mantis7
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Posts posted by mantis7
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People Have already chimed in...but I will throw my 2 cents in
I have a Garmin 76CS (Amzon Link)). I bought it years ago. I have used it for years....I dont log all my finds, but I have been caching for quite a few years in many states and countries. The thing is a BEAST, I have loved it from day 1. It is accurate, rugged, takes a beating...Battery life is superb...on just plain batteries, which can easily be changed out. Waterproof, rain proof, (i even spilled a gallon of paint on it in my truck, the paint dried, and i peeled the paint off - pics on request.)
Flash forward to present, I got a Droid X (Verizon Link to Droid))
I love it, and will use it in my toolbox for a lot of caching, but it will not totally replace my handheld for many of the already stated reasons, like weather / durability and accuracy
The pros and cons have been outlined already, so I will keep it short:
Handheld GPS:
+ Works without needing cell service, if you preload the caches
(i suppose this is true with my droid too, but I havent tried any preloading with it yet)
+ Rugged / Weatherproof
+ uses regular AA batteries, lasts a LONG time
+ Mine (76cs) Seems to be MUCH more accurate....but I have an excellent unit
+ Montly Cost - NO montly fee! Ever!
- Higher Start Cost / additional maps $$$
- Less user friendly (at least slightly, IMO)
- Display probably not as good / big etc on many of them...but I find mine excellent (76cs)
Phone / Smartphone / 3g/4g --- DROID OS (I have no experience with Iphones, just android OS)
+ Amazing...flexible...can download maps / caches in the field IF you have service*
(This is a huge IF....if you drop service, it can ruin things if youre not prepared)
+ Cheap Starting Cost! A hundred or two hundred bux and BOOm you have an amazing machine in your hands.
+ Free / Cheap apps, lots of new apps being developed
+ Beautiful displays, zoom in / out....
+ simple interfaces, easy to delete and store caches...no real need for a computer
- $$$ High Monthly Fee (unless you already need a data plan or have one, then this is moot)
- Not so rugged / durable / waterproof...YET..but that should change soon enough.
Just my 2 cents but I think that for now a handheld is a pretty cool thing (for me)...As I am pretty hard on devices. However, with that being said....I think the era of the handheld GPS stand alone is probably done. More and more people are just going to have 'do it all' devices. This argument will not even exist in a few years....There MIGHT be some stand alone GPSR's that are really cheap for hiking/camping/geocaching enthusiasts but it will be an extremely rare niche...even among that population as most people will just have GPSR in their phones and watches and cars and everything else.
It is really hard to justify spending a ton of money on a handheld, stand alone GPSR when your phone can do pretty much everything that the stand alone can...Thats just my opinion...HOWEVER, I do enjoy mine, and also take it out into the forest/water/rocks where it gets abused. And I love the fact that it doesnt cost a monthly fee....I still have mine, still use mine...but I see the day coming on the close horizon where that isnt going to be.
TL ; DR: I still use my handheld/standalone...but in the near future I believe they will be obselete for the most part.
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I have used GSAK for years, and this looks very interesting....I'm gonna give it a try. Best of luck and thank you!
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5953 miles
GCGH6K
Home is California, Cache was in Italy. I have a few others in the 5000+ mile range also...Czech Republic, Germany/Austria, France....Hoping to grow the list as well.
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I love my Garmin, and just want to echo what some others said about them...they are great units....
When I got mine, it was just for geocaching...BUT...I ended up getting the mapping software with routing, and WOW...My wife and I love it, and now use it to navigate everywhere...We have used it literally all over the world...Once you use the routing feature you will never EVER want to go back...
So, my advice (like others) is to get the garmin and then save up for the maps.
You will not be sorry.
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I want something that also writes stories to your news feed that tells of your caching finds.
This is _exactly_ what I want. An app that shows what finds you made, and also when someone finds your caches....
If it could be configurable to maybe check every x amount of time, like once per day at a time you could choose...Or something like that....ANd if you haven't found anything or if no one has found your caches, then it wouldn't post any thing...
Also if it could check for notes/added photos that would be really cool.
I think the added traffic to the servers from facebook would pay for itself with new members to the website easily...It would be like free advertising...(edit: because a TON of new people are going to be exposed to Geocaching, and with GPSr's being embedded in so many devices....this just seems like a WIN idea)
I hope someone makes this soon, I am very, very excited about it.
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Ahh, I see three finds reported for the OP....
Joy!
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Personally I love cemetery caches...
Cemeteries are places meant to be visited....Just because geocaching is 'a game' does not mean that geocachers have to act disrespectful when they enter a cemetery...
Cemeteries are full of history , and part of the reason people (like me) play this game is getting to go to places and learn things you might not have learned otherwise...
