miles58
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Posts posted by miles58
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Are you Garmin users saying that you can walk 1/4 mile, stop abruptly 1-200 feet from the destination and the displayed distance to destination doesn't change much if at all?
Iv x Iv is not around so I guess I have the duty.
NO! It's only the Magellan iFinder pro and above that can do that, and they can go from 60 MPH to a dead stop and have a solid fix in one second.
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The question has to be how close to a cache is too close. If you have a 1/4 mile walk in through the mother of all PI patches and there isn't a plant within 100 feet of the cache what's the difference?
I have a 5/5 hide and the local PI while non-exhistant within 50 feet the cache is something I considered because getting there might walk you through it over tough ground. I think you owe it to the people coming to a cache to give them an idea what they are getting into, especially because kids are involved so often.
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I cannot find the answer to this question....it could be because it is SO basic but…
When my GPSr says Accuracy : 6 meters, (on the Satellite Page) does this mean a diameter of 6 meters or a radius of 6 meters?
What would be the possible size of the area I should be looking in?
Definding Moments,
It will always be radius.
It doesn't mean much as an absolute though.
It is a statistical probability based on the algorythm built into your GPSr. Your GPSr is programmed to tell you "I am x percent certain that I am at these coordinates" The x can vary model to model. Your EPE can show 300 feet or 3 feet and in either case the coordinates presented can be dead on right to the inch, or they can be very far off.
Generally speaking, the smaller EPE gives you more consistent accuracy. The problem comes in when you have to deal with what is called multipath signals. Multipath signals include both a signal that has a direct line of sight path from the sat to your GPSr and a secondary path, as well as only secondary pathed (reflected) signals. Reflected signals are caused by proximity to metal objects, water and certain types of ground.
I have taken advantage of this placing a cache on a north facing cliff above water to make it very difficult to get a fix at the cache. In such situations backing off a short distance ( a few feet to maybe a hundred feet) and taking a set of readings to triangulate a position.
Even with clear view of the whole sky and no reflected signals your GPSr will almost always vary about a point. The variance is rarely symettrical however. This is because the atmospheric conditions causing it can and do vary for each path between each sat you have locked and your GPSr. If your GPSr logs tracks leave it in position for a while on a good day and come back to look at the recrded track after fifteen/twenty minutes. What you will see is usually predominantly off to one side, and usually elongated.
None of that will help you though if the cacher who hid the cache you're seeking didn't understand it too. When you *know* you're right, and that you're at what should be the location and it's just flat out not there, then turn off the GPSr, put it in your pocket and start examining every likely spot in the area. If the location is off then your GPSr is not going to help you, and will in fact usually make it harder to accept the inevitable.
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Just a quick note. poop from a meat eating animal, (this includes dogs of all kinds, cats of all kinds, bears, etc....and people too) Is more dangerous than poop from herbavores. (animals that eat only plants) because of the e-coli that is excreted from the body. This is not present in horse, cow, deer, or others plant eating animals excrement.
That is not to say that animals should not be cleaned up after. use common sense. if it's on a trail or around a cache....clean it up. If its in the wild, let the natural cleaner-uppers do it.
This is dead wrong.
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I've had three other older Garmins.
I currently have two Lowrances, an iFinder pro I bought on the forum here, for $125 and an iFinder hunt I paid $300 for. I use the Map Create 6.2 software and 256 meg SD chips in the units. I have a magnet mount antenna the sits on my dash against the windshield with a little 1.5" x 5" piech of sheet metal for a ground plane.
Receptiion on both units is excellent without the external antenna (typical is 40-50 feet when the unit is velcroed onto the dash for navigation, and 14-24 feet with the antenna. Most of the time I walk directly to the cache. The units are so fast there is only slingshot effect above 40MPH, so there is no real time at the cache letting the unit "settle". If the coordinates for the cache are dead on (that actually happens about 40% of the time or less) if either unit tells me I am at the cache if I put out my arms and turn a circle the cache is inside the circle described by my finger tips.
Both units are excellent for car navigation when velcroed to the dash, the screens are big and readable enough. The smaller Lowrances are less so. The street detail from Map Create 6.2 is as good as you can get. I am missing the very newest residential streets, but that's it.
I wish the iFinder pro was waterproof. I don't need all the extras with the iFinder hunt. I keep a map of Minnesota and Wisconsin in each unit. The map has full detail down to the smallest roads for both entire states, plus it overlaps the Dakotas, Iowa, Michigan and Ontario.
