twolpert

Without seeing the LUA which Urwigo generates, it's hard to say what, if anything, might be wrong here. Under the hood, the various class implementations have methods for testing containment. Not sure if this information is still valid, but at one time: Zone had its own method for testing to see if an object was contained in the zone. I think this one tested only for direct containment. Zobject, which is the base class for ZItem and ZCharacter, had two methods which seemed to differentiate between item in item (letter in an envelope) and item in inventory (presumably of the player, although it probably works for other characters as well). Details under the various class links here. To me, this seems to imply that Urwigo should generate different method calls depending on the type of object on the left side of the contains test. But I haven't actually looked at the LUA, and I might be way off base anyway...

Thanks to Ranger Fox and Vooruit!, we will soon have a new home for the original Wherigo wiki content. Working on getting the content uploaded and reformatted. Give us a few more days.

I let the wiki die when Wikispaces eliminated paid subscriptions. I have absolutely no idea whether or not I can retrieve the content at this point even by paying a fee. When I get chance, I will see what I can find out. The material is extremely dated, though. A lot of it had to do with writing script manually. With the advent of much better development tools, I'm not sure how useful it would be. But I will check.

JM_2? It's hard to imagine why the f/w version would affect this particular aspect of things. On 2.6 and below, there is nothing but the "internal waypoint list." On 2.8 and above, you have the ability to use and save .GPX files. But the plug-in still uses DelBin to send waypoints/caches to the same old internal list. One of things I will eventually suggest (if nothing else pans out) is making sure that there is an open waypoint file before trying to send. But it doesn't sound like the OP is getting that far. That does raise the question of the f/w version on this particular PN-30...

OK, I'm confused as to whether or not you actually installed the plug-in. I just tried this with the latest version of FF and it was unable to locate the plug-in. Unfortunately, the DeLorme download site is down at the moment. I'm not sure if the problem is the latest version of FF or the down DeLorme site or something else. For the moment, the best I can do is refer you to this support article: http://support.delorme.com/questions.php?questionid=137. The support site is up (right this minute). You might try using IE instead. However, if the plug-in is not yet installed in IE either, you probably won't be able to install it at the moment because the DeLorme site is down. Edited to add: I do seem to recall that there were problems with FF and the plug-in, at least at FF 9. Current version is apparently 12. I stopped using FF when they went nuts with the "update every couple of days whether you like it or not..." There are alternative methods for getting caches onto the unit -- but not one at a time. If you're a premium member and use pocket queries, then you have some very simple alternatives. But if you really need one at a time, the plug-in is really the only option.

What operating system and browser? And now that you've installed the plug-in, what exactly happens when you click Send to GPS on the cache page?

Depending on just where you are, it might be a bit of a drive -- but the St. Louis Area Geocachers Association (SLAGA) has a lot of outstate members. Everyone is welcome! Visit our website for more information and a calendar of upcoming events.

You're a premium member of gc.com. The easiest way to get what you want here is to set up a Pocket Query. This will get you all the info (type, size, D/T, description, hints, and the most recent logs) for a whole group of caches near the centerpoint of the PQ. Depending on the number of caches, the PQ will be e-mailed to you or you will need to download it from your profile's PQ page. Either way, you end up with a .zip file containing two .gpx files. One of these is for the caches themselves. The other is for child waypoints such as parking spots or trailheads. Open the .zip file and copy these two to someplace handy. Now, plug in your PN-60. Menu, Menu, highlight Settings, Enter, highlight Connect to Computer, Enter. Look for the option that says "When connected" (or something like that) and highlight the current selection (which is probably "Use GPS"). Press Enter, highlight "Open SD card" or "Open internal" -- depending on where you want to store the PQ on the unit -- and press Enter. After a brief pause, the unit will show up as a removable USB "drive". Use Windows Explorer to copy the two .gpx files to the Waypoints folder on the unit. Close Windows Explorer. Back on the GPSr, highlight "Use GPS" and press Enter to dismount the "drive." Now, load the cache file you just copied. Menu, Menu, highlight Geocaches, Enter, Menu, higlight File, Enter, highlight Open, Enter. Find the name of the cache file you just copied, highlight it, press Enter. Now you should see your list of geocaches. The only disadvantage to this approach is that the PN-60 can only open one file at a time. So you can see the caches OR the child waypoints, but not both at the same time. The DeLorme mapping software that came with the unit (Topo North America 9) can combine the two for you. But it has its own learning curve. If you use GSAK, it can also combine them for you really easily. And GSAK 8 (still in beta, I think) can even download the PQs direct from gc.com. For more help with your new GPSr, you can also visit us over here.

