Cheval

No, it's not like a cell phone. A cell phone requests the time of day from the local cell phone tower. The GPS receiver receives GMT time and then translates the time based on the time zone or offset you've selected in the setup. Way too much information for the GPS to keep track of time zones inside the unit. So you need to go into your settings and change your time zone or offset to Eastern time (or -5 hours offset from GMT). That should fix your problem.

The battery life for the iQue can be extended with a battery extender box that takes 4 AA batteries. You can get one of these from an eBay seller, rjackson72. I receive no kickbacks, just a happy customer. He has always shipped quickly to me, so no need to do the overnight shipping. Also, no need to get the iQue one he advertises, I got the one for the "Tungsten T W C" and it works just fine. You'll save yourself a couple of bucks if you buy that one and wait for the auction to close rather than doing a Buy-It-Now on an "iQue" one. I got mine for $12 (including shipping) and have it handy for anytime I need a quick recharge. Here's a link to his "store" searching for battery extenders. http://tinyurl.com/2gp8c Ok, as for caching with my iQue, I generally have her with me, but I do not use her for finding non-urban caches. I use her to route me as close as possible to the cache location. Then I park and get out one of my other GPS units (the Forerunner is my favorite at the moment) to actually search for the cache. I do take Q with me, but she stays in a neoprene case on my belt until I need to look up the cache in Cachemate, or record my log. The way I use Q, I don't need to use the battery extender much as her battery life is just fine, especially going back to the car and plugging her in to route to the next cache. One very nice thing about Q is for virtuals. I can just voice record my answers to the questions and then play it back when I am at home. Cheval

Yes! There is a way. It takes a few steps, but you can do it. First you need to download G7ToWin. http://www.gpsinformation.org/ronh/ When you run that program, you will have to configure it. On the menu go to File-->Configuration. On the General tab (the default tab), look under "Output Modifiers." That will be on the bottom left just above the "Save Configuration" button. Click on "Mapsource Format" to put a check mark by it. Click the "Save Configuration" button. Click "Ok" to get out of the configuration. Make sure your Forerunner is plugged into the serial port on the back of the computer and is on. Then go back to G7ToWin. On the menu go to Tracks-->Download Tracks from GPS It'll download all the track points from your Forerunner. The Forerunner will beep when it's done. Back on the menu in G7ToWin, go to File-->Save As Under Save As Type, choose "PCX5 Track Files (*.trk)". Type a name (make sure you know where it's saving it), and click Save. Now, to get it into Mapsource, open Mapsource. On the menu, choose File-->Import Navigate to the TRK file you just created from G7ToWin and click Open. On the PCX5 Import Symbol Type Selection, just use the default "Do not import waypoint symbol information." Click OK. Since we're just interested in track points, not waypoints, this doesn't matter. Viola. Save your Mapsource file and you can look at and manipulate your tracks. You will see all the tracks stored on the Forerunner. The current run can hold up to 3000 trackpoints. Your previous runs will have up to 250 trackpoints per run, and there should be some for each of the last 10 runs. For the most detailed track log data, you will want to upload the points after every run before pressing the reset button to start a new run. You can find this information and much, much more at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GarminF FWIW, Garmin is refusing to update Mapsource to download tracks from the Forerunner directly, so this is the best way so far. Email Garmin and COMPLAIN. The more people that ask for this functionality, the more likely we are to get it. You will get a response that tells you to use the Forerunner Logbook, but at least you got your voice heard. Cheval

Google offers this already. Go to Google Advanced Search. Put your search words in the appropriate box, then put geocaching.com or forums.Groundspeak.com in the Domain box and press search. I'm not sure of what Google's policy is for using their site search on a commercial website (I mean putting a search box ON the geocaching.com website...the above procedure works already), but Jeremy and friends can check out Google's Free Site Search and terms of service if they so desire. Cheval

