wildlifewriter

I'd agree with Garmin - short of almost destroying the unit, it IS impossible. Most people who think their basemap has gone, have only switched it off. Go into the "Map Setup" menu, click on the <i> icon, and see if the basemap is still listed. If so, there should be a checkmark beside it. Click on this with the clicky-stick to restore the basemap. -Wlw

<John Cleese mode> Yes, yes, OK - but APART from Indonesia, France Spain, the Faeroe Islands, Greenland, Kashmir, Uzbekistahn, Tibet, Korea, Argentina, Sudan, Gambia, the Dominican Republic, Antarctica, AND Cyprus... ... what have the Romans ever done for US? -Wlw

We're just going to have to get over it - and don't expect any sympathy from anywhere else in the world. As far as I know, the UK is the only place where these blithering discussions take place. (Apart from Indonesia and Cyprus.) All other sovereign nation states know exactly who and what they are, and which bits of them are which. -Wlw

A minor fault, but it's important to us... For caches located in Ireland, the "alternative" location format on cache pages should be in Irish Grid. Since the last raft of changes, the position is now shown in UTM. This doesn't match local Irish mapping. Can the original functionality be restored, when convenient? TIA -Wlw.

You should know better, NH. The name* of the State is "Ireland ("Eire") - It is not "The Republic of Ireland" or the "Irish Free State" or anything else. The use of the name entirely and unexceptionably correct. -Wlw. * Cited: The Constitution of Ireland (Bunreacht Na hÉireann) 1937, Article 4.

Rather short notice. As a founder member of the Geocaching Literary Brigade, I have to ask - is there any extra money in this? -Wlw

Don't get carried away, now. Your conclusions about information displayed, while moving, don't have implications for the correct operation of the whole system. -Wlw

There IS a "Wlwpoint" which will pick up caches on Shetland as well.. N55º 36.700 W004º 48.780 Radius: 650 KM -Wlw

I'm afraid there was a typo in my original waypoint (now corrected.) Should have been: N54º42.749 W005º16.594 Apologies for any confusion caused to cachers in Cherbourg, even though they're only French. -Wlw

If you asked Garmin this question* they would tell you that their "modern" range of handhelds don't need a user-configurable mode - because they handle it automatically. In a sense, this is true: the filtering and correction on these devices is very sophisticated these days. However, there's little doubt that compromises are made. I can see this quite clearly by comparing (walked) track logs from my iQue 3600 and (oldish) eTrex Vista, on the same route. Filering in the Vista is obviously optimised for low-speed work, whereas the iQue leans towards operation in a vehicle. The issue has re-surfaced because these new Sirf chipsets are so sensitive - allegedly - but in fact I believe that the different modes available are there so that OEMs can configure the chips for different applications. -Wlw. * In an ideal world. In the real world, it's almost impossible to get a sensible answer to such questions out of Garmin.

No, but there's a ridiculously easy solution to all this: ignore "countries" completely. A query with these parameters... *Any Type, *Any Container, *Is active, *From origin - By coordinates: N54º42.749 W005º16.594 - Radius of: 600 KM ... will pick up every active cache in the British Isles (except Shetland) in a single PQ. -Wlw [EDIT: corrected coordinates.)

There's no "policy" on this, because the choice of country is just a selection from a drop-down list on the submission page. Until very recently, this cache which is just south of Dublin, was marked as "Germany". (Because it was placed by a German cacher, presumably) My own 16 caches in Northern Ireland are all listed as "Ireland", for a very good reason - the grid location format. If it was listed as "UK", the format would be shown as British Grid, which is misleading and incorrect. The whole island of Ireland uses one single OS grid for mapping. (This factor is no longer relevant, since GC.com have now changed it to UTM co-ordinates without telling anybody.) Technical considerations aside, the choice of country still largely depends on an individual's archaic tribal loyalties and superstitions. (As does everything else, here.) Keeping politics out of Geocaching in Ireland has been a problem in the past, and no doubt it will be a problem for the foreseeable future. -Wlw.

