friction to hold it up. When I got my Garmin V, I used the Touratech Mount, which has some vibration dampeners, and also has a slot that holds the antenna steady. After several years of use, the antenna is still in good shape. Another nice feature is that the power port is bolted in so it no longer falls out. I'm looking at getting the Quest 2, and I see there is a Touratech for that as well. Of course it's a lot more than the RAM cradle. Do you see the antenna needing support since it's a different style on the Quest?

I went and enjoyed. However, with my sister-in-law's wedding, plus all the other family stuff, I never had a chance to do any Geocaching anyway. Maybe next time. Thanks. Nighthawk700 (also from Virginia)

My wife's sister is getting married in Israel, so we're all going over this summer. I took a quick peek, and there are 13 caches in Isael, some near where we will be. However, when I mentioned bringing my GPS and grabbing a few caches, my wife thinks that it's very dangerous to do that with all the conflicts over there, and that if people (on either side) see me walking around with a GPS or caching, or whatever, I might have serious problems. My thought is "If it's so dangerous, why are we even going?" but that's besides the point at this time. Has anyone else cached over there? Had problems of any type with either side of the conflict? Thanks for any feedback.

Unless things have changed, I think issues come out every Friday (except during exam times, as the staff is made up of students). Tell him to be sure to pick up an issue around April 1st. They always have a lot of fun then! Does your son have his winter jacket ready? It's almost October already! Hope people don't mind, but since we are talking about our beloved RIT, I got this list around 1995, but I think a lot of it still applies, at least for us who were there: Why Rochester isn't a bad place to live "Waking up with the Wease" doesn't mean you have a respiratory infection. The thought of eating a "garbage plate" makes your mouth water. The only thing at the annual May Lilac Festival is snow. The worst four-letter word you could say is "Fuji". You can't swim at the beach. You thought you figured out that alternate-parking thing, but wind up with a ticket anyway. Toronto is about 70 miles away, but it takes about four hours to get there. The name "Greater Rochester International Airport" is bigger than the airport itself. There's an 800 number to report a pothole in the road. City planners begin yet another feasibility study, in lieu of actually doing anything. You know that a "Can of Worms" is not something you take fishing. Your baby's first word is "Wegmans". You ask lifetime residents where the George Eastman House is, but they don't know either. In a city where it snows at least 90 inches a year, they build a new sports stadium with no roof on it. Buildings with statues of guys with wings on the tops of them is not unusual to you. It can be 70 degrees one day, below freezing the next, and you think nothing of it. Your mother is buying outfits to wear to Wegmans. You try to go out to dinner at 8:30 PM and everyone's already closed. You hear that there's a "Dome Arena", but you're really disappointed once you see it. They build a new store right in front of a vacant one of the same size. Your low-fat diet is never low enough to exclude an Abbot's custard. You order a white hot and a pop, and the counterman knows what you're talking about. You can travel from Egypt to Greece in about a half hour by car. D&C is a newspaper, not a medical procedure. You can find a metered parking spot downtown at the height of the Christmas shopping season. You can watch LPGA commercials in December. There are no hamburgers, only ground steak There is meat in hot sauce. You can accurately judge people as to their social status by determining which Wegmans store they shop at. You can go to any mall on Saturday and see at least 5 people you either work with, went to school with or dated. The new line of spring fashions to hit the stores is actually comprised of leftovers from the 1991 line in NYC. A musical comes to town 10 years after its Broadway premiere and the entire town goes nuts! (ex. Miss Saigon) You wake up from a deep sleep, look at the clock and see that it's 6:00 but you have no idea whether it's am or PM. When 18+ inches of snow falls overnight, but you never thought of NOT going to work. A snow storm advisory means you must go shop at Wegmans! You are perplexed when friends from other cities come to visit and want to "see the sights." A flagpole strung with white lights seems like an acceptable alternative to a municipal Christmas tree. There is a different "festival" to go to every single weekend from May to September, but absolutely nothing happening the remainder of the year. Any new construction project downtown that comprises over ten stories is worthy of a detailed front-page account in the newspaper. The temperature hits 45 degrees and the sun comes out in any month between November and April, people walk around downtown wearing shades and no jackets. You and the cat are peacefully napping in front of the TV set, with the volume at a comfortable level, and a Gabriele Ford commercial comes on at twice the decibel level, causing you to bolt upright and the cat to leave gouge marks in your lap. There are places at the poles that seem to get more sunlight during the winter months than we do. Wegmans is a somewhere to go on a Friday night, for entertainment. We know who Vinnie and Angelo are. You define summer as three months of bad sledding. You think that people from Pennsylvania have an accent. Halloween is snowed out with great regularity. You have experienced frostbite and sunburn in the same week. Your year has two seasons: Winter and Construction. Half the change in your pocket is Canadian, eh. Half the television channels you get are Canadian, eh. You've talked about leaving for 10 years and you're still here, because despite all there is to poke fun at, Rochester isn't a bad place to live.