I haven't heard one good argument against caches in cemeteries....Just people claiming that it is disrepectful..
How is it disrespectful? If the person who placed the cache there took you there in person would that be disrespectful? The person who placed the cache there is 'taking' you there to show you the cemetery.
It is up to you to be respectful or disrespectful while you are there....
There are a ton of disrespectful people in the world but I believe that 1) For the most part geocachers are MORE respectful of history and surroundings than most people and 2) if that person is disrespectful it has ZERO to do with geocaching.
Bottom Line: Cemetery caches are fine with me, as long as you use common sense.
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(oops)
Just wondering if you have got your first find yet?
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It is tough....if you know the spot well, and you read the clues and the last 10 or so logs you can get an idea of where it is...Look at satellite and terrain....
If youre handy, check this video for a do-it yourself GPS
Not sure how much cheaper it is than a cheap one from like wal-mart..but I'm too lazy to look up the prices of the parts..
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One thing you could try is having a more experienced cacher take you out and find a few....Then you'll get a better idea of where things are hidden etc...
Another idea would be to look for 'regular' sized caches that are rated at a low difficulty....Small or micro can be hard, but usually 'regular' that are rated low difficulty/terrain are very easy to find...
Good luck and stick with it!!!
I'm sure there are more than a few cachers in your area who would love to show you the ropes.
Here are a couple in Redding:
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...dc-65a45a653c84
That one is a 30 cal. ammo box, by a golf course...someone found it a couple days ago, so it should be there
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...77-84649c05f736
Thats another ammo box sized one, recently found
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...g=&numlogs=
That one is a band-aid sized container, but should be easy to find...
If you continue to have bad luck , try posting in the regional forums to see if you can link up with someone who will show you the ropes...Good luck man!
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ok, so here we are, Saturday AM, even on the left coast, and only 3 of my 4 scheduled PQs for Friday have arrived. Of course, the most important one didn't even run at all. Perhaps it is time to reformat the way PQs are run. I understand that the servers are overworked on Fridays and Saturdays but IMHO it is time for a revamping of the system if I can't receive one of the benefits of a Premium membership, no? As we travel hours and hundreds of miles to cache, we really need more than a 500 cache radius. Perhaps one query of 2000 would take less time and free up the server quicker than 4 queries of 500 each? Perhaps there could be an "obssessed-cacher super-duper premium membership" for us server-resource hogs, lol.
I am wondering about the resources also....I would love to have the option of doing one large PQ rather than a bunch of small ones..And the people that wanted to do a bunch of small ones could have that option still available....Seems like a win/win! Great idea here IMO.
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I think (as others have said) that the cache owner would LOVE you to stop by and pick up a TB to move it along...ESPECIALLY if you post a note and let the cache owner know that everything is fine with the cache or if the cache needs any maintanance or a new log book etc....
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Target your caches. Today - look for the terrain 2 and difficulty 2 small sized caches in your area. Next time out target t1/d2 regular sized. Next week make it a micro week. No need to have all the caches in your GPS at your fingertips. Get enough for a fun filled day and then repeat often!!
I don't know....
This doesn't 'feel right' to me.... I mean my time is VERY limited so I like having the caches already in my GPS, and I like them up-to date, so that on the RARE occasion that I have a few extra minutes, I can check the GPS and see if there are any caches nearby....
Having to go to a computer, do a PQ or search, and then transfer the coordinates to a GPSr defeats the whole idea (for me anyway) of the 'spur of the moment' cache run..which happens to be the majority of the time that my wife and I geocache.
Furthermore, if your time is limited, being able to get to the closest cache is important, so not having all of the caches at your fingertips may mean the difference between finding the time to do some geocaching and not....
Right now, the only way (for me) is to create the PQ's by date..and try and keep the GPS updated as regularly as possible (using GSAK etc..)...This method works, but requires multiple PQ's to keep up to date...but hey..at least it works!
Seems like there should be a better way to deal with this data...I'm sure server load is an issue, with people running a lot of PQ's....
I'm sure that there will be changes to this in the future....although I have been thinking this for years now, so I guess I will keep waiting.
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I consider myself a member of the silent majority......I don't read or post very often....
I agree with some of the points on both sides. I agree with the original poster to some degree, multi logging to pad your numbers is .....hmmm......hard to find the right words......well...I guess to me it just seems a little strange. I don't understand why people feel the need to do that, but hey, maybe it makes them feel better about themselves.
I definitely don't want / feel the need to tell someone else how to play the game, so as far as making a 'rule' or policing people...well..I will leave that for others..
