GS&Dogs

Try this link: http://www.gps-shop.co.za/rentals/gps_rentals.htm

On a mission to find a multi/micro placed on a jungle gym, a lady from a nearby house inquired as to what I was doing crawling around on a structure clearly designed for children. I immediately responded by saying that this really is a lovely jungle gym and that I was interested in constructing something similar in a nearby suburb. Well an hour later I managed to pry myself away from the conversation which covered all aspects of living in our current day and age and the importance of physical exercise for children. Needless to say sometimes the untruth hurts more.

Congrats cownchicken!!

Vespax - the fact that it is an apple makes it very exciting already.

Well this could explain why I have been waking up in the dead of night with visions of a surfboard chasing us from behind. CONGRATS Goofster!! We were fortunate enough to witness B&Fs 250th cache. Well done guys. Roll on 500. I'll start chilling the bottle of Pond Grass!

Well thats something to see foward too. We will end up paying tax on not paying tax and still pay feul tax in order to run the diesel generators needed to charge the hybrids. Imagine hybrid cars in SA - while watching your favourite soapy on tv .... energy alert ..... please unplug your hybrid car and all geysers stoves and anything else that makes your existance bearable..... thank you.

Be very careful buying certain items abroad. My uncle bought his 2 daughters PS2s in Singapore. When he arrived the one worked fine but the other just wouldnt start up. He took the unit to Sony SA and they immediately checked if it was a grey product. Once they determined that it was indeed not bought in SA, they refused to even touch the unit any further. After much persuasion they finally agreed to look at the unit but only after a R2000 rand non-refundable fee was paid. There would also be no guarantee on their work. Well if you are fortunate - you will never have any problems with the unit you buy - then again someone will get a dud unit - just hope its not you. As far as i can see - Garmin is great if you living in a first world country, here in south africa we are always held to ransom by the local support for any product we buy. For the last month I have been waiting for a mount for my GPSr - it was sold out in the entire country. Now a month is a long time in a world where there is constantly communication and interaction between different countries. This is the age of the global community is it not - well not if you live in SA, here it takes two weeks for something to travel from CT - Gauteng. Just remember that if you ever plan to climb Kili and require technical gear, you going to have to start planning 10yrs in advance just to get everything you need.

It all depends on what you want to do with the unit. For using in your car with car power its great and very functional. When you planning on doing some really long hikes, battery life becomes a problem. At best you will get 5-7 hours. Sure you can get additional battery from Garmin but at a cost. Another thing that put me off the pda type gps units was the fact that geocaching can be rather rough on electronic devices and the pda type body with the fold away antenna does not suite a rough environment. There are also a few forums which mentioned the fact that the pda functionality is not quite on par with its peers but I cannot comment on that.

I emailed Avnic as soon as I heard about the new Streetmaps 4 release and they responded: Any software registered after the 1st of April will get a free upgrade to version 4 so that should cover you. Regards Terence So you will be covered for the upgrade.

In that case to many cachers out there all the caches they do are a failure even if you did allot of trouble placing the cache. It all boils down to the numbers I suppose. Why write something meaningful when you get the credit anyway. Sad. Sometimes it makes you wonder why you even bothered placing the cache in the first place. There are however those people who do make an effort to write meaningful logs and those are always the people you enjoy having find your caches and make you go out and place more caches.

Congrats Vespax and the non-Geocacher. And now if i can look into my crystal ball - i see an infant - with a good sense of direction - always poking around heaps of stones - looking at every nook and cranny as if its filled with possibilities and of course not touching a GPSr on Sundays.

