bigbbfan

GPS, phone, water bottle, PalmPilot, pen, exchange items

I also use a E-Trex Summit. It is what I already owned and has been working great for me.

Summit

I recall watching the GPS to the geocache locations go down from 15ft, 10ft, 6ft, 3ft, 2ft, and being very impressed with its accuracy. I must have been provided great coordinates to start with. Whatever it is, it's been a real positive experience and great way to start out. Almost all my 10 finds have been in open sky though. I have had 2 GPS units over an 8 year period. In the past, I have only used them to find general landmarks out on the Alaska tundra (camp, airplane pickup, etc..). Out there, where a person can see 3-5 miles in every direction, pinpoint accuracy is not that important. Via geocaching, I'm seeing just how accurate a GPS can be - very cool.

I started doing this about a month ago with a Etrex Summit that I have owned since 2002. So far, the accuracy stated on the GPS is usually 13-20ft. My actual experience has been that I can get usually get down to 1-3ft accuracy with this thing - that is without the WAAS! Needless to say, I have learned to trust this GPS. I've found 10 caches so far and the only one that I didn't get that good of accuracy (off by 10-15 ft), was one where the cache was almost right under some high power lines. I purchased a combo cable to connect to the PC and download waypoints and charge in the car. Has worked very well for me.

I have been using a GPS for several years on hunting and fishing trips in Alaska and in the lower 48. My GPS usually sat 95% of the time unused. About a year ago, there was an article in the newspaper on Geocaching. I cut out the links to the recommended websites but just recently found the clipping - which had almost faded away. I already owned a Palm for work purposes, so I started about a month ago and just found my 10 cache yesterday!