pppingme

I HAVE found chirps. A homing beacon is very simply something that sends out a signal, usually an identification of itself, and repeats as needed. Whats a chirp do? It sends out either a message (such as a hint), an identifier (usually a gc code) or a set of static (pre-programmed) coordinates, or a combination of these three. In the case of a garmin chirp, it uses the ant protocol, the thing you seem fixated on for some reason, you seem very anti-garmin. The reality, anyone could easily develop a competing product, use blue-tooth, a wi-fi mini web server, an fm transmitter, or any other communication protocol supported by androids, and not step on Garmin's toes at all. Garmin came up with a very cool concept, period. I'm not saying it was implemented the best, but lets be realistic, ant was already being built into garmin receivers, and now even some of the lowly etrex units have it, and as far as I can find, no other manufacturer of hand-held (outdoor) gps units had the foresight to build any type of communications into their units, be it ant, blue-tooth, or even a very simple fm receiver (yeah, some car units have blue-tooth, but no hand-helds I've found).

ANT is proprietary, homing beacons (what the chirp essentially is) are nothing new, and the basic concept isn't protected by any patent, therefore no reason to keep anyone else from developing a competing product. All androids have wifi and bluetooth built in, many even have rfid readers, most also have fm tuners built in, same true for iphones, and some mix of these technologies is in other gps receivers. There's no reason that some type of homing beacon couldn't be built around one of these technologies. It all comes down to someone seeing an application and putting the pieces together. There is absolutely nothing new in the "chirp", its a homing beacon (concept that has been around since someone figured out how to transmit an rf signal), and communication protocol (ant), no new concepts, just a mix of existing technologies in a creative way.

The souvenirs for the international caching day were all awarded in one batch, if memory serves me correctly, it was on the Thursday after. Most likely they won't do it again, to catch stragglers, but might do one individually if you shoot them an email. Your best bet would be to shoot an email to them and see if they can add it.

I don't think this is what you mean, but: http://coord.info/GC2E027 It has a time of day limit. Here's another one based on time: http://coord.info/GCR0V8 I've seen others that do too (excluding night caches).

OK, then you need to tell gs to eliminate multi's, as thats the definition of one.

So use the unit from Magellin, Google (for androids), tom-tom, or whoever else is out there making an equivalent competing product. There's no such restrictions in place.

That is clearly plural. You attempt to quote that out of context was doomed from the start. I did correctly quote it from: Geocache Listing Requirements / Guidelines II. LISTING Guidelines: Listing guidelines cover the requirements that you, as a geocache owner, need to adhere to in order for your geocache to be successfully published on Geocaching.com 1. Listing Guidelines for All Geocaches item 3. Geocache Contents Wow, you want to put such a narrow context on it and from that you derive this rule of singularity. There is absolutely nothing in the guidelines that states that there can't be more than one container/log. GS has defined the word multi- and even gave it its own icon. Nothing in the guidelines stats that there can't be a log on each step of the already defined multi, and the definition already includes multiple containers. Again, you're trying to read something in that just simply isn't there.

Nor does anything state that there can't be more than one container or log. Assuming you quoted it correctly (I didn't check): That is clearly plural.

You are making the assumption that a solved puzzle will always have corrected coord's. Thats not the case. Some have good starting coordinates, but require you to be onsite to figure them out.

So does a cache that requires a boat, rope climbing gear, a flashlight, or other equipment, do you feel the same about those? If not, then it seems there is a double standard and resentment against garmin for some reason.

You are reading something into it thats simply not there.

To quote the guideline exactly, it simply says that the finder is required to sign the log. It does NOT specify that there can or can't be more than one log involved. It seems to me that the only people that would be upset are the ones that cheated and skipped the first steps, somehow thinking they are above the multi-steps involved. If you don't want to complete the work on a multi stage cache, don't attempt them.

This is not true. The poster doesn't claim to have any Chirp caches; I have three and all are now working more than a year on the original battery, as promised. I've always found Garmin's battery estimates to be pretty accurate, so your experience doesn't really surprise me. What does surprise me is that those little things last so long on a little cr2032 battery.

I think you mean 5/1. Difficulty is usually listed first, then terrain. But yes, I agree, the greatest majority of easy terrain hides are also pretty simple. I just looked, and the closest 5/1 to me is 11 miles and is probably only because of the difficult hours and contact with people needed to get it. The next closest is 129 miles, its hidden by someone that has a good reputation for hard caches.

While its true that Garmin "owns" Dynastream (I actually forgot about this), they continue to operate on their own, they are a Canadian company, and the primary application of their technology is fitness related monitoring, such as heart rate monitors, pedometers, equipment for bicycles, and those type of devices. If you are using any kind of wireless fitness equipment, its either ANT, or completely proprietary. Most likely (and this is speculation) Garmin only bought them to avoid licensing (it was probably cheaper to buy the company than it would have been to license their technology). Don't forget, Garmin also makes a line of fitness monitoring equipment that uses many of these devices, and communicates to them via ANT. If it was anything more than that, Garmin would have most likely folded the operation into their Kansas City office. The chirp, and xfering caches between gps units, are probably one of the most "far out" applications that use the ANT protocol.

