Airmapper

Welcome. I live west of Bowling Green. I've cached in your area some. I bet you know what a PUD cache is. I seen you might be going to the local event next month, see you there.

I have 4 units: Used most: Lowrance Expedition C; Primary unit for Geocaching Secondary unit: Garmin GPS72, stays in the trucks glovebox. Specialty unit: Airmap 500, retired from Geocaching, but still will use for flying as it was originally intended. Specialty unit: US Globalsat BU-535. USB Laptop GPS, used for getting position data to mapping programs with live NMEA capability.

I don't do facebook, but indirectly flying got me into caching, since my GPS unit was for the plane. I had an AirMap 500, nice and portable for rentals, and as it turned out, also great got hundreds of caches.

http://kompozer.net/

I used a friend's 12 showing them about how to use GPS, but I admit I got annoyed with it bouncing around and loosing lock. I wish they would make modern unis as tough at the 12's. It's like a brick with a screen. I keep a GPS72 in my glove box, never know when I may need to convey my position to someone, mark a spot, or anything. I don't usually take my new unit unless I intend to cache or need directions.

The latest release of GE took out the pay to use GPS restriction, so now if you happen to have an air card and USB GPS receiver, you can take the show on the road.

Cool, your in my area! I'll watch the listings and try to come up with some equal trades!

I don't own one myself, but I'm pretty sure that it holds to the standard file type as the rest of the Lowrance units, so that would mean you should have no problem loading Geocaches to it, and even including extra information in the name and comment areas. Lowrance recently announced new handhelds, no one has any experience with these yet, but before you drop your cash on this, take a look at them and see if you might want to wait. From first impressions they look like they will have Geocaching features built in, along with optional road navigation through an unknown means at this point.

Awesome! Now lets just hope it works well. Personally I don't like the idea of a touchscreen for outdoor use, I passed over the XOG for that. So I do like that is has buttons. I also see that it has road navigation (turn-by-turn) functionality through an "upgrade" or something. Hopefully they won't over complicate this process.

It was more fun here when I was a teenager. Most people here act like teenagers, but I think I was the only one actually in the age group at the time.

I just posted in this thread on how to make a cable for a GPS 72. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=211758

Believe it or not, I have made one. You suggested you already have these, but just in case here are the pinouts: This one is for the 4-pin on the back of the Garmin 72: http://pinouts.ru/GPS/garmin_round_pinout.shtml This is for your standard Serial RS-232 (There is more than one pinout on this page, use RS-232): http://www.lammertbies.nl/comm/cable/RS-232.html Radio Shack probably doesn't carry these any ore, I bought the last one locally, but there is a kit you can get for only a few dollars that is a RS-232 serial connector (Male I think, goes into the plug in the computer) It includes these handy pins that you crimp your wires to and insert into the connector in the appropriate hole (they are numbered) If you can't get one of those, I suggest a flimsy credit card or similar thin easy to manipulate plastic sheet, and make holes in it for your pins, wrapping in the wires so they make contact. This will probably be the best method for making the connecting end for the GPS72. Now for sending receiving the data, EasyGPS will work, so will GPSTrackmaker. Make sure your unis export settings are to Garmin in the settings menus. VisualGPS will let you record data from the unit to a computer, however the NMES data your GPS72 sends is not as complete as most newer units. If you do this make sure your unit exports NMEA sentences. This is a good way to see if your connection is working, you can open a window to watch the raw data feed in, and a bunch of text will roll in every second if your connection to the unit is good. All the programs I mentioned are fee and should be easily found with Google, if you have any trouble finding them post back. Hope that helps and good luck. I had fun making mine, I even made an adapter for my Lowrance GPS unit. P.S. You only need to use 3 wires, for Data In/ Data Out, and Ground. The power one is unnecessary.

I'd say this would be my Favorite, and most expensive, Geocaching tool: '01 Ford Escape 4x4 (I admit it's not solely for caching, but it carry's my Username on the front, and Geocaching license frame on the back. I have a feeling it will become a TB sometime in the near future as well.) My Lowrance Expedition C GPS & RAM suction mount for above vehicle was pretty much a Geocaching only buy, however I use it for other tasks.

You don't find mtn-man, he finds you........

