pppingme
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Posts posted by pppingme
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I'm not a Magellan fan, so I won't comment on that particular unit, but it does sound like a fluke that you just happen to get a bad one, and I would try to deal with whoever you bought it from. I've heard REI is pretty good about dealing with problems but I've never had to deal with them.
That being said, any "real" gps, such as this unit, will outperform an iphone app, or any phone app. Inaccurate coordinates are one of the top complaints from smart phone users, especially if they are using the phone to hide a cache. In the long term, you will be glad you have a real gps instead of a phone app.
If you want to understand the accuracy issue, study up on how the receivers work. To sum it up in a sentence, almost all "real" gps units have 12 parallel receivers, that means they can listen to and understand up to 12 signals from the satellites at a time. While technically you can determine your real 3d position with just 4, you have to remember that every time you pass a tree, metal object, most buildings, and a ton of other things, that will interfere with at least one if not more of the signals. When the unit has more than 4 to choose from, it can handle a signal disappearing. Most phones (I don't know the exact answer for the iphone) only have 1 to 4, so even with 4, if one signal goes wary, you have to wait for the gps to adjust (during that time most gps's will "guess" so they at least appear that they are still tracking). Determining your position is a matter of triangulation based on these signals. The actual signal is simply a time stamp, so when your receiver gets that signal, it can determine how long it took the signal to be received, and based on that delay, how far you are from the satellite.
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This is actually a common question. A lot of the "cheaper" usb-serial cables don't work. There is one particular chipset that works real good, but I can't remember which, but most cables that use that chipset are in the $35-$40 range. I have some notes on it somewhere, I'll dig around and see if I can find them.
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I don't see how it shows any dis-respect? The only exception I see that could be considered dis-respect would be ftf's or some type of needs maint or other critical info about the status of the cache.
For someone to collect their logs and log them all at once really isn't as uncommon as you probably think.
People take vacations, and multi-week road trips all the time, after its over spending hours on the computer really isn't a priority.
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If you plug the coordinates into the search page, ALL caches are listed, regardless of PM status. You just can't click a PM cache to see its full info.
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Federal land may or may not be recorded in the county recorders office (if its never been privately owned, there's a chance its not).
Since you said there was a pond that was fished, another possible lead on ownership information is the state department of conservation (or whatever its called in your state). There's a good chance that they stock the pond, and someone has set that up. They may be able to forward that information to you.
I can't say for other states, but in my state, the dept of cons will stock any pond, even on private property, for free, the only catch is, that they have to allow (but don't have to advertise or make it public) anyone to fish it, so they can be a lead for property information. There's a good chance this pond falls into that scenario.
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This is the very reason I leave my speakers OFF. I think a lot of others do too. I would never hear it, and I consider the practice extremely high on the annoyance scale. On a scale of 1 to 10, this is about a 300.
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If I were looking at more favored caches, I would much rather see a cache that was "favorited" by 3 or 4 cachers, over a cache that may have 10 points by one cacher. I wouldn't want to see any kind of weighted or stacked rating. I'm looking for diversity, not some single cacher's idea of whats best, and that can only be achieved by input from multiple people, not multiple inputs from one person.
I don't like the idea of being able to give a cache more than one vote.
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till can't sort by distance after doing a keyword/cache name search.
I don't think you ever could. It only shows distance if you search based on a location.
Doesn't chance the fact that this has been one of the most requested features for YEARS.
Why make other searches sortable by distance, but not keyword/name searches?
There is absolutely no way for anyone to search for keyword/names. Not even PM's. Yeah, I know the box is on the search page, but the results are absolutely useless. They are returned in no useful order. I could search for the word "bridge", and I have to manually search dozens of pages before I get one that's anywhere near me.
Currently, the only way to do this is to blanket the area I want with PQ's, then use offline tools to do this.
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or else I can bet that someone else will come along soon (eg Google) and do a far far better job.
And thus came Garmin.
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Still can't sort by distance after doing a keyword/cache name search.
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In most states, stopping on any "limited access" highway is illegal for anything except emergencies/breakdowns.
This includes more than just interstates.
