Wogus!

Welcome to the forums, Sandy. While you don't know it, you've opened a can of worms with this post... Hang on tight. I will point out only that of those two units, both of which are excellent choices, the PN-30 will offer paperless geocaching. A nice option!

ALL THE FLASHLIGHT YOU WILL EVER NEED! The HK5000XTR is the latest installment in the HK-Series and is the first to use an electronic LED! Based on Einstein's E=MC² and powered by a real and completely self-contained battery, the HK5000XTR boasts an intruder-blinding 630 "Luminz" of output! Get a grip and and say "Helloooooooo Kitty!" to the HK5000XTR's injection molded space-age polymer/acrylic and Kevlar/titanium reinforced housing. That's right, HK5000XTR is the ultimate portable, long-range illumination tool for the backpacker, explorer, and flashlight lover. Currently issued to all members of Israeli Special Forces!

I knew that pic would bring out the Matchbox crowd. I just figured it would take a little longer. Truth be told, I think Matchbox had the better build, but Hotwheels had the flashier ads.

They are considered the creme de la creme of toy cars. What some Hot Wheels look like (there are hundreds of different makes/models):

Boy oh boy do I have a cache for you. Wanna guess where, in particular, this bad boy was hidden? Go ahead! Never in a million years would you fig... Oh, wait...

I know, I'm a member. I was being humorous. As opposed to humerus. Which I almost never am... Almost. /Opposable thumbs FTW!

For me, the hike to someplace remote is an end unto itself. Hiking led me to geocaching, geocaching didn't lead me to hiking. But that might be an interesting point in and of itself. If you're more of an urban cacher, I can see how long hikes might not be your thing. I primarily do long hikes anyway (so it very much IS my thing) so of course I'm going to prefer caches that fit that particular bill. I plan hiking trips and then check for caches that overlap my trip, not vice versa. I'm an "off the beaten path" sorta guy when it comes to this but that's me. So yeah, if you're not into long hikes then you should probably avoid caches that look like they're going to require it. I've hiked to some pretty wild locations that absolutely put me in my element that I'm sure many other people would find deathly boring. Different strokes and all that, right? It's all about choosing your cache-hunts ahead of time in my opinion.

??? What part of my post indicated I am anything but calm? Not too mention, cool and collected (as a proverbial cucumber, even)? Was it the "*I* don't have a problem with the idea, personally" part, or something else? Oh, wait, this is this some obscure Planet of the Apes reference, isn't it?? Sorry, not a big fan...

Because a certain percentage of the population are jerks.

*I* don't have a problem with the idea, personally; but you just KNOW someone is going to come along and string together the following argument (or one very similar): <insert klaxon sound effect here> "Its a *bullet!" Bullet = Gun!!! Gun = Not Family Friendly. ZOMG!!! You'll need to insert your own hysteria where appropriate but, mark my words, there WILL BE hysteria. Oh yes, yes there will. And the fact that your cartridge case is totally inert brass tube will be of no consequence my good man. Hysteria being immune to logic. *I'm a reloader from the wayback so yes, I know the difference twixt bullets, cases, primers etc.

If you had asked me which brand of GPSr most 'cachers use, I would have guessed, "Garmin" and, if pressed for a model, would have guessed the 60CSx. I think most people on these forums if so questioned would say the same... So maybe I'm confused, it happens a lot, but why the thread if you answered your own question? Am I missing something here?

<laugh> Indeed... Touché.

Yes, as I stated previously, I rounded the numbers UP for convenience since 5 US Gallons doesn't divide out neatly into a convenient whole number for cubic volume. Actually none of the measurements do, but I thought it might be easier for someone to visualise a container that is 4" on a side than 3.8673" or whatever not-so-round number the math actually shows. I'm happy to amend the table to show "Traditional" being a maximum of 1,000 cubic inches, however, which keeps us slightly UNDER a five gallon bucket for a "Traditional" listing, and pushes 5g buckets firmly into "Large" territory. I wasn't going to quibble about an inch (actually it's closer to half an inch) but I should have figured someone would.

Wait... What?

Having read this entire thread and your responses in particular; I guess, if I were you, I would have to seriously be asking myself whether this particular hobby, activity, sport, whatever you want to call it - geocaching - is the right one for me. Because in all honesty, based solely on what I can derive from your posting history, it's really not. Ack... Burned by the timeout bug. Oh for a "Delete" button for owned post's...