I just looked at one of these and from the description it looks great. (actually it was the best rated in the search I did, digital cameras around $100 on Amazon.) Would any of the 2-3 here that own it recommend it? I'd say 80% of my photo taking is during caching trips, and while I'd like the higher grade stuff (like a DSLR), it's just to bulky for me to actually use. I have a nice Minolta 35mm SLR and lenses that just sit in the bag since I went digital. I need a new camera, for caching and every other purpose. My Polaroid i832 is great, but the battery door design was poorly made considering the cheap low grade plastic they used, and now it doesn't want to power up from weak connections to the batteries. In every other way it has worked well, and still limps along taped up. To answer the OP, I don't know if I could say I've ever bought a camera with solely Geocaching in mind, it is definitely what it will get used for the most. I kept my Polaroid in my GPS holder's front pocket, and where one went so did the other.

I foresee GPS units jam packed with useless features for the true outdoors people, with focus on music & video, My Space, You tube, and cameras. They will talk and sing to you, tell you your hair needs to be done at the shop only 100ft away, or that your hungry for a double cheeseburger at Mikey D's, only .1 miles away! But if you want to find a Geocache it will beep and say unknown error. These units will be difficult to load GPX files to, but will interface with i-Tunes wireless if you swipe your credit card down it's side. They will also bid for you on E-bay and Amazon.com will be built in there too. We are in the heyday of GPS units. We have the toughest, most accurate, user friendly devices we will ever get. It's all down hill from here, grab a Garmin, Lowrance, or DeLorme while they last. </rant></sarcasm>

I don't go to the trouble of adding caches to my ignore list, I just make that judgment call before I get out of the truck. But there are plenty of caches I ignore. I load all caches to my GPS, and generally hunt around where I want to go. I don't like caching in urban areas, micros or not. It's not worth the extra consern of wondering if I'm going to get the cops called on me, if I'm going to look like a terrorist while I hunt, or if I'm just going to have some concerned individual question me. Caching in busy public areas is asking for negative attention towards Geocaching in my opinion and I think it should be avoided. Not to say there aren't those little places you can put a cache in the city, I've been to them and they are nice, like sitting areas that are rarely used, small parks, and nature trails, all of which I've found right in the middle of urban areas, are not usually crowed with bystanders, and are great spots for a cache, even a micro.

Awesome as usual, thanks!

Try my Lowrance Users Geocaching Guide for help with the GSAK method.

I'd go for micro, it is long enough for a small, but the inside diameter is a little restrictive for swag and TB's. Nice thing about that one is there is room for a pencil, and a decent sized logbook. I like that container, nice small size for hiding, but not a tiny little thing that is hard to find. I'd like to see more of those over film cans, I bet they hold up to the elements a lot better.

Another vote from the small band of dedicated Lowrance users. I retired my AirMap 500 from Geocaching this year in favor of the Expedition C (I got tired of waiting for the AirMap to give out, it's still running fine. ) I bought the unit with only Geocaching in mind. The choice was logical since I already owned the mapping software, and had a spare SD card. Things I like about it for Geocaching are: Fully supported by GSAK, cache info can be sent to the name field, and soon the comment fields as well. Cache data is stored in file format on an SD card. Only minor issue is you have to get the card out of the battery compartment for loading, but it's quick and easy to load caches. 1000 can be shown at any time, with as many files as you like on the card. (Save memory space, but with a large card a non issue.) Electronic compass. Didn't think it would be a very useful feature at first, but I can't live without it now. No more direction jump when your standing around, point your nose and go straight to the cache from a dead stop. Brilliant color screen, little dark without backlight in shade, but reads good in direct sunlight. I'm very happy with the unit, even if people call it a brick.

Awesome! Thanks.

I agree, some people aren't smart enough to Geocache so those of us that do are elite. I suggest we invoke Darwin's Law for the rest.

I seen one in my local Wal-Mart and started drooling. I have a 14" screen Acer laptop and it has been a great computer so I like the brand. Still not sure yet, I might consider it if I can get one cheaper than $300, it is after all going to be at higher risk of theft or damage going everywhere with me.

But look at it from another point of view. ALR caches are very annoying when you run up on them not knowing. I do cache paperless and can read cache pages on the go, but not everyone is, and I don't always look before I go. I see a traditional cache I'm assuming ALL I need is my GPS and an ink pen, sign the log, and off to the next one. Taking photos, writing a silly poem, or e-mailing the owner the answer to a headstone puzzle fall outside a "Traditional" cache's scope in that I have to do more than leave my scribbled name on the log book. If I see the question mark on my GPS screen, it makes me stop and look to see what makes it special, I can look to my PDA and see if it's something I can accomplish. If so I go for it, if not I make a mental note that if I'm in the area again to do my homework on it before attempting. Just consider it common courtesy to give people out there caching a heads up. With this game its a given we have to get our nose out of the computer screen at some point and just go caching.