About the time that Garmin released the chirp, Jeremy did claim that Groundspeak floated an idea similar to chirp in 2006. Groundspeak does retain a patent on some of the ideas implemented in wherigos, but there is no surprise there. Jeremy has also said that Groundspeak would allow Garmin the use of Wherigo on the Montana for free, as they did in the past, so I do not believe that royalties were ever an issue. As somewhat of an aside, before Groundspeak took over the Wherigo app for the iphone they asked the developer to change its name. But snce Wherigo uses the lua script, you could probably build an interpreter without running into too many difficulties with Groundspeak -- I have not heard that Groundspeak has enforced a patent issue or demanded royalties from any of the Wherigo players or builders that are on various platforms - some of which have added improvements to both aspects of the cartridge - so I question that part of the referenced post. Thanks for gathering the info together, saved me some time.

The only speculation is when I said "I look for Garmin to drop the Oregon", except for that, every bit of it is fact. What specifically are you having trouble with? You also need to remember, if you are ONLY using these forums for source, there is a lot of speculation, and on top of that, its well known that gs DOES filter and deletes threads and posts that don't put them in a good light. Hey, settle down, OK? The only reason I ask is so if I quote you in conversation with somebody, that I can support what I am saying instead of saying that a Potato Finder told me. Oh, I'm settled. I just wasn't sure which point you were asking about, the sources vary.

The only speculation is when I said "I look for Garmin to drop the Oregon", except for that, every bit of it is fact. What specifically are you having trouble with? You also need to remember, if you are ONLY using these forums for source, there is a lot of speculation, and on top of that, its well known that gs DOES filter and deletes threads and posts that don't put them in a good light.

A lot of people have compared the Oregon and the 60's side by side and think they are pretty similar. While the 60's have a better antenna, the Oregons have a better chipset, so they basically balance out. I don't know if any side by side compares have been done with Dakota's or Montana's, but it would probably be a sane assumption to believe that they would perform similar to an Oregon. If you want a true replacement for a 60 series thats a good paperless unit, look at the newer 62's. The problem with using PDA's, including Androids or iphones, is that they just aren't ruggedized or weatherized, any gps will be better off if you drop it, or if you get caught in the rain.

I have an Oregon and still want a Nuvi in the car for getting to the cache. When I load my Oregon, I load the Nuvi at the same time with cache info. The Oregon is a great GPS, but its just not geared toward driving.

Well, it will certainly make non-Garmin owners feel excluded, which is (of course) the idea. Tried before with Wherigo but it didn't work. If Garmin doesn't have a reasonable second-party solution out in a few months I think they should be banned for commercial content. Why is that Garmin's responsibility, and why should that have any bearing on the future of these units? The ANT protocol isn't Garmin's creation and sure isn't proprietary to them. If the ANT protocol was built into devices like Androids, or those other fruit thingies, then I'm sure a chirp client would show up, be it by Garmin, or another party.

Probably miffed when their $20 gizmo gets plucked. $20 can buy ammo box plus some swag You don't put it in the cache, you put it near where you want people to see the signal, they are small enough that you should be able to hide them pretty good.

I don't think it was the beginning, but rather more like the final nail in the coffin. I don't believe that Groundspeak knew nothing of the introduction, despite their claim otherwise, but rather Groundspeak couldn't figure out how to extract more money out of Garmin for the concept. Garmin did try to work with Groundspeak on the introduction of the chirp and had units in hand for testing before Garmin released them. Later Jeremy came out and even claimed the design, showing pics of some old usb memory stick or something, but an honest evaluation could only conclude it is indeed different from his idea, thus not Jeremy's design. The dispute goes back much further, as can be shown by the Wherigo client/player on some of the Garmin receivers, they were introduced on the brand new Oregon in late 2008, early 2009 or somewhere in there, but have NEVER been updated. Groundspeak lays claim to a patent on the concept, so technically Garmin can't update the client without permission and input, which has never happened. By the way, Groundspeak currently gets some royalty $$ for every Oregon sold because of the Wherigo player. This is the reason that the player was not part of the Dakota or Montana series. I look for Garmin to drop the Oregon this year, with the Dakota and Montana, the Oregon has just become a middle of the road unit, everyone either wants more (Montana) or less (Dakota), or even less (etrex 10, 20, 30), they've essentially dissolved the market for Oregon's, thus also dissolving groundspeaks lay to claim for $$ of each unit.

Or just run a myfinds pq, which will grab all of them, and doesn't even count against your daily pq limit.

If you use GSAK, there are a couple ways to do it. The easiest is to make sure the found count column is on (tools, options, display tab), and sort by that and scroll to the bottom of the list.