Man, now I'm a little homesick for RIT. The Reporter was a great weekly. Next time I go up to visit, I'll have to see what the cache is up there. Thanks for posting the article Vargseld. Nighthawk700 RIT 1988 - 1994 (SMAC and ICSG6 if I remember the codes right)

do you know for what purpose? I watched my first few caches to make sure I hid them properly afterwards. If the next person to log it said it was left out in the open, or impossible to find, I would have known I was doing something wrong. Apparently I did okay though.

I’ve been using the “export to HTML” to create webpages which I then put on an SD Card, in my Treo 600 (PalmOS), so while I’m out, I have the webpages with me. I also have CacheMate, but like being able to see the data in a variety of forms. I’ve been dividing them up for trips. For example, I’m taking an Alaskan Cruise, so I have one set for Juneau, one set for Sitka, and one set for Connecticut (when I stop at my parents before flying out). Currently, each is in a different directory on the card so the files don’t conflict with each other (e.g. index.htm), and as such, a lot of the “support files” (mostly graphics) are duplicated several times. Is there any way that all the support graphics can be in one specific directory, and all the created html files point to that directory? One idea is GSAK creates the Cache directory, so that could contain the files that are common to all, then create subdirectories inside of Cache for the different categories (so it would be Cache/Sitka/index.htm, Cache/Juneau/index.htm, etc. The links would then have to be ../pic.gif instead of pic.gif) The files aren't huge, so I'm not sweating about the space, I'm just thinking like a computer scientist, trying to minimalize redundancies.

I had my old Garmin III+ on a Saeng mount, which was not vibration proof, and did not support the antenna. After about a year on my Concours (which to me is a pretty smooth bike, at least compared to my former Nighthawk) the antenna on the III+ would no longer stay straight up. Whatever friction type pads Garmin uses on the antenna completely wore out and it was just a floppy antenna after that. Now I have the Touratech mount for my Garmin V. I've been using it for at least as long as I had the III+, and the antenna is still as strong as ever. Also, even if you are hardwiring the GPS, if you are going to leave batteries in the unit (e.g. for when you go off in the woods to hunt the cache) then you still have to be concerned about the batteries sparking, banging, etc. When I called Garmin (both with my III+ and V) they sent me two spring clips to include in the battery compartment which add pressure and make it harder for the batteries to bang against each other. I have no experience with the 60, so don't know about mounting or batteries in them. Hope this helps!

Here's how my GPS used to be mounted on my Kawasaki Concours. GPS on Connie. I've since replaced the Saeng mount with a RAM, connected to a Touratech mount. And I replaced the III+ with a V, but really, everything looks the same. I like the Touratech much better as it supports the antenna. With the old Saeng mount, the antenna on the III+ vibrated so much that whatever friction would hold it in place was rubbed away and the antenna would just flop over all the time.

Did my e-mail to you get through? I'm in NoVA.

If you go to the very end of the Blue Ridge Parkway, that'll put you right on Skyline Drive, which is another wonderful road, right through Shanandoah National Park. Lots of outdoor stuff to do in and around the park. Just watch the speed limit, it drops from 45 on the BRP to 35 on Skyline Drive. Louis

That puts a new twist on the saying. "Ride to Cache, Cache to Ride!" I need make sure I take the bike to work tomorrow (Ride to Work day). I haven't really ridden to work since my daughter was born, too many baby supplies to pick up, or have to pick her up at the sitter on the way home. Not enough bungee cords to strap her to the bike. I talked about getting a sidecar but my wife made it clear the daughter would not go in or on a sidecar or bike for a few years! If there was a group or seperate conversation thread, I'd take part. Here's one question for ya... I noticed on my last cache trip a walking stick would have been nice (had to poke in a few holes in the ground under a fallen tree). I've seen some metal walking sticks that unscrew into parts. Has anyone been able to get something like this to fit into a Givi hardbag? I have the E-50, and two E-460s. No way I'd be able to get my old wooden walking stick from my Boy Scout days in there. Louis