Having had three Garmins and tried a couple Magellans, I like these better, and use them a lot more. The smaller iFinder GO and GO2 are really competetive with the baic mapping Garmns/Magellans, but IMO they're crippled by comparison to the bigger IFinder pro and above. The detailed maps and the ability to use that external antenna under bad conditions are well worth the extra money.
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Battery Life real world tested. A very good and simple way to compare the units would be to connect a ma meter in the battery circuit and measure the unit's draw with/without WAAS, light, and for different screens etc.
Accuracy is not a concern. If it's not accurate it is not worth considering.
Time from power on to position acquired.
Stability of position comparison. This might sem like accuracy, but is different in that the unit can switch between sats in marginal conditions, and the switch itself is more likely to affect the position.
Does it have an external antenna jack and how much does the antenna increase current drain on the battery compared for both passive and active antennas. I don't care who says what, an external antenna is an outstanding tool if you know how to use it.
Button proxinmity! I live where it does get to be winter and you do need gloves.
Interchangability of things like software and memory chips with it's family members.
Screen adjustability. Brightness/contrast and back light intensity.adjustments
Detail level comparison to comparables for basic internal maps.
Firmware upgradability. Via memory chip or via cable and how difficult.
Screen update speed as you move along with the maps, and screen to screen and range up/down.
Customizability. Can you configure screens as you wish to use them (can you add EPE for instance to the map screen so that you don't have to switch screens to see if the signal is good/bad at the time). Can you add distance to a waypoint to any screen so that you don't have to shift ranges.
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PM sent, I'll take it.
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briansnat,
I use the iFinder hunt with mapcreate.
I created a base map of Minnesota, Wisconsin, some of the Dakotas, some of Iowa, the UP and some of Ontario for about 110 mb ON A 256 mb SD. With the map saved on my computer I can add waypoints (caches) on the computer and rewrite the chip over and over as I do the caches I am interested in and add more.
With the crosshairs up bump exit and you see your position on a map. Scaling the map up or down a little will navigate you cache to cache across country on the smallest of roads, and the unit is light enough that you can use a postage stamp size piece of velcro to stick it within reach on the dash.
I have a GO also. Basic mapping, unbelievable battery life, sixteen channels, WAAS. $70. The accuracy is equal. the downside for it is that after periods of non-use it takes too long to acquire a position. It also has just bang locked up on me. No more working, no more position updates, can't change screens, can't turn it off, the only thing that gets it back into use is pulling a battery and replacing it. I have experienced this three or four times, and think it may be related to the unit's small size and resultant proximity of the buttons. Even with that problem I like it a lot better than my Garmins or the Magellans I've tried.
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MDAgent,
I use Lowrance mapcreate. At full magnification with a good reference like two roads I know to be accurate on the map in the computer I could easily place caches with the map software and a 100 foot tape measure. The accuracy of the placement can be as good as the best fix from my GPSr.
That *only* works if I know absolutely that the two references are dead on.
My mapping software also shows a town twenty miles off, businesses varying distances off (as much as several miles), and many roads in the wrong place.
I wouldn't do it as an experiment, much less as a means to an end, it's just not practical to survey first to see if I had a good reference.
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Walking in circles for a while is NOT uncommon. Are you sure that's not a Magallan?
That's cold dude!
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Honestly. Any kid capable of using a GPS to find a cache on their own, without ANY sort of parental supervision, has already heard more curse words than the parents are willing to admit.
And if that kid has tried to log his finds on Sunday night he's learned to use them context appropriate.
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Car54,
Would you please also send your email to:
http://www.deed.state.mn.us/tourism/
Thanks.
A Minnesota Cacher
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In today's homophobic world I wonder could Dylan get away with Desolation Row?
"One hand is tied to the tightrope walker, and the other is in his pants"
If you have a kid who listens to Dylan what earthly difference could it possibly make for you to try to censor what s/he saw and heard?
If you spend your life looking under rocks you're bound to find strange things. Isn't that *WHY* we do this?
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I carry a 12v 7AH ups battery in the pack with the GPSr plugged into it. The battery plugs into my cigarette lighter in the car and charges. GPSr is on all the time and batteries are never a problem
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Ask his girlfrien if he has a micro in his pocket?
