Ad&Jeni

We're using a HTC Touch Cruise for full paperless (Tom Tom, Memory Map and Geoscout 2). Can be away for weeks and keep totally up to date. However, the GPS on most phones (including the Touch Cruise) do not use the SiRF Star III GPSr chipset, and it means the GPS is no where near as accurate as you might expect. You need to be moving at a reasonable pace for it to make any sene of location, and it just stops working inder tree cover. Hence they work fine for Sat Nav, or Memory Map, but no where near as good as a SiRF Star III GPSr for homing in on a cache. So, we use a £75 eTrex H for the final search, and more often than not it will put us within spitting distance, even under heavy tree cover. You can get there with the phone, and we have done a couple that way, but it is a much more painful experience. If you enter "sid and bob pda update" into google and hit the fisrt link, you'll find a site which will prove some good feedback on one Geocacher's experiences of PDA and how they use it.

We're using an eTrex H, and I see no reason to spend more then the £75 it cost on ebay (brand new). More often than not it will put us right on the dot, even under tree cover. Dead simple to use, and 22 hrs on a couple of AA batteries. We spent the difference you're all talking about moneywise on a HTC touch cruise PDA, and paperless caching. We use the PDA to Tom Tom to the general location (GSAK generates POIs), then use Memory Map for any cross country, and Geoscout 2 (I love this) for cache info and more. We spent two weeks motorhoming in Wales, and got 175 caches without paper , using the PDA for everything, other than the final search, which the little Garmin excelled at. Why spent £300 on a GPS, when the PDA is a phone, PC and a camera? Fantastic.

For Geoscout 2 you need the Net 3.5 framework. All easily downloaded and installed. Geoscout could be excellent, but I have come across issues with using the GPS position for the searh filter (it does not always bring in the nearest caches) and I am having issues uploading logs to geocaching.com. This maybe because it is not supported by Groundspeak. Any ideas?

Midland is more of a dusty place Dusty, huh! That's how I remember all of Texas. Dusty roads, long, long distances, wonderful food, and very nice cops. Are there any wilderness areas near you? Any hiking trails? Carolyn come to Scotland...loads of hiking trails here and hardly any micros or nanos! Come on the $ against the £ is good and on your side. beautiful greenery here no dusty trails! Just heather and haggis to chase or shoot! happy caching jeni

LOL at that one.... seriously ours took 2 days for it to get processed as active. We have only one adviser up here for the whole of Scotland. Busy lady she is! Hope your cache is active soon . jeni