Sorry Vespax! Here follows a rough translation of the article. Please do not critisise the language as it was done in haste. "L’Agulhas - A very worried worker of Coastcare reported a “find” he made last year between some rocks close to the lighthouse. Hidden amongst the rocks, they found a plastic container with letters and figurines including soldiers. The container was hidden in a crevice covered neatly with stones. The messages on the letters seemed very strange and the soldiers made them wonder if it was not maybe “devil things”, or maybe something to do with their ancestors. The workers initially did not want to go back to the area of the find but after Allison Appel from SANparks reassured them that all was well, peace ensued. It became apparent that the container was a Geocache. According to Appel there is a website where people all around the world, who own GPS equipment, communicate with each other in a kind off treasure hunt. Letters and figurines are hidden in strategic places, usually close to points of interest ie the most southern point or lighthouse in Afrika and the co-ordinates are then published on the website. The challenge is then to find these “treasures” or geocaches with the aid of a GPS and to leave a message “letter”. Actually only the technology has changed as 400 years ago there was the Post Tree at Mosselbaai where seafarers also left messages “letters” for each other to find."

The following article appeared in the "Overberg Venster" on Friday 5 May 2006. Its easy to see that to some people what we do for fun, is a bit strange.

Brick, apparently the elevation/aviation issue has been addressed in the latest firmware update. I come from a Vista background and I loved my Vista but since I started using the 60CSX there is no chance of turning back. WOW!!! One definitely gets the idea that the newer units are a logical progression. There are lots of little things that make using the unit easier and more intuitive and not to mention faster. It does have one or two snags but then again every unit has its issues.

Thanks all!! Special thanks to all those people who placed the caches for us to find. Our first 200 has been a blast. Well if 200 is special then I suppose 400+ is incredible - Congrats cownchicken. By the looks of things its going to be 500+ pretty soon Congrats right back at ya B&F - We will look back in 10 yrs time and smile at the meager 200.

Well I have often been jealous of the places TB go, but this really takes the cake. I think I am heading straight to a tatoo parlour and piercing my ear with a TB Tag. Space Guido is a very special TB, Its going to be rather difficult to put him in your pocket but he doesnt require alot of luxury. His mission is to follow in the steps of the great Space Bear. Think it will work??

It would be sad if the only places which have caches are the places which cachers. Just imagine only having caches in JHB, CT etc. I would also say that if you come across a cache that really needs some attention and its not too difficult to hall out the first aid box, then doctor it in good faith. That way the cache standards would improve overall and who knows someone might repair one of your caches in the future.

B did you get the attachment I sent with the mail yesterday?

Thanks to all that responded. It seems as if the idea behind the 6[]15 is good but there are still some technical issues causing downfalls in its use. What I find really scary is that your average pda can do so much more than your average gps and yet the gps is priced at a premium(here in SA anyway). Why the modern gps units do not have gpx(or similar) storage ability is beyond me. Its all just 1s and 0s! Thanks again for the input

I believe this is the intended link: Cool And Extreme Geocaches Dvd

The size is a bit of a concern for me but in a way that could be a good thing as the screen is larger than most units available and therefore making it handy when driving etc. I have even considered keeping the old vista for those caches where a little more physical activity is needed and only use the IPAQ for paperless caching and getting to the location via car. How did the unit pick up satellites and keep them locked?

I have been pondering the idea of buying a PDA/GPS instead of upgrading my current Garmin Vista. The IPAQ 6515 appears to be a rather nice multipurpose unit - does anyone have any experiences with this unit as a Geocaching unit.

Extend that to the world!! Something we found interesting on our recent trip is that Pretoria is probably one of the cleanest cities around. Its really quite inspiring to us CT peeps. Don't meen to sound negative but what is the intention behind having media coverage? Shouldn't there first be a trial run to test the waters?

WOW Helga! Sense of adventure, techno know-how and not to mention those dimensions 33-23-33 was is it or more like S33 57.535??? Sounds like the perfect woman. Well S of GS&Dogs has attempted the GPSr thing and at times has even succeeded in navigating us to a destination. Even though the gpsr gets handled upside down at times.

Hi CWF! Welcome to Geocaching a la ZA. Sure you going to enjoy your new found passion. Interesting choice of occupation(s).