T.R.a.M.P.

You summarized my three kids (16, 18 and 20) fairly well. They have gone caching with me but they much prefer playing video games. That about sums up team TRaMP as well The older half do most of the caching but our sons (18 and 21) have gone out alone. Mostly a few years ago now when they were at home bored with revising for exams and I spot a new cache while at work. Now they have both joined the rat race it is getting more difficult to prise them away from the video games Trevor

Sounds good, I'll try to make time to upgrade over the holiday period. Oh - and can I add my apols to Dakar 4x4 for the thread hijack. I'll shut up now. I should probably point out that I've got a sim-free model. Vendor-locked phones (T-Mobile, Vodafone, Orange branded, etc) will probably not have the v20 firmware out quite yet. v12 has A-GPS, though.

Ta for the info on the N95. One thing you may be able to clear up for me - the Orange upgrade bod said using the GPS was NOT free and used it "data streaming" to connect to the satellite Is that correct? I had assumed that the GPSr worked the same as other GPSr's and used radio signals (for FREE)? What I think he's talking about is assisted GPS link. This is where the handset goes online to get the GPS almanac data rather than downloading it from the satellites. This going online makes fixing your position a lot faster (and once it's done it will work just like any other GPS) but it will incur you some data costs. I seem to remember reading somewhere that it won't do assisted GPS over WiFi, so you can't download the almanac at home over your home wifi (NB that may be rubbish - I may have invented that memory in my addled brain.) I'm sure you can turn off assisted GPS if you want to. Without it (and that's how my un-upgraded N95 is) it takes several frustrating minutes to get a fix. I've not timed it but memory says up to 5 minutes is not unusual. Once it's got it it holds it OK. I've got a Version 20 N95 (which is the latest firmware), and it has A-GPS enabled on it. You can pick up almanac data from anywhere, Wifi is just fine - you will have to state a default access point, though, and for the sake of convienience, setting it to your GPRS data access point is easiest. It uses very little data, costing about 3p per almanac on Vodafone Pay As You Go. It only collects this data once per GPS "session". Once it's got the almanac data, all the satellies will show up in the status page, and a lock is acquired in about 10 seconds after the data is retrieved. In total, I can usually get a lock in under 40 seconds in a 3.5G area. If anyone has queries about the N95, do ask!

P of T.R.a.M.P here - I popped it on my N95 Silver (v12 firmware) and had a play. I've dabbled with similar things on the N95, and can answer you with why it works on the N73 - you're querying the phone's positioning API, which is universal code - which is very much the correct way to do things. In case the phone doesn't have a built in GPS, the API will try to find a bluetooth one, hence it'll work. It won't use cell-tower positioning unless the network supports it, and none in the UK do as far as I know. As for the program, it's great, but a few pointers - - It could do with a menu along the bottom of the screen. The current navigation is a little confusing and everyone loves menus. - At one point, the display became scrambled and shoved everything in to the top left corner. I'm not sure how to recreate that, but it's a tiny bug. - A satellite status page would be fantastic. Great work, though! I'll be keeping an eye on the project

Tell me about it.

To that end I dropped a couple of geocoins in a puzzle cache I had solved previously - no one has been near it since I visited in September I may end up going back to rescue them at this rate

Several others have offered some good advice about the practicalities - here's a link to a bookmark list of caches along the South Downs Way I once started it but gave up after only a few miles when my companion's back trouble flared up Good luck!

I did just that this last weekend I had made a note of the tracking number on a Geocoin and dropped in another cache before I got home - only to find the number did not work I emailed the owner and put a note on the cache where I dropped it asking the person that picks it up not to grab it but to send me the code so it could all be correct. Unfortunately, the owner has not replied and the coin has now been grabbed. I got an apology from the cacher concerned but I guess the moral is to "do as JeremyR does - take them home first". Trevor

If you like a cache to make you smile (read the logs), I would suggest Microcachers Revenge. And while you are in the area you could try my one and only (so far!) cache... Trevor

Sorry if my terminology was off - what I meant was a Smart Name. This is referenced by the special tag %smart. It is all in the GSAK help but basically Smart Names are something more meaningful than the default GCxxxx codes and if GSAK is exporting smart names then the MM setting needs to use the %smart tag because the %code tag will not have the desired effect. I hope that helps. Cheers, Trevor

Not forgetting that if you use the smart tags that should be \cmate:%smart. Cheers, Trevor

Similarly, in 50+ years living and holidaying in the South of England I have never knowingly had a tick bite. Having said that, I often get anonymous itchy bites - but no embedded ticks <yuck>. Trevor

A little red kettle was the most unusual we have found!