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Go to a small animal veterinarian. Ask for a product called Mycodex. It smells funny but it's very safe. It is extremely toxic to insects and will kill any ticks you get it on.
FWIW you almost certainly had dermacenter ticks (brown dog ticks) instead of ixodes (deer ticks) at his time of year. The ixodes you need to worry about in the spring are the nymph stage ticks and they are so small you would not notice one on your leg even if you have young enough eyes to see something that small.
If your local Vet doesn't keep mycodex in stock they can order it for you.
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I am planning a series of caches through a chain of lakes that have a stream running through them. Here in Minnesota people regularly walk on the ice and drive all manner of vehicles on it in winter.
Because of the stream, the ice in winter will be unpredictable. I will be placing all of the caches in places safely accessible from shore(but not necessarily on "shore"). There are many many caches here along similar lakes, and most of us know to avoid the dangerous ice.
I am concerned that setting out a string like this might tempt the less thoughtful among us to use a snowmobile/ATV in the winter to make the run.
Not doing this deprives the community of what would be a really fun alternative day of caching.
Would it be acceptaable to write a warning that they *will* go through the ice if they use a snowmobile/ATV in winter, and provide approach directions that are safe for foot travel?
Generally here in Minnesota we tend to let Darwinism run it's course in situations like this, but I am concerned about the rest of the cachers trying to recover the GPSrs that went into the drink with the sleds.
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You can do it, but you need a non-corrosive RTV.
Most of what you can by outgasses acetic acid (the vinegar smell) which can and will corrode circuitry. If the antenna will pass liquid or gas into the unit you can kill it. Same with the use of shoe goo or aqua seal.
You can get the non-corrosive RTVs, but you'll need to go to a place that supplies RTVs, noit a retailer.
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I've had GPSrs for more than ten years. I just bought an iFinder GO unit and you won't get close to that unit for considerable more money and then you won't get anywhere near 1/2 the battery life. This little thing goes 48 hours on two AAs, and *that* might be conservative.
The only place it's a little short is that the screen is small, but that's kind of hard to avoid on a small unit.
Until the others catch up, this unit makes what to buy for a new user a no-brainer.
16 channels, WAAS, 48 hour battery life, Mapping (abeit not detailed) and the lowest price.
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Try this:
One male cigarette lighter plug and one female cigarette lighter jack.
Connect each to 18" of wire, matching polarity.
At the distal ends of the wires connect stab on (spade lug female connectors) so that the two positive wire ends go to one and the two negative ends go to the other.
Buy a 12v 10 AH UPS battery on ebay for about 10 dollars and connect your jacks to it and then drop the whole works into your goodies bag.
When you're in the car plug it in and the battery recharges. If you don't plug it in so what, the battery will last for days between charges, even if you never turn off the GPSr.
A old gas mask bag with a wide shoulder strap holds the battery, toys, a spare log, extra zip locks, and the GPSr and my external antenna too.
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"I get right on top of it (GZ?) within 18ft accuracy. Does that mean the cache should be within 18 feet of me?"
No. It might be twice that due to a like error in the GPSr that recorder the location. If the person who placed the cache took several waypoints coming in from different angles, and/or used averaging then the location is probably more accurate. In that case you would liukely be more than 18 feet but less than 36.
The point of most micros is to be more difficult to find, but they still tend to be hidden in what looks like a good place to hide something.
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Bears and wolves are common in the area where I live. They won't bother you. The bears tear up my bird feeders every spring though. There's they odd cougar, but I've never heard of one of them bothering anyone in Minnesota. I've had to convince both mink and coyotes that the bird I just shot was mine and I *would* keep it, but they were never a threat to me. Have seen both bobcats and lynx out while out bird hunting.
FWIW the two legged mammals are about a zillion times more likely to be trouble than any four legged carnivore. Holstein bulls out in the pasture are a different story
Bad Thundertorms?
in General geocaching topics
Posted
I've been outside in three tornadoes.
Worst was out on Oak Island in Lake Superior in '92 I think. It went right over the top of me in a tent. When the trees (big oaks and white pines) started coming down around the camp I had the tent fly open and was ready to bolt across a small opening and jump over the cliff to get a little protection. It was at night and by the time I was ready to bolt the worst of it was gone past. It took me the better part of a day to get the boat pumped out and off the sand.
The wife doesn't go camping with me on the big lake any more.