Lasagna
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Posts posted by Lasagna
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Well I'll give Garmin a whiz but the Vista was a present from overseas so it wasn't even purchased in SA. Dont see why Garmin would go to any trouble if it hasn't gone through their books, and I can't say I blame them
Apparently the click stick and the ribbon connector coming loose are known issues that can be fixed quite easily if you are prepared to lose IPX7 rating and open it up yourself.
Time will tell.... I'll let you all know what the outcome is
Sometimes less info is more ... simply contact Garmin and explain the problem (not the history of the GPSr). They will often, in the name of good customer service, just give you an RMA to send it back to them to repair -- many times for free. If it's not for free, they'll repair it at a usually reasonable price (actually, they usually just send you a new refurb unit and fix yours later and put it into the refurb pool for the next unfortunate cacher who has theirs go south -- or north -- on them)..
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Uncheck the "install to handheld" option in GSAK. Just export a GPX file from GSAK and then copy it over to the iPaq using the "Explore" window from your ActiveSync window. Once the GPX is over there, import it using the GPX import icon on the bottom of the Cachemate screen.
On PPC's you use a GPX, not the Cachemate Palm PDB file format.
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Like the 5 gallon water bottle filled with 35mm film cans, of which only one is the real cache?
or perhaps a cache that actually required you drive 80 miles on the PA turnpike in order to score the final?
Or a multi that ran you around to almost every light post in a bunch of store parking lots, then sent you hiking for a mile or two into the woods for the final (which would rightfully have to be a nano or something equally lame)
We've got the first two, the third... eh.... if I'm feeling mean enough and have a little extra time...
... or the one which sounds like it requires super human feats of skill to complete, but when you get there is a simple tupperware container and a log book asking you to perhap embellish your find a bit when you log it online. Nope ... never heard of any like that around these here parts.
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Looks ok to me. The reviewer only need to know that the puzzle is solvable. They may ask questions about it to confirm that it is.
Yeah, I wondered about that too. In the few caches I have found it seems kind of arbitrary sometimes what is a puzzle and what is an offset. I thought puzzles you had to solve something using the cache listing and then looking at a related website or something - doing it before you went caching. My idea, sort of like using a plaque, is simpler and it is using stuff that you "find" on the hunt so I thought it would be a multi not a puzzle.
There was another thread discussing that recently, although I can't find it at the moment. Basically, the outcome of that discussion was that generally it would be listed as a multi if the coordinates shown on the page actually take you to the location of a cache container or object from which you will learn the next set of coordinates (directly, by reading a sign, or by solving a puzzle) and it would be listed as a puzzle if the coordinates posted were bogus requiring a puzzle to first be solved before finding the initial set of coordinates. In either case, if "in the field" puzzling was required, it should be stated in the description so people would know what to expect.
The reasoning was that people running without the writeups could more easily recognize if the waypoint on their GPSr was a "real" location or a "bogus" one by looking at the cache type and thus not attempt to find a cache at a a bogus location.
There was certainly a fairly large grey area there as well ... so it's not a hard an fast rule.
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My first GPSr was a Magellan SporTrak Map. I got tired of the "Bumble bee" behavior when I near a cache. 2 years ago, I got a Garmin 60CS. Never touched the Maggie again. I just ordered a Garmin 76CSx even though I don't have a boat. Never know, just might get one someday. I do plan to buy a kayak or a canoe; just can't decide on which one.
Just interested in your logic in choosing Germin. My wife bought me a MaGellan Meridian Gold to replace my ten year old GPS unit. While I was sometimes suspicous that my unit was not very accurate, I was never certain because I was never sure of the source I was referencing to. Yesterday, my son-in-law took me geo-caching for the first time, and we discovered my unit was off significantly. We could not "re-program" it either, so I referenced the user manual, and found out there was nothing to do about it except send it in. since it is no longer in production, I deciced against spending good money after bad, and I'll just pitch it.
What next to buy? I'm looking at the eTrex Venture Cx on the web. Is that a good unit? What should I look for?
This is a common problem with "Magellans" ... however, it's not really a problem but a feature. The Garmin's report your exact position at each sampling while the Magellan use an averaging feature. This makes them hold lock better and estimate based on previous direction and speed where you are located whereas Garmin's will suffer more quickly from degraded reception conditions. However, if you are aware of this feature, you can compensate for it without much difficulty (and I actually do the same with my Garmin as well).
When approaching a cache, stop short and get a fix on the bearing and approximate distance to the cache. Proceed to that location and then sit the GPSr down and walk away. You can start looking awhile, but leave the GPSr alone. As the unit settles in and gets a good fix on satellites and discovers your not moving, it will lock in on the direction and distance where it thinks ground zero is located. Work with this information to form your search pattern.