I guess the bottom line is wherever you have a really popular game that has stats you will always find (among other types also):
1) People who abuse the system or exploit loopholes to pad their stats
2) People who complain about #1
3) People who take the 'fanboy' position and always defend the status quo
I guess in this case, if there are people who feel the need to pad their numbers soooooo badly.....maybe their self esteem is bad, or their ego needs a boost, or their life is incomplete somehow...if it makes them feel good about themselves to do this, they should feel free to go ahead and do so.
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Airmapper is correct, PQ's are only available to premium members, but what he didn't mention is that my first suggestion (GSAK) is free and will help you to organize your caches in more ways than you can shake a stick at.
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If that feature isnt an option on your GPSr, I highly recommend (if you're not already using it) GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) to organize all of your waypoints on your computer. Then, you can filter out found geocaches, and just load the unfound ones into your GPSr every time you go hunting.
Try GSAK for free!
Also, you can run PQ's (pocket queries) and specify that you only want unfound caches as well.
PQ's are essential!
http://www.geocaching.com/pocket/
Good luck!
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If you happen to have a PDA or similar device, you can also use GSAK to generate HTML files you can put on your PDA. Then , you can have ALL of the information available to you while you are out and about....
Good luck!
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add me to the list of interested parties!
I am looking forward to trying your software.
I have a dell Axim X30 (windows mobile).
Cheers!
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I use GSAk for two things.
1) I use it to import all of the GPX files (which as you say can be done with other software) and load the waypoints onto my GPSr.
2) I use it to search, make lists, and export HTML files of caches I am going to hunt or load in my GPSr. I can then drag and drop the html straight into my handheld PDA, and be completely paperless.
For me, gSAK is the very best tool I have found for handling GPX files. I have a pretty large database. I am constantly updating with PQ's and GSAK makes this a breeze. I can quickly do searches (filters) and come up with a list of caches to hunt, export them into my GPSr and PDa, and be off caching!
After using GSAK for the trial period, I registered it and am loving it.
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I Agree with the 76 C suggestions!
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I completely agree with the OP. It is a hassle to construct multiple queries, and would be much easier if we didn't have to use this "workaround." The reasons that has been suggested as why we are limited to 500 result PQ's are 1) System Resources and 2) (in another thread) database security. Both of these things I imagine are valid reasons (yet i don't know any specifics, because I am not an expert in either area).
I think that my suggestion from another thread is a good one...
I will describe it briefly and then put a link up to that thread.
What I think a good temporary type of solution would be to let the premium members decide how to use their 2500 daily PQ results. So, if one user wanted to do five 500 result searches in a day, fine. If another user wanted to do two 1250 result PQ's in one day , cool. Etc.... (up to the current maximum of 5 PQ's and 2500 total results)
It seems to me that this wouldnt be any more taxing to the system than the current method. It may even be less taxing, but that is another topic.
Anyway here is a link to the original thread if you want to suggest ideas along these lines:
Link to the thread where this is discussed in detail.
Take care!
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I would vote for the PPC. I really love the fact that I can store all of the cachepages in HTML format (tens of thousands if you want to - i am holding the nearest 5000 to me within about a 100 KM radius) and it doesnt take up that much space on my SD card. I have a 512 meg SD card, which are pretty cheap...I think the caches take up MAYBE 50 megs or so.
The best part about it is that all i need is an unregistered copy of GSAK, which takes all of my little GPX files, and crams them all together...then it exports into pure HTM format into a directory I call "cache". All i do is drag and drop that folder on to my storage card. No spinning, plucking, cachemate...etc...none of that...just plain SIMPLE
I also have a smaller gpx file with about 1000 nearby caches that I use with GPX view, which is pretty handy too. Mainly though, I just get the name of the cache from my garmin, and look it up by name on my brower in my PDA as we are driving around.
Sure is better than trying to maintain an updated paper binder / folder with cache pages!
One other thing I really like about my PPC: it has wireless 802.11g built in, and an infra-red transmitter / receiver. So while im on the couch, I can use it as a universal remote to do all my TIVO stuff, television, satellite, stereo etc...AND surf the web!!!!
Plus it can play media and MP3's on the go as well. I already have a bunch of SD cards because I have a digital camera, so I love the fact it takes them.
It is fantastic, and for around 200$ it is CHEAP. Id rather pay 2 hundred for something I can do alot with than pay 50$ or more and be limited. But thats just my opinion. You can even get one cheaper if you get one without the wireless connectivity (you will still have USB and SD cards and an option to upgrade to wireless). I think theyre like 120$ or so but i'm not too sure. (The units I am talking about are the Dell Axim X30 pocket pc....the upper end ones have built in wireless where as the lower end ones do not).
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WOW. Very cool page, thanks!
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I really like the idea of the geodining.com..... It is nice to be able to get some recommendations of restaurants in areas you aren't familiar with. Too bad more people don't use the site.
Best Android geocaching app?
in GPS technology and devices
Posted
This.