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For all purposes, the Oregon is a mass storage device, no different than a usb memory key.
You can get a .gpx from the site and drop it into the correct folder on the Oregon and you're good to go.
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There aren't a lot of parks departments that insist that caches be listed here. Of the ones that do, if OC has reasonable guidelines and a satisfactory (to the park) review process, then maybe they will allow caches to be listed there. If not, it's doubtful.
Are there ANY? Can you name them?
If you are able to name any, I would question if that parks dept thinks that gc is the only listing site out there and I bet would be quick to update their guidelines upon learning differently.
From what I've seen, parks depts could care less what the gc guidelines are, so long as the park issued guidelines are met, and those have nothing to do with gc, the park has the final say on cache placement, not gc.
(Note: I'm using the term "parks department" and park generically and it could mean any land manager, park or recreation area, conservation area, etc).
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They will have become used to Groundspeak rules guidelines like "no more than 1 cache per 0.1 miles"
Are you suggesting that gs verifies that there are no caches within .1 miles?
If so, that's absolutely a false assumption.
Are you suggesting that any other site should verify against gs/gc that there are no other caches within .1 miles?
Why should they? GS/GC doesn't give that same respect, when's the last time you heard of gc not publishing a cache because there was one on tc, nc, or some other site?
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Actually, most states have mandates of who they have do business with and are required by law to deal with only those companies.
For instance, the public works department is not able to go say, "We need 3 new lawn mowers this year. Let's get them from the new guy down the street because he seems like a good guy."
They have to, by law, purchase the mowers from the company that is the approved vendor for the state, and if they buy it from someone else, they are leaving themselves open for a lawsuit from the person who holds the contract to do business with the state.
In the case of caching, if the state has a mandate saying, "We will only deal with Groundspeak" then that's who they have to deal with. If another company wants to be on the list, then they would have to go through the approval process, which usually happens just one time per year or every three or four years, depending on how the contract is written.
Completely unrelated.
GS is NOT a vendor to any of these parks departments (or cities, or whatever), and there are no contracts between GS and any of these groups.
I don't get why people are so confident that all of these parks departments will only deal with gs, its simply not going to be the case.
In all reality, its like saying the parks departments are only going to allow white people to play, in the absence of clearly identifiable problems from a particular site, it is discrimination, and they won't chance it.
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Your own logs are always included in a PQ, even if they are older than the "last 5" that a PQ typically includes.
GSAK can pretty easily identify your DNF's once you load your local pq's into it.
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I have downloaded an all-finds PQ today and used it to play with the MacCache software.
Define "all-finds PQ." Did you create this PQ using the check boxes, or did you click on the "Add to queue" button down at the bottom of the page, where it says "My Finds"?
If you did a My Finds query, then you probably logged a cache twice. If you tried to create a PQ using checkboxes for caches you've found, then one of your finds has been archived. A normal PQ will not include archived caches; the MyFinds query will.
I talked to him offline, he got the correct pq (for someone with multi-thousand caches, I'd think it be almost impossible to only have one archived). He's working on a GSAK answer.
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Several of the parks and open spaces around here have geocaching policies that require caches to be listed on geocaching.com, and the review process here is the reason.
No, listing the cache on geocaching.com is a requirement. You're free to list it on other listing services too, but the other listing services do not have the kind of review process that geocaching.com does. In some cases, the parks and open spaces also require volunteer monitors be assigned to each park, open space, or other facility, and we are required to put all the caches in our assigned area on our watchlist (or on a bookmark list with logs emailed to us, which is essentially the same thing). If we notice problems with any of the geocaches in our assigned areas, then we need to take action.No, the inference that its required that the listing be on gc.com is more of an oversimplification because gc.com is the only "real" listing site out there, at this time.I do not see any reason why that would be enforced, and it could be taken even further to the point of claiming discrimination or support of commercialism, both things that most publicly funded/tax supported organizations (such as your local parks board) are not allowed to do. The fact that gc.com is listed is more a semantics issue, not a requirement.
If another listing service wants to establish a similar review process, and demonstrate to the parks and open spaces that that review process will address their concerns, then I'm sure both review processes would be acceptable alternatives. But that hasn't happened yet.