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I have been very busy the last couple days trying to decide wether or not to get a Legend or just the normal yellow Garmin Etrex. I'm ok with the new price of a normal Etrex, and if I decide to go with a Legend I will need to find it for under $100
So my questions are...
>Which one do you think is better the yellow Etrex or the Legend??/
>If legend where is the 'best buy' at. (I'm 13, and have spent WAY TOO MUCH money on webspace and such)
I have found two so far using Google Earth but the images in my area are so cruddy and blurry it is close to impossible to use Google Earth.
Thanks!
-Eric
Legend definitely ... the Legends gives you base maps (and the ability to later add street maps, etc.) and also comes with the computer cable and ability to download waypoints automatically. You can find these used on eBay for about $80 (make sure the cable is included).
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I'm new at this, so I'll ask maybe a dumb question.
Can you download maps to the receiver with out having to buy their propriety software? ie: MapSource
All manufacturers market propriatary mapping software for their units ... you can roll your own and upload them, but it requires a lot of work and there isn't any real database of this kind of information. So, you pretty much need to buy the manufacturers,
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Do you have an extra email account from your ISP that you can set to automatically forward messages (sometimes done by seperating addresses with a comma, space, or semi-colon)? If so, perhaps it will let you define a forward to more than one address and then have the notifications sent there.
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There's one more very important circle you forgot ... the one formed by the cache owner's GPSr when they marked the coordinates. In theory what you said should be true, but if the hider's GPSr is not accurate, then what yours shows doesn't matter.
To understand, draw 3 circles with the smalled possible overlapping area (your diagram, just spread your two circles out a bit and then draw another above them -- the owner's circle or circle C). If your theory were to hold true, then the cache would have to be in the very small cross section. However ... in reality, the cache could be on the complete other side of circle C, a full 2 times the margin of error away.
A safer bet might be to assume that the "center" of the area overlapping circles between A and B is GZ with an accuracy of the larger of the two values between A and B's GPSr. (Still not perfct, but assuming the owner mark good coordinates, should be reasonable).
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Ditto what Miragee said ... I have a Vista C and it's acquisition and lock are much much much better than the Legend and Vista. I've heard talkthat the Cx line is even better. By far however, if you want absolutely better reception, then the GPS MAP60CSx is the way to go (different antenna type), but this will mean giving up some of the features of the eTrex product line (actually , not giving up, just learning to do them differently -- buttons are different, etc.).
If you like the eTrex line, then I would recommend the Vista Cx (you'll love the electronic compass feature since you don't have to keep moving to tell which direction you're facing)
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I'm guessing if the hospital didn't mind and gave permission, it would be OK. However, satellite reception might be quite difficult if it's walled in on all sides and the walls are high. There's one near where I live that has the cache right outside the hospital entrace ... although come to think of it, it's actually an offset cache the requires reading a sign and then finding the cache nearby or a walking trail.
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With a small enough offset from the actual cache, this will work. A better way would perhaps be to mark a waypoint right at the cache, then go a good distance away and reapproach the cache and mark again. Head off in another direction, and repeat. Repeat until you've got a good sampling. Average these coordinates.
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You're a premium member ... create a pocket query for the area where you will be caching and have it sent to you.
My Account Page ... right hand side ... build a pocket query.
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This is a common issue ... if you purchased 6.0 AFTER the release of 7.0, Garmin will upgrade it to 7.0 for free. This keeps them from having to pull and restock stores when a new release comes out. You just need to register it onsite and then order the upgrade DVD. I did just that and it came in about a week. No charge.
Here's the link:
http://www.garmin.com/unlock/update.jsp
Right at the top of the page in the box titled "Am I entitled to a free upgrade?"
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Pull the PQ's into GSAK and then export them from GSAK in a text format. You can import this CSV file into a spreadsheet program and whack out whatever data you don't want.
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From map or compass screen ... push menu button (left side, lower button), select "Data Fields and then select "3 fields". Once you have those showing on the screen, push menu button again and select "Change Data Fields". Move highlighted selection to the "long" field of the three. Select this field (depress joystick) and find the field value "Location".
This will cause Lat/Long to show up in the 3rd data field.
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The reviewers have had a similar discussion. I think the "fix" may be to have a log entry that occurs when the listing is published - perhaps the publish log itself. That way for historical purposes you can see the first publish log to see the original coordinates.
The only concern I have at this point is to make sure that if the cache is listed as subscriber-only that the log entry for publishing the listing isn't visible by non premium members. This is why the feature hasn't been implemented yet. But thanks for the request! I'll make sure I bump the priority of this feature.
Aren't subscriber-only caches completely unreadable by non-premium members? I don't think you can see anything about these caches if you aren't a premium member -- writeup, coords, logs, etc.