Having read this entire thread and your responses in particular; I guess, if I were you, I would have to seriously be asking myself whether this particular hobby, activity, sport, whatever you want to call it - geocaching - is the right one for me. Because in all honesty, based solely on what I can derive from your posting history, it's really not.

I find it in poor taste, personally, but that's just me. I'm sure there will be several who will not fail to find the humor in it. To each their own...

Since the geocaching dot com website lists specific measurements for some of it's designations I broke out my calculator and came up with the following (numbers are rounded up slightly (to the nearest inch) for the sake of convenience): Micro: Up to roughly 2" x 2" x 2" or about 8 cubic inches. Small: Up to roughly 4" x 4 x 4" or about 64 cubic inches. Regular: Up to roughly 10" x 10" x 10" or about 1,000 cubic inches. Large: 5 gallon buckets and larger.

According to the Geocaching dot com FAQ it really IS a rule: Personally, I see Geocache Swag Deterioration (also known as GSD) as unfortunate but inevitable. One of Life's little lessons is that not everyone plays by the rules. That fact does not allow me, however, to follow suit. I abide by the "Trade Up, Trade Equal or Don't Trade" credo. It's these small things in Life we do that I believe define who we are, and I refuse to define myself by the lowest common denominator.

So, wait... I must not be understanding this thing correctly. It looks like a big, bulky eCompass accompanied by a lot of nostalgia-esque marketing hype. What am I missing here??

Not sure why this isn't working for YOU but when I log in to geocaching dot com the coordinates for my lair show up in the "Search for Geocaches" text box. I click on "Go", then on the link for "Search for caches using Google Maps" and voila! ... Google Maps opens up centered on my home coordinates.

I would say it's "A" concern but certainly not an overshadowing one. As I said previously, I think I've just gotten spoiled by the Legend's 20+ hours on a set of AA's. On the flip side, though, as long as I know what I'm getting into with the '30 regarding its appetite for batteries I'm cool with it. I carry two sets of spares now, I've just never needed them (which of course is why you carry them in the first place). Swapping the batteries during lunch (just to be anal about things) doesn't sound like such a hassle and, really, a small price to pay for going paperless and having access to those awesome looking, drool-inducing, maps. Most everything in life involves a certain amount of trade-off and I don't think this is going to be any different.

I would have to say that I've never needed a compass on my GPS unit. Not for hiking and certainly not for geocaching. Those times when I have needed a compass, I've used my "never leave home without it" Silva magnetic. For some odd reason the idea of using a compass that needs to be "calibrated" just turns me off. For suburban caching and the like I suppose that's fine... But personally, if I feel I need to use a compass, I'll use my magnetic compass, thank you very much. I think it set me back about $12 at my local REI store.

No need to spend that kind of money unless you want to. My suggestion, go to Home Depot and look for this Husky brand 2 D-cell flashlight: This is an awesome 200 lumen LED flashlight, very white light and a crisp circle. It'll set you back about $25 or so. I keep a smaller 3AAA version in my grab 'n' go cache bag and another in my day-pack. Highly recommended.

Not that this proves anything, but... I went to the DeLorme forums site that lee_rimar linked in his post. I wrote down the results posted for NiMH batteries (regardless of usage statistics (meaning I ignored if the poster had, for instance, the backlight "on" all the time, 50% of the time or "off" during testing)) ONLY. Again, I tabbed data for NiMH batteries ONLY. I wrote down the battery spec in mAH and the number of hours of use the user reported getting out of them during their test. I found a total of 13 posts that I thought had data that was clear enough to use. Once again, ALL recorded info is for NiMH batteries (various brands). No Li-ION, no alkaline, no DeLorme "Power Pack" batteries. mAH's ranged from a low of 2100mAH to a high of 2700mAH. Running times were as long as a little over 16 hours to a low of 6.5 hours. One user reported something like 45 minutes from booting to "end of life" but other posts suggested there were other issues so these numbers were not averaged in. When I crunched all the numbers I got 10.6 hours as an average. Eliminating the highest number of hours recorded and the lowest number of hours recorded and then re-averaging showed 10.4 hours of use. Re-average those averages and it comes up 10.5 hours of use. Yes, I am FULLY aware this is totally unscientific and probably meaningless.