Nope. What I wrote was "would like to see..." Here in the British Isles, our reviewers are extremely good guys. If they would like to see something included on a cache page, we don't like to disappoint them if it's at all avoidable. Aside from which, first indications are that the issue with PQs is resolved, so we're good to go.

It is the usual language problem, I see. My concern does not relate to the privacy or otherwise of the waypoints - it relates to the fact that the PQs aren't working properly. -Wlw

I'm becominging increasingly concerned about this, too. At present, my new multi-cache is delayed in the approval queue because the Reviewer - quite reasonably - would like to see its intermediate waypoints being input using the new facility, rather than just listed on the cache page. For my part I'm unwilling to do this, because - also quite reasonably - I don't want searchers to get the information, scrambled in a faulty PQ file. -Wlw.

This has been done, already. It is not a GSAK problem. (See my post above in this thread.) -Wlw

I predict a new version of PQ program, shortly - and I take back all the horrible things I said about GSAK. GSAK is fine - but there's a problem with the PQs. See this post for more info. I very strongly suggest that people should NOT load the "additional waypoints" GPX file into GSAK or Cachemate, until this has been investigated. -Wlw

A possible problem... The whole "Extra-waypoints-in-a-PQ" thing appears to be broken. These extracts are taken from a PQ which was generated yesterday - there are multiple waypoints in the file which all have the same waypoint name. Examples... <wpt lat="55.9313" lon="-3.25648333333333"> <time>2006-01-19T19:20:40.1230000-08:00</time> <name>HHRYKC</name> <cmt>Stenhouse Crescent/Ford’s Road</cmt> <wpt lat="55.9140666666667" lon="-3.3986"> <time>2006-01-19T19:09:55.6530000-08:00</time> <name>HHRYKC</name> <cmt>Parking</cmt> <wpt lat="55.9171333333333" lon="-3.39513333333333"> <time>2006-01-19T19:12:24.0130000-08:00</time> <name>HHRYKC</name> <cmt>Parking</cmt> <wpt lat="55.946" lon="-3.15385"> <time>2006-01-19T19:29:05.3430000-08:00</time> <name>HHRYKC</name> <cmt>Parking</cmt> The first of these applies to cache GCRYKC. The others are from a different cache - possibly GCHK62 The fault does not appear if the GPX file is downloaded from the individual cache page, so it seems to be a problem associated with PQ generation. Jeremy: e-mail me if you need additional details of this sample. -Wlw.

Well, it's not "full UK mapping", so maybe they got the price wrong as well... -Wlw

It certainly is - and, like SP, I fully intend to appropriate it at the earliest opportunity. It wouldn't have made any difference. Stupid people will do stupid things, no matter what wording they encounter. And people (stupid or otherwise) will still attempt the cache without reading the page in full, first. There's not much that can be done about this. -Wlw

I think they're still there - but the new CSS makes a cache page fill the whole display area, so backgrounds aren't visible any more. 'Tis the March of Progress... -Wlw

Denmark is missed off as well. This could be because the product is TOPO Great Britain. When TOPO Ireland is released, it will probably have Ireland on it. (Though this is not likely to happen any time soon.) -Wlw.

As forecast weeks ago on the GeoX forum, Garmin have now got round to launching this long-awaited mapping product. Details can be found HERE. There's an online previewer which can be accessed from that page (Top right). The map uses OSGB terrain data (it says, here.) Looks quite reasonable, and perhaps better than Magellan's equivalent - which, to be fair, is a much older product. The bad news... (1) No coverage of Northern Ireland or the IOM, (But we expected that.) (2) US listed price: an eye-watering 300 dollars. No UK pricing as yet, but it'll be the usual rip-off. -Wlw. [edited for correct link]

I understand now. You have an attitude to the presentation of your caches, which you assume everyone else adopts, also. This is not always the case. If there is a factor which adversely affects the co-ordinates, I either eliminate it or calculate a correction for it. In the unlikely event of a mistake, I don't have to admit it - I just fix it. Once all this is done and checked, and checked again, the cache is ready to be listed. Because of this attention to detail, I can make the claim that you originally objected to AND stand over it. -Wlw

He has just as much right to his opinion as I have. His opinion was wrong - and the way he chose to express it was... ill considered. -Wlw