I think the issue you're getting at is probably more the ability to learn the coordinates from the logs without having to log in at all. (Premium or not). On non-subscriber-only caches, if you aren't logged in, you can't see the coords, but you can read the logs. But, this is an issue regardless since anyone who posts a log and attaches a waypoint to it on a non-subscriber cache can already have that info read -- frequently used to post update coords by finders who disagree from the owner's posted values.
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Well, I skipped out on my own topic for a few days and look what happened! Just to clarify, I did mean how could someone who is not the cache owner remove the attribute. I found a multi-cache awile back that was missing it's coordinates to stage two. I emailed the owner but recieved no response. I checked his profile and noticed that he had not been on for a couple weeks. Since I figured he was either out of town, busy, or just not interested anymore, I would fix the cache. So I went down the list of finds and emailed people until I found someone that still had the coordinates. I wrote them on aa piece of paper and replaced them myself. Therefore the cache is now fixed and no longer needs maintnance. I have emailed the owner again but have recieved no reply and the cache has not been updated. I DID delete the log thinking it would remove the attribute but it did not. How do I go about contacting my local reviewer? Thanks!
If it's a newer cache and the owner didn't delete it, the very first log entry on the cache at the very bottom of a "show all logs" page should have a published entry from the reviewer who initially approved the cache. You can contact them through the link to their profile on GC. If that log is not present, I would suggest contacting whatever local approver you work with to approve your caches. They'll either be able to help or can tell you who is the proper contact.
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If you're the one that posted the "needs maintenance" log ... I think you can go back and edit that log and change it to a "note" instead and then the maintenance attribute will go away.
When I try that it says "There was an action associated with this log. The log type cannot be changed.", and it will not let me change log type.
Hmmm ... what happens if you simply delete that log entry?
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You can specify a wildcard to spinner ... so if you simply use a unique directory with no other files in it, spinner will pick up all the PQ's you dump there and process them.
I do agree with the previous comment however ... you can use GSAK to pull the PQ's in from your email automatically (or drop them in a directory and then process them) and then export them in either HTML (for plucker to convert) or GPX for use with Cachemate.
I understand your use of the Spinner and Plucker however since I personally liked the presentation better than Cachemate on a Palm. Cachemate on PPC is much better, but still a bit cumbersome for finding "nearby" caches to one you're looking at.
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Actually, I think that might be a function of the Javascript "quick decrypt" functionality. What happens if you click on the "encrypt" a second time after you've decrypted it the first time? On my, it then reformats the text properly.
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Hi
I have Microsoft Streets & Trips 2005 with GPS with Pharos 360 GPS.
The Microsoft Pocket streets is running on my Dell AXIM X50 with the Pharos GPS.
I have been driving around using it and it shows me were I am and the streets were I am.
I have downloaded the maps for the local 100km (60mile) diameter from were I live.
1) Is this setup accurate enough to use for GeoCaching?
1) Can I buy the Microsoft Streets & Trips 2006 without GPS and still have the GPS part work from the 2005 version or do I need to buy the Microsoft Streets & Trips with GPS?
Or should I buy some other software for the Dell X50?
2) The coordinates on the GeoCaching website are listed in Degrees and Minutes, but the S & T shows it in Degrees and decimals. Is there any way to change S & T to show in Degree and minutes?
Can't ansewr your first question #1. Your second questions #1 -- the answer is yes. I just did exactly that. As for #2, been looking for a way, but haven't found it yet. Quite annoying.
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Bottom line however, one should be comfortable enough with their own faith (or lack of one) to let others express theirs. If they're not, perhaps it's time for a little soul searching.
Or the corollary: One should be comfortable enough with their own faith (or lack of one) to shut the freak up about it in mixed company. If they're not...etcetera.
If you don't like 'm, don't take 'em. For probably the only time I can remember, I completely disagree with Auntie Weasel.
Stuffing a cache with paper, of any kind, is a problem, but one or two little booklets, left by a FINDER and not teh hider? Relax, it's a diverse world.
If teh cache hider left them, that is a bit of a different story - in that case it would violate the guidelines.
Ah ... good point there. Applies only to the finder. Creating a cache whose purpose is to distribute those would be in the same category as a "commercial" cache promoting something and thus not appropriate according to the guidelines.
Maximum Plucker Waypoints?
in GPS technology and devices
Posted
This has been discuss on a number of threads previously ... Plucker has been known to freeze up. Two things to try ...
1. Change the order in which Plucker finds the files to enumerate (think the default is depth then across, change it to across then depth -- whichever it is presently, try the other).
2. If that doesn't work, try generating the Plucker PDB file using SunriseXP. It generates Plucker format outputs just like the Plucker desktop software does but is much faster and I've never had it hang up. The software's free and you continue to use the Plucker reader on your handheld to view the results.