Right you are. I was thinking Legend because I wandered off to check the list price on the Legend before suggesting it as a possible step up.

I would guess that a program at a camp would involve something other than permanent caches -- temporaries, stake courses, etc. That might make the Geomate Jr. a poor choice since (even with the update kit) it is limited to permanent caches. The St. Louis Area Geocachers Association (SLAGA) participates in a number of events which involve the general public, including children in the age range you're looking at. We use the eTrex Legend H (the "yellow" eTrex). They are available for less that $100, have good battery life, and are easy enough to use (for these types of events) that the kids pick it up after a 5-minute intro. These are black and white units with no mapping capability -- so if maps are important to your intended use, you might need to step up to the eTrex Legend H. These are still pretty reasonably priced (list at $150). From a setup standpoint (waypoint loading, etc.), the eTrex series is easily connected to a PC. You can load waypoints with any number of geocaching programs including EasyGPS (free), GSAK (low-cost), and ExpertGPS (slightly higher cost).

For shorter walks, try the south end of Queeny Park (and/or attend the SLAGA picnic on 10/10). Or try Kirkwood Park at Geyer Road and West Adams. Forest Park has a lot of caches as well, but they tend to be more spread out.

Suggest you try the caches along the Lewis and Clark trail in the Busch Wildlife area. There are some great views of the river starting about a mile from the trailhead. The Lewis and Clark trails split 2 or 3 miles from the trailhead. The entire loop is quite long, so be prepared. I don't recall exactly, but I think the longer of the two is 7 miles or so. The shorter is in the neighborhood of 4-5 miles? If you are interested in history, the Hamburg trail, which runs alongside Highway 94, is a cache-rich area. There are occasional signboards with information on the history of the area. This one is best done on a bike because it's a long, linear out and back hike. Individual segments can be done on foot since there are parking lots at frequent intervals. For a road less traveled hiking experience, you might try the caches in the Lost Valley area at Busch Wildlife. No particularly spectacular views, but much less heavily used. Somewhat farther from home, if your daughter (or you) likes Harry Potter, try the HP series in Cliff Cave County park.

Looks like the ball's in your court. Start the process and I'll follow up. My gc.com user ID is twolpert.

Apparently I've not found this one. I'd be happy to adopt it assuming I can find it. Planning cache maintenance this weekend, so I'll have a look. Never done this before. What's the adoption procedure?

If you're coming to the St. Louis area and you (or the kids) are Harry Potter fans, I'd recommend the Harry Potter series in Cliff Cave County Park. For example, GC1JJN2, GC18CAN. There are 7 in the series. If you're interested in military history, the caches in Jefferson Barracks County Park (also in the St. Louis area) will take you to some interesting places. For example, GC11EG5, GCHTHC, GC1KXH0. If you're looking for something in the neighborhood of MOGA, a lot of the 2009 park 'n grabs (the "gunslinger" series) were just plain fun. Mark Twain fan? Head over to Hannibal from MOGA and do some of the local caches. Take time to visit the the various Twain attractions. For example, GCE32C, GCC03E.

It's an option when setting up the GPX export to set how many logs you want to export with the GPX. It's there for export to .gpx, which might be what I was thinking about. But it's not there on the (standard, as it appears in Help) dialog for sending to a GPSr. Might be there for the PN-40, though -- I'm relying on the Help since I don't have the unit or GSAK in front of me.

IIRC, a PQ only contains a limited number (5 sticks in my head, but I could be wrong about the specific number) of the most recent logs. The 15K character limit for the description, hints, logs, etc. on the PN-40 is a separate issue. Within that 15K limit, you can improve the number of logs by using GSAK as TL suggests. However, just using GSAK is not sufficient because of the inherent limit of a single run of the PQ. If a cache has more than 5 (or whatever) logs, you're never going to get them all because of the PQ limit on the "n most recent." But using GSAK, you can accumulate more logs going forward by periodically re-running the PQ. What I don't know offhand is how GSAK determines how many logs to download to the unit. Had it in my head that there was an option for this in the download dialog, but there is not.