Maybe the old system wasn't much better to some people. but I preferred the other system of emailing. The way I used the email system before: * Subscribe to the forums I found interesting, GPS Units and Software, Geocaching.com Discussion, General, etc. * I would get the first post of each topic delivered to my inbox, where it would immediately be sorted into folders corresponding to the forum it came from. * I would read through the posts on my email, discarding the topics I found totally unappealing to me. Then I would visit the topics I found interesting online. * If I found the topic I visited on the web extremely interesting, I would subscribe to specific topics and get all the replies delivered to my inbox. I can not do most of that with the new system. Now I can subscribe to the forums I find interesting, but I only get a notification telling me the topic title. Not enough to go on usually. If I do happen to stumble on a topic that I want to follow I can subscribe to it AND I can choose to get the body of the post included in my email. Groovy. BUT at the bottom of the email notification is the following information: "There may be more replies to this topic, but only 1 email is sent per board visit for each subscribed topic. This is to limit the amount of mail that is sent to your inbox." So I guess that perhaps the limiting has to do with limiting the load on their email servers. I'd suspect that this policy would have the following implications. First, the load on the webserver increases because people have to actually visit the website more often to get the news they can use. And, second, perhaps some people just don't read the forums anymore because it is no longer convenient to do so (which might be one reason nobody has posted much on this particular thread). I'd really like somebody from Groundspeak to speak to this issue in an official capacity. Can the email system be set up the way it was before? If so, what are the reasons for not implementing it that way? And if there is a way to return to the other email notification system, and Groundspeak does not want to do it for all members, perhaps this would be a good perk for premium members? Thanks for listening, Cheval

No, you don't have to call them. You can do it online. http://shop.garmin.com/cartography/mapsource/default.asp From that page: "Your MapSource coupon code is valid for use with your own GARMIN GPS unit. If you own two GARMIN GPS units, you are allowed to obtain a second unlock code for the same region at no additional charge. Simply repeat the unlock process for the second unit." Cheval PS. The iQue cost is more in the $450 range without an auto nav kit and extra memory.

quote:Originally posted by Monkeybrad:There is a gang of Nashville area cachers getting together at the Applebee's at 100 Oaks at 6 PM to watch this tonight. Approximate Coordinates: N36 06.739 W86 45.962

Bump. This should happen TOMORROW and Sunday. Eager, eager. Cheval

Well, I just spent a lot of time on the IFinder Yahoo Group reading a lot of their stored messages. Here is part of one message I found. It was posted in July 2003. quote:iFinder does not store time nor altitude with the track record. It is a very useful feature that AFAIK Lowrance could add with a firmware update but they are not going to unless many customers demand it. So, people, DEMAND IT. As of the newest firmware release (1.6), this functionality still isn't available. So I'll email Lowrance and be done with it. If they ever do add the timestamp to the track points, I'll be buying my first Lowrance unit. Cheval

The Lowrance IFinder has quote:10 savable plot trails/10,000 points per trail When the trails are saved, is the timedate stamp saved with each point? On a related note, if somebody has a USR file with a plot trail in it that you downloaded a saved trail on, I'd love to have the file and play around with it. Thanks, Cheval

The one thing that caught my attention when reading the specs was: quote:Plot Trails: 10 / 10,000 points per trail With certain Garmin units, the ACTIVE track log can be 10,000 points, but any saved tracks end up with only ~250 per saved track. Does this unit REALLY hold 100,000 track log points? And if so, what information is saved with each point? Does each point have a time and date stamp saved with it? Thanks, Cheval

JoGPS, A182Pilot, robertlipe, and Sis of Nashville, TN, will be on Tennessee Crossroads this month explaining geocaching. All 4 of these Geocachers are well respected members of the Middle Tennessee Geocachers Club. And all 4 are intimately involved in geocaching from finding to placement (including talking to park officials) to writing software to assist the masses. You can catch the show on National Public Television (Channel 8 in Nashville) on Thursday, October 23 at 7 PM (CDT) or on Sunday, October 26 at 10 AM (CST). Be sure to tune in to watch our best. Cheval Member of Geocaching.com and the Middle Tennessee Geocachers club (www.mtgc.org) Directly from TN CRossroads Program Guide: Episode #1717 Air Dates: October 23 & 26, 2003 Geocaching Thousands of Tennesseans, all around the state, are participating in a new sport. As Rob Wilds found out, they use a GPS device to hunt for high-tech treasure. LOCATION: Nashville, Tenn. WEBSITE: www.geocaching.com

You can get an external antenna for any GPS model without modifying your receiver or voiding your warranty. You can get a re-radiating antenna that takes 3 AA batteries. Check out PC-Mobile and a review of the antennas they sell. We bought just the re-radiating part since we already owned 3 external antennas for our Garmin GPS V receivers. Cost $29 including shipping and got it within a week. Works great with our Geko 201 stowed far away from any satellite coverage. Cheval

How about having both links? One that takes you to the cache page (if available) and one that takes you to your log to view/edit it alone on its page? Cheval

Some cache placers just don't have the perfectionist quality that others do to make sure every t is crossed and every i is dotted. So what if the words are not init capped, or are spelled wrong. Nobody is forcing you to read their cache page. Move on if it bothers you that much. No need to contact the cache owner, either, asking them to clean it up. Chances are you'll elicite hurt feelings or out and out anger. Nobody has to have a phd to play this sport. Cheval