Another point here is that placing a cache IN an ancient monument means that the cache seekers have to probe around - and possibly do more damage I have to admit that I found a cache in the earthworks at an ancient monument and did not report it - so I am certainly not perfect... Trevor

My IPAQ has TomTom on the internal file store, so the location where I put the POI files is: \iPAQ File Store\iPAQ GPS\United_Kingdom-Ireland Hope that helps... Trevor

Hi, Paul of team TRaMP has set up his N95 and finds it very good. He has even persuaded Clive to write a GSAK macro for it - check in the GSAK forums for that. I can't give a lot of details since I use other hardware - if you need more, post here again and I will try to persuade Paul to reply with details. Trevor

I seem to be getting the Pilmuir map again - anyone else? I have uninstalled my script and installed the latest but no change. Note the link seems to give me v1.0.6 rather than 1.0.7?? Trevor

Thanks for your suggestions guys. The smittyware forums suggest that the internal GPSr may not be providing the right information. Since it is supplied with TomTom I guess Simon may be right and it may not work if moving too slowly. Its not too bad using the IPAQ for the logs and the old Etrex for the search - the display is much clearer in bright daylight anyway Cheers, Trevor

I am just about paperless having got an IPAQ with in built GPS - but I am currently still using the trusty Etrex for actual navigation to the cache. Tomtom on the IPAQ works well and Cachemate gives me the cache information. It should be possible to do away with the Etrex but I can't get the CacheNav extension to work properly. It just gives a compass rose with a direction to the cache but the compass does not reflect the current direction of travel. Am I doing something wrong or is CacheNav just not up to the job? Many thanks, Trevor

Oh b*g**r - now its all come back here as well... Anyone got the hamster food?

I got that earlier as well - but it all seems better now...

We picked up a Geocoin a month ago that wanted to go to the US. Since my son was going to Philadelphia I emailed to ask if we should hang on to it. The owners replied that they would rather it got the chance to get over the pond, so we held it. My son is now in Philadelphia - but his GPSr is playing up and his itinerary is rather tight, so it may end up coming home again. There is still another week to go and it would be good to get a US log on the team account.

Hi, I occasionally get something like this. The first indication of the problem is when the Earth first appears - it has a rainbow coloured fuzzy ring around the globe and everything is very fuzzy when it is zoomed in. It only goes away after re-booting the pc. I first noticed it when I installed a new printer/scanner, so I had assumed it was something to do with that - but it now seems to come and go at random. Sorry that I can't offer anything but sympathy. Anyone else?

Thanks for the reply. I have updated Greasemonkey with no success. It was Lord Elph's script that has gone missing - but I have now successfully installed yours at home - many thanks! It is my work machine that is playing up. I am at home now and have sent the relevant script to my work email to try tomorrow. I don't expect much luck since I was trying to install Lord Elphs scripts from his link. I will also try your script tomorrow. I was hoping someone might recognise the error... Cheers, TRaMP Well, now at work and the only thing that fixed it was reinstalling Firefox - and that took two attempts. The first uninstall left all the extensions (in Program Files\Mozilla Firefox) and preferences (in Documents and Settings) and everything came back with the bug. For the second re-install, I deleted those files and now all is well. Of course I now realise that the problem was somewhere in those settings and I did not actually need to reinstall Firefox but it was easier my way . Cheers, TRaMP

Thanks for the reply. I have updated Greasemonkey with no success. It was Lord Elph's script that has gone missing - but I have now successfully installed yours at home - many thanks! It is my work machine that is playing up. I am at home now and have sent the relevant script to my work email to try tomorrow. I don't expect much luck since I was trying to install Lord Elphs scripts from his link. I will also try your script tomorrow. I was hoping someone might recognise the error... Cheers, TRaMP