ClydeE just closed "Gsak (geocaching Swiss Army Knife), Version 3.05", but I wanted to answer a post that was there: I can't answer for everyone, but while I was playing around with GSAK, I made the generated webpages. Then figuring what the heck, I put the directory generated onto my SD card, and slapped that into my Treo 600 PDA. There is a web browser on there, and I was able to browse to the index.htm on the card. The result was like having the Geocaching.com webpages right on my PDA which I carry with me everywhere. I thought this was so great, that I paid the $15 registration right then and there. When someone makes an application that will be (and it is) used often and makes life easy, they deserve their requested donation for their work. So to better answer the "what does it get you." For me I get the feeling that I paid for a well made program, and encouraged the developer to keep on working on it. And I think I got a bargin at that! Louis

Some of the long distance motorcycle rallies (i.e. Iron Butt Rally, the Mason Dixon 20-20) give waypoint information for bonus locations since a lot of the riders have GPSs. This is usually in addition to the address or directions. Still it's not really a geocaching type thing. (although the bonuses are usually like "Virtual Caches") There was one rally out in Nevada that made people bury a dog bone, mark it with their GPSs, then that night they had to go back and find it with the GPS. I just started Geocaching, so haven't done any hunts while on my Concours yet, but do plan to do so when the weather cools off. The idea of a geocache poker run sounds great. However, the pool of motorcycle riding geocachers is probably a small at this point, and spread thin. (I'm in the Washington, DC area). Still, definitely an entertaining idea! Louis

Hmmm, wonder if they are related to this squirrel that went after a motorcyclist and some policemen. Story Here Louis

I agree RAM Mount is the best place to look. I use my Garmin V on my motorcycle and in my car. With the RAM, I can switch quickly from one to the other. And it held up well under the worse road conditions I threw at it. With the various arms and configurations, there's a way to make just the kind of setup you need. Louis

I checked the two local bookstores and haven't seen the book yet. I'd like to read it while on my cruise next month (I already noted which stops have local caches!!) Thanks for the offer, nice way to do it! Louis

Exactly right. I don't convert the files at all. I plug the SD Card into the computer [or you can use Card Export, or PBF(?) which let you use your Palm with SD Card inserted as a USB drive]. I haven't tried plucker yet, maybe it makes the files smaller, faster? But that's why I got a 512 MB card, so I don't have to skimp on file sizes (also so I can load up mp3s to play while hunting for caches) Note, it's not just html files, there are a lot of graphic support files as well, not all are used, but all are in the directory... According to the file manager, my first try at this with about 9 caches has a total directory size of 107k. (the images are pretty small) Here's the exact URL I have: file:///cache/index.htm (I don't know why it's three '/' instead of two, I saw a posting on TreoCentral.com where someone found out they could save web pages on their cards and just copied the formatting) This is using PalmOne's (formerly Handspring's I think) Blazer, but any web browser should do the same. "cache" is the name of the directory, found in the root of the card. It was a simple drag-and-drop from the directory created by GSAK to the SD card. I could have put it somewhere else or renamed it if I wanted to. In fact, when I get the gpx files for locations I'll be visiting in Alaska soon, I specifically plan to put the generated HTML pages into seperate (better organized and named) directories for each stop, and bookmark them, so when I get off the ship each time, I'll pull up that page and go from there. I think in CacheMate, I'll have them as seperate "Not Found" catagories, such as "Sitka-NF" and "Juneau-NF" so I don't have to sort through as many. (the more time I spend looking for information on the Palm, the more elbow jabs I'll get from my wife ) I used to have Web Pro on my Palm but deleted it as I thought it was causing a problem, turned out to be something else, but haven't put it back on yet. I'll try that next week and see how it works with it, but really, Blazer does a fine job, so I'm not worried either way. Hope this helps! Louis

Just checked, my PNY is a Toshiba. Thanks Nightpilot. I've used up my daily allotment of "you learn something new every day." Last night I was playing with GSAK, and learned that I could export selected (or all) the caches to HTML. So I tried it out. Then I took the created directory of HTML and other files, and copied it onto my SD card. I used the web browser on my Treo to connect to the index.htm. Wow! It's like bringing Geocaching.com with me wherever I go. Another great use for SD cards! (and I sent my $15 to GSAK right afterwards) (yes, I know the Treo can connect directly to the internet, but with all the graphics, it's a bit slow, this is almost instantanious, and I only have the caches I'm interested in) If your Palm has a web browsing application, or you have access to one, try it out! Louis