Airmapper

I am a Lowrance guy because it is what I have, when I needed a Aviation unit (Pre-caching) I was impressed by the package deal Lowrance offers, all accessories and Mapping software were included with the unit. At the time Garmin offered none of this with the Avaition GPS V, a compareable unit. (I believe Garmin now sells package deals.) It was also in my price range and included all the features I wanted.

Does price matter? I can get two one time use cameras for $5 at the dollar store, but will they hold up to the elements like a Kodak.

Google Earth looks good, if I get a new computer it will probably be one of the first things that gets installed. Will have to stick with terraserver for now, even that is slow. Thanks.

I've got an older computer and Dial- up, not going to work. Thanks anyway.

Everyone here in the GPS units and software forums seems to have thier favorite brand name. Magellan, Garmin, Lowrance, and many other brands. I'm pretty much a Lowrance guy myself, but I like and use my Garmin quite a bit. Most of the people here seem to have loyalty to some brand or another, so what's your brand?

This sounds interesting. Is Google earth free? (A version of it anyway) And it can be used for caching? How do you set this up?

I was trying to look up a cache using waypoint name and accidently hit enter after typing only GC5, turned out to be a old cache, might fit what your looking for.

I've never had a magellan, but I do have a Lowrance and a Garmin. As a general rule I've never seen the EPE get below 15 feet on the lowrance, but the Garmin will get EPE as low as 6 foot. Both are dead accurate, but I think the Lowrance just displays a higher number so you won't be over confident in it.

Now I have a reason to brush the dust off the old radio shack Metal detector I got years ago, shurely it'll pick up a Benchmark.

Yes, as property owners, we wanted to know what was happening on our property. The survey company in question is probably a singular case of unprofessionalism. They left stakes in our field, in a line, and we had no idea why or who put them there. I believe in my state it is required the surveyors notify all adjacent property owners that they may need access to the land. This company did not, and they were all over our field, I found ATV tracks and places where they bushwacked. Later the company tried to tell us they "gave" us some land, we know our lines, they were not changed and we would have contested it because a surveyer should never alter a deed. We didn't have problems whith them using the land for thier work, what we didn't like was them trying to cover thier tracks. Okay, I'll get back on topic. Anyone had any interesting experiences while attempting to get permission to hunt a Benchmark.

I don't know if this will help, but you might want to move this to the GPS questions board. The people in there know a lot about GPS, software, and anything else you want to know about your GPS. Plus you might get quicker replies in there. Sorry I can't tell you how to move it there, a moderator may be able to do it. Welcome to the Forums FasterD.

A lot of GPSr's have the option of an external antenna, however a lot of them do not. I have two GPS units, one does, one doesn't. As a general rule the more it costs the more likely it will have a place for a external antenna.

Here is why I call myself Airmaper. (See Avatar) I am a student pilot and got the AirMap for flying. Later I found Geocaching, I was signing up for membership and was thinking of what I should call myself, Airmapper had a good ring to it.

No, I woulden't trasspass, I mean't at my airport I probably wouldn't need permission. I would ask permission at any airport, and am going to at my airport. The Airport manager is my flight instructor, and I think he won't even bat an eye at me wanting to look for benchmarks. And as far as having different airorts we do, I think any benchmarker would be allowed to look, they may keep an eye on you, or send someone with you, but you should be allowed. Rob, I know what you mean, we had surveyors traspass on our property. They left stakes and ribbins all over our land and never notified us that they needed access to our property to work. And they acted like jerks when we called them on it. I know it really makes me mad when people try to use your property without permission.

Got everything except the night landings as far as flight tasks go. Now I'm working on fne tuning the landings so I can hit the numbers. (Hopefully the ones on the same end as I'm trying to land on) I have done all my Cross countries, didn't even know caches existed then. My parents have a few trips they would like to go on and I would like to fly after I get my lisense. Sounds like a good way to get caches in new areas.

Thanks again for more good posts. I'm planning on some airport Benchmarks. I probably don't need permission, but I'll tell the airport manager what I'm doing to avoid the, "Why were you out walking down the runway, did you forget you needed to go get the plane first to fly?" he will tell me when I get back. I found a benchmark on a Kentucky WMA in my area and it looked like a great hunt. It was .7 miles from the nearest road, no visible trails to it, ant it was on top of a 100 foot hill. The problem, you need to pay $12.50 to use the land. Land bought with hunting and fishing lisenses. Lisenses I have been buying for years. Oh well, maybe I'll fork it over. Another mark you can't get to cause of property issues.

A lot of good stories and advice. probably wont have moch trouble with my local RR's, there are not even tracks on most of them. I've done my fair share of "Deed Reasearch" at the local courthouse over a land dispute. (Someone messed with MY families property) I hate to say it but I know more about deeds, surveys, and plots than most guys my age.

I went to my hometown today to look for a benchmark I thought would be easy to find. I was standing off the side of the road, GPS pointed 20 foot straight ahead, Into someones yard. I left that one for later, sometimes there are people around there I could ask for permission. But how do you go about finding benchmarks on public property? There are a lot of old railroad tracks around loaded with markers, I think that is that public land, but could I get into trouble poking around where the tracks used to be. Just would like to hear any thoughts or experiences on finding benchmarks on different types of property. When it comes to finding benchmarks, I'm finding a whole new challenge from fnding caches. Property ownership.

I looked over that thread, I have some of the items, and probably have a few more of them laying around the house. I'm going to start a new thread on getting to Benchmarks on private land. Thanks

Yeah, I've heard of several pilots getting in trouble for that. Apparently it is legal to drop objects from an aircraft, as long as it is done safely and no one reports you as a terrorist. I heard of a one pilot flying over some buddies playing paintball. He was "Bombing" them from the sky with flour. Some people in the area reported him and he got in big trouble, apparently he was doing this near a lake used for public water supply.

Thanks Will. I'll try that.

Stevedex is right. This looks a lot like a member of the rat snake family to me, because of the flat belly and rounded top half. The way he has himself crinkled up like that also suggests a rat snake. It may be an "Intergrade" between a Grey and a Yellow rat snake. Both live in N. Alabama. Edit to fix sloppy typing.

That sounds like fun, all I need is some 3lb flour sacks. Think I outta try that on some urban micros?? Wonder if muggles will be conserned about where the white powder came from? ------- skyraider That sounds like a lot of fun, I thought the two would make a good combination.

Thanks for all the replys. I use Mapcreate Topo, and I am attempting to get a general area of coverage around my home coords. (Say 30 mile radius or more) If anyone has a link or just some info on how to search the NGS database I'd appriciate it. I went to thier website but coulden't find what I was looking for.

I have been searching for benchmarks in my area. I can find them well, but I think there are gaps in the information. I run zipcode searches, but I have no idea of the radius I'm getting results from. How do you get all of the benchmarks for an area of a state without there being holes where you missed a search.