KC2WI

A .gpx file (such as generated by as Pocket Query or downloaded from the Geocaching.com web site for an individual cache) is just an XML file with the appropriate tags for defining geocaches. It is just a plain text file. If you are curious about what the data looks like you can just download a .gpx for a single cache and open it in any text editor like Notepad. You can create your own .gpx files (or modify existing files) using a text editor but it is tedious and easy to make coding mistakes. However there are many programs that can generate most of the code for you and check the syntax of the file. I do not know how your phone works, but my Garmin GPSr uses .gpx files to store waypoints. So if I wanted to share a 'private' waypoint, I could just give the .gpx file to people to put in their GPSr. It would not show up in the GPSr as a geocache unless I modified the file to add the special tags and info to indicate it was a cache. However for 'private' use you really only need the coordinates in the GPSr. You could hand out a list of the waypoints with descriptions / hints if you wanted.

I have experienced similar problems with my Garmin GPSMap 62sc. I can't say DeLorme would act the same but it is possible. Just recently I downloaded and installed a PQ with a slightly expanded radius from the previous time I ran it. When I got to the area where was going to look for caches, the my GPSr showed nothing even though I knew there were caches. In fact it showed no caches at all in the area. It showed caches from other PQs many miles away. I tried re-downloading and installing the PQ but it did not fix the problem. It was only when I reduced the radius to the original, redownloaded and reinstalled again, that all the caches showed up. My conclusion is that there was one or more caches in the expanded PQ that has some faulty coding or maybe unicode characters in the description or something. I tried opening the gpx file in GSAK and also in a generic XML editor and it opened in both, which indicated that there was no invalid XML code. Try doing the PQ with a smaller radius or different center or some other way to get only part of the caches and then installing in your GPS. You might be able to narrow down to one or more caches that are causing the problem.

If you place and submit a cache in August then you get a souvenir. Not your fault if reviewers take a long time to publish. Anyone can cheat if they want to. You're only cheating yourself. This is just a game.

I think 31 days of Geocaching is not a bad idea, but 31 souvenirs are too much. I have the first 5 days of August and my souvenir page already looks cluttered. A better idea would have been no souvenirs until the end of August then you get one that shows the number of days you had a find.

I don't care that much about the souvenirs but I never had a 31 day streak so I guess this is a good excuse. It is fun to try getting a cache a day. Also, July was too hot to do much caching. I may quit though, don't want to 'use up' all the local caches. What about hiding caches in August? Seems a hide ought to count as well.

I edit a lot of my log entries either because I've made typos or I want to add info or a picture. It would be nice if the CO would get notified.

I don't have anything against wheelchair cachers or wheelchair-accessible caches, but the assumption that the proportion of wheelchair cachers to total cachers is the same as wheelchair users to total population is not necessarily correct. In fact I suspect that the ratio of wheelchair cachers to all geocachers is much smaller than the ratio in the average population.

I'd like to see a better classification so that we could know if we're looking for something maybe "C" battery size; or closer to AA, which I would call micro; or something really nano like the 1/2" x 1/2" magnetic capsule I found stuck on a sign post.

- Micros listed as small. Nanos listed as micros. For that matter, most nanos in general. - Coordinates that are way off. - CO not responding to a series of DNF when a cache should be easy to find, (indicating the cache is probably missing), or a series of posts indicating that a cache needs maintenance. - CO not responding to a post when you perform the maintenance (like replacing a full log) for them. - Caches that have clearly have been abandoned as indicated by several DNF and/or needs maintenance posts with no response from CO. It would be nice if more cachers would volunteer to adopt these abandoned caches and if there was a way to do so if the original CO never responds to any posts or attempts at contact. Some of these abandoned caches are petty good locations.

If I print out a cache description, I make sure that the hint is decrypted first. My GPSr shows the hint decrypted. At least I don't waste time decrypting useless hints.

I placed my first cache before I had found any. I actually cheated because I didn't even have a GPS when I first placed it. People seemed to like it nonetheless. I can't recall if I had gone caching with other geocachers or not before I placed the cache.

I don't have a lot of patience for insanely difficult micros that could be hidden anywhere. If I'm passing by an area where one is hidden I might go look but I won't waste a long time searching. If I DNF those I usually just forget about them unless I happen to be nearby some other time. Usually there are enough other interesting caches that there is no point wasting time and being frustrated. This is supposed to be fun. If I DNF a cache that has recently been found (so I'm fairly sure it is still there) and is not rated too difficult, and it is somewhere that I might be near again, I will probably go back and try again. I might watch it and see if anyone else finds it to be sure it is still there. There is one cache I've tried to find a couple of times and DNF. Some people log it as a relatively easy find, some say 'ingenious hide' but most seem to find it. It is about 30 miles away but I pass by the location once in a while. Im not obsessing about it but I'll probably look until I find it.

I really don't care that much what people write when they log my caches, although I prefer not to get the "TFTC" type entries. It is best if they say something about the cache or the process of finding it but sometimes there is not a lot to say if it was an easy find for them. Likewise I may or may not write much. My feeling about long logs is that beyond a certain point it is just too much to read especially if it is just personal information, and also very long log entries the logs a lot harder to read when paperless geocaching. If people just say 'found it with no problem' or 'found after a few minutes of searching' or 'had to look hard' something like that it is helpful for the next searcher without giving too much away. There is such a thing as going overboard on the description so that it makes the cache progressively easier for subsequent finders. Generally I thing that the CO hid the cache in a certain way, intending a certain difficulty, and if too much specific additional information is given by finders, it changes the nature of the cache. I have seen that happen to some degree with some of my caches. That said, one time I added some very pretty specific information in a cache log writeup, but only pertaining to finding the parking spot that was already mentioned in the cache description. I didn't add anything about the actual cache location.

I have resolved not to hide a bunch of caches in the same area at the same time, or if I do, not to publish them at the same time. I want to spread out the opportunities for FTF.

oops duplicate post. I can't delete so I'll edit... It was fun meeting other cachers at the Mid-Winter event, so I'm thinking of setting up a simple meet and greet. I know there are several cachers near me that i haven't met yet.

To me the social aspects are a large part of the fun. I basically quit caching for several years because it was a hassle with my old Magellan Meridian and I didn't really know any other cachers. However I got a new GPSr last year and started caching again if for no other reason than to learn the new GPSr. Then I happened to meet another geocacher on the trail, found out two of my snowmobiling friends are big-time geocachers, and met more people at the GC4234D 2013 Long Lake Mid-Winter Geocaching Get-Together in Long Lake . I'm still usually caching by myself but I think if I was just doing it by myself with no connection to other cachers I'd lose interest. I never cross-check the cache log books with the on-line logs. The way I look at it, this is just a game and if people want to lie about a find that's their loss.

Nope... unless I can get one for $30. One $400 GPSr is enough. I don't mind loading the .gpx file twice, I just don't want to have to process it or create a special file for a second GPSr. I want to put he same file in my 62sc and whatever else I get.

I don't want to have to waste time with GSAK or any other processing that I don't do for my handheld. I just want to dump the PQ results or however I downloaded the caches in to the auto unit