Even if GPSrs of all types were created equal, you still have deal with the inherent limitations of the system and differences in conditions between the time you hid it and the time they looked for it. With consumer-grade hardware and without post-processing, 3-5 meters is about the best you're going to do on the average. If you're off by 5 meters when you hide it and the finder is off by 5 meters in the other direction when he looks for it, you've got a 10 meter difference. And that's without considering the possibility of larger errors due to the possibility of bad satellite geometry on one or both occasions. My take on averaging is that it requires a lot of samples to do any good (5 minutes or more). And that it's only good for correcting things like multi-path effects which have a random component. If you have bad geometry and a high EPE over the time you average, it's not going to help. The average of bad data is still a bad position. If I am hiding a micro or something else which will be hard to find, I revisit the cache on several different days and average the results. Particularly if I pay attention to the constellation, this helps eliminate errors due to high EPE. Also, want to echo Lee's comments about Goolge Maps or Google Earth. Most times, the imagery is properly georeferenced. But there are cases where it is not. You can't put any faith in it until you check out the georeferencing in a particular area.

Don't own a -20 myself. However, the concensus in forum posts seems to be that the -20 redraw speed is considerably slower than the -30/-40, particularly with downloaded imagery (as opposed to the vector maps from Topo USA). I have seen it desribed as adequate for hiking speeds, but not so much for driving speeds.

It's at the end of the page. ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet Flash series: 143,2x78,8x10,4 mm - 182g ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet Hard Drive series: 143,2x78,8x20 mm - 286g Or is it metric that you're unhappy about? 6.4 oz and 10 oz. http://www.archos.com/products/imt/archos_...=us〈=en Metric is fine. I must have been brain-dead to have missed it. Weight's not bad. Dimensions are a little awkward for a hand-held though. And hard to imagine myself tromping through the woods coddling something with an internal HDD

How big/heavy is this thing? I don't see that in the specs. With a 4.8" display, it's got to be pretty sizable...

I was sort of hoping the good engineers up at delorme could just create an adapter. I could permanently mount the adapter on the back of my PN and use any mini USB cable to make the connection. (hint hint) Actually, this used to exist (sort of). The original "travel kit" included a two-piece cable consisting of a standard mini-USB cable (or maybe it's micro - I can never keep them straight) and an custom 8-pin adapter which slides into the mount on the back of the unit and offers a USB socket. Some people did leave the adapter attached to the back of the unit. But I'm not sure how it affected waterproof-ness because the USB socket has no cover. AFAIK, this cable is no longer offered. It is certainly not part of the new "power kit". As I understand it, the new kit comes with a one-piece cable which has the proprietary adapter on one end and a cigarette lighter plug/voltage regulator on the other. Not sure if this "improvement" is due to lower manufacturing costs or the fact that a number of users reported problems with the USB cable coming unplugged from the adapater on the back of the unit. It's really a shame. For a while, DeLorme was also shipping the two-piece cables as replacements for failed one-piece cables. The two-piece ones (without the cable loop and choke) seemed less prone to random data transmission failures...

Can't comment on the quality of the inland lakes mapping. I do own a CO 400t. The topos are based on the 1:100K USGS topos. They are adequate for geocaching and hiking use except possibly in areas with very steep slopes (close contours). The topo maps include vector road data (non-routable). However, the road data is notoriously inaccurate. Not sure if this is due to the source of the data or to poor vectorization. Either way, the roads are not very useful.

Lots of threads on here already comparing the PN-40 with all things Garmin. Personally, I like paperless a lot. I own both a Garmin Colorado and a PN-40. It's pretty hard to beat the PN-40 price for a paperless unit, especially when you consider the fact that topo and routable road maps are included. DeLorme is going out of its way to provide features for geocachers. On the other hand, DeLorme is a relative newcomer and Garmin is the "standard". I don't think you'll find a significant difference in ease (or difficulty ) of use between the PN-40 and the Etrex. They're pretty similar from a user interface standpoint. The higher-priced Garmins (Colorado, Oregon, Dakota) do have a different interface which is more like an automotive unit. I am a little confused by the reference to the Venture CX. I assume this is really the HC. The "H" part is important because in Garmin-speak, the "H" indicates a high-sensitivity receiver. That is an important feature and is only lacking in older (or very cheap) models. My only point here is that I would not purchase any unit without a high-sensitivity receiver. If your only choices are the Venture HC and the PN-40, I'd go with the PN-40. Paperless and included topo/road maps for the entire US at a $200 price point is hard to argue with. Edited to add: The Venture Cx is a discontinued unit, which explains why I didn't find it on the list of available models on the Garmin web site. It does not have a high-sensitivity receiver.

What TL said, with the following added. If you do urban, color 1m aerials (CDOQQ) probably are best. If you do parks, conservation areas, etc., you may want to at least have a look at the B&W 1m aerials (DOQQ). DOQQ is typically older (which is bad). But the DOQQ and CDOQQ were taken at different times of the year. In some cases, depending on where you are, DOQQ will give better contrast for finding trails and abandoned roads (which is good). But you really won't know for sure unless you look at a bit of both to see which works best in your area.