How about sending a note to the cache owner asking for parking coordinates? Sometimes it's just so obvious (to the placer and other locals) where to park, but not to some cachers. I don't think it's necessary to put parking coordinates for every cache. If you're in a race for FTF, use maps or buy an auto-routing unit (although those will take you on some nice tours around town getting you oh-so-close, but you can't park there). Cheval

Here's an idea for those with banged up GPS V units. Find a non-working GPS V (or III, or II or any of those with that case) and put the guts of your V in the other case. Could always haunt eBay for non-working units. Are there any non-working Garmin units? Cheval

quote:Originally posted by Brainerd:I believe that the original GPS V had less than 10 megs of memory (8 I think) for downloading maps. The Deluxe units upgraded this to 19 megs. We bought our first GPS V in October 2001. That was before the Deluxe "version" came out and it has the same 19 megs of map memory as the Deluxe version we bought later. The only difference in the two was that the deluxe version came with all of the US regions unlocked. Cheval

What I'd do is double-check what you bid on for eBay. If you bid on a deluxe package, you should have gotten the unlock codes for the entire US. That's the difference between the deluxe package and the "regular" package. If you actually did bid on a deluxe package, I'd take it up with the eBay seller. Geocaches can be downloaded using the search page and selecting the caches to download or running a pocket query (available for paying members of geocaching.com).

I did this with one of our caches. We adopted it because the original owner had gone AWOL. After awhile, we moved the cache to a better hiding place, and changed the cache container to a better container. For a short time, we changed the date it was placed to have the cache show up on the "new caches" list. We also put a note on our page, stating the changes and inviting cachers to refind the cache and relog it as a find since it got a makeover. I don't know exactly what's going on with this particular cache, but looks like the cache went missing and perhaps has been resurrected, so the owner is trying to garner publicity for it. A note on the cache page would be good to explain that, but to each his own. Cheval

The problem with saving the tracklogs is that the saved tracks are only, what, 250 points max? So you lose accuracy. Also, unfortunately, the track points saved do NOT save time with each point. For my purposes (horse endurance training), that doesn't work at all. I need to know time and speed for my training logs. But that does work in some situations, just not mine. What I do is figure how long I need to ride, and calculate how often the GPSr should save a point in order to track the whole ride with 2999 points. For example, for 12.5 hours, I set the GPS to save a point every 15 seconds. I just lose accuracy. I like accuracy (for switchbacks and the like), so the closer the points, the better my accuracy. But I do love my V. It's a good all-around unit. I use it every day I leave the house for all sorts of things. :-) Didn't mean to move the thread away from that. If I didn't ride long distances, the trackpoints would be enough. Cheval P.S. I didn't read Pneumatic's post before I wrote this...

Another concern is file names on different operating systems allow or disallow certain characters and/or lengths of file names. It's pretty safe to send a numerical named file, though. No spaces, no quotation marks, no tildas. Safe, fast, and easy. Hey, works for me.

Great experience. Thanks for sharing. I love my V! I had my husband's old III when he got his V and I couldn't understand why he was so enamoured of it. Until I got my own. See, he wanted to buy a V Deluxe because it came with all the CitySelect regions unlocked (he bought one right when they came out and only had 1 region unlocked). So instead of buying the unlock codes, we just bought another GPS V that came with all the regions unlocked. Thanks to a clause that says if you own two GPS V's, you can have them both set up to use the regions you've paid to unlock (in our case, those that came with our second V), we are both able to put any of the maps on either machine. My V goes everywhere with me. It's here at work (in my office...didn't want to leave it in the car!). It goes with me when I ride my horse, when I drive my car, and when I go caching or walking (NEVER without a cache at the end, though!). Only 2 complaints I have. 1) It needs more trackpoints! I never use the saved tracklogs and wish I could free up that memory to be used for the active track (or they'd just up the points to 10,000, but I understand the basic limits of that). And 2) It could use more memory for maps. If it took data cards, my husband and I would be extremely happy! But it's fine the way it is. We use both GPSrs on a trip, so my V has some of the maps, his has others, and we both try to have the destination city. The driver gets the GPS with the current maps and that switches halfway through a trip. If they ever came out with a GPS V+ (or a GPS VI) that's just the V that takes data cards, we'd be all over that. Cheval

Sometimes a cache placer will let his/her friends know by personal email what the URL is to their yet-to-be-approved cache. If you're not a personal friend of the placer and/or they don't have your email, you might be "scooped." Cheval

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