And it might create some "commercialism" issue if geocaching.com eliminated free memberships. But that hasn't happened yet either.
The alternative to listing your geocache on geocaching.com is to place your geocache somewhere else, somewhere with a different geocaching policy.
I would quickly state that I believe if ever challenged, the parks board, or whoever, would quickly change their policy. If not, they are asking for legal issues.
You are also assuming that any real contender to gs won't have some type of guidelines, policies, or reviews, I doubt Garmin is that stupid.
In reality, who is better known, gs or Garmin? If Garmin listed a cache, do you think it would really be rejected by most parks boards? I highly doubt it.
You seem to be hanging onto some thread of hope to keep Garmin down that really isn't going to matter in the long run.
Park policies will be quickly updated, this is a non-issue.
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I have downloaded an all-finds PQ today and used it to play with the MacCache software. In the process, I found a discrepancy in my cache count
According to GC.com, I have 2831 Traditional Cache finds
In the All-Found PQ, there are only 2830 Traditional caches, and all the other types balance.
Could I have logged one cache twice?
Could the PQ have missed one?
Aside from crawling through 2831 cache logs, how do I find this?
Suggestions?
Yep, you've double logged a cache.
I know nothing about MacCache, but any good cache management program should be able to identify double logs, for example in GSAK you can either sort on find count (most should be 1, so 2 would float to the top) or filter on caches that have more than 1 find, two pretty easy ways to get the same answer.
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Take Wherigo for example, (although not Garmin's game), do you think they would have sold anywhere near the same number of Oregon's without it? A market was created (this new Wherigo game), and devices were sold.
wait. wait. did you just said that people bought oregons because they supported Wherigo?
BINGO!
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Yep. Several of the parks and open spaces around here have geocaching policies that require caches to be listed on geocaching.com, and the review process here is the reason.My concern is that if they don't have a review process, which is what most of the other competing sites lack, is that it can go back to the open range days of geocaching, which would be the death knell for our sport.Say what you will about the guidelines here, but most of them were developed in response to issues raised by land managers and other authorities.
GC.com lackeys, volunteers and users have spent years developing relationships with land managers and all it takes is one irresponsibly placed cache to ruin some of those relationships.
No, the inference that its required that the listing be on gc.com is more of an oversimplification because gc.com is the only "real" listing site out there, at this time.
I do not see any reason why that would be enforced, and it could be taken even further to the point of claiming discrimination or support of commercialism, both things that most publicly funded/tax supported organizations (such as your local parks board) are not allowed to do. The fact that gc.com is listed is more a semantics issue, not a requirement.
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Garmin owns a "patent" on Wherigo .......
Actually, Groundspeak (Jeremy and Elias) owns the patent.
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Oops, typo, but I think the context of my statements made that clear
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One real disadvantage with Garmin is they are a publicly traded company with constant pressure to post increasing profits every quarter. Investing a few million dollars in an opencaching infrastructure would stick out and could negatively impact the stock price.
Marketing 101... To sell a product, you have to create a market. There is no doubt in my mind that creating a market, by creating activities, will increase the sale of Garmin's trail type units.
Take Wherigo for example, (although not Garmin's game), do you think they would have sold anywhere near the same number of Oregon's without it? A market was created (this new Wherigo game), and devices were sold.
When you consider further that by far more Garmin units are used for caching than almost all other units combined, Garmin already has a market.
My unit used to say to go to www.geocaching.com to download new caches if I hit the geocaching button and no caches were loaded, now it tells me to go to garmin.com. The more Garmin drives games like geocaching, the more units Garmin will sell.
Downloading page of geocaching but missing comments
in General geocaching topics
Posted
The short answer is, you can't.
Your choices are to hit each page and grab the individual .gpx (or use the send to gps option), or use pocket queries.
If you're not familiar with pocket queries, in their simplest form, they are a way to get the 500-1000 closest caches in one file. You can either get them on demand (and have them within a couple of minutes), or you can run them regularly (daily) and you will have them in your email every morning (note: they only get emailed if you choose 500 or fewer, if you choose more, you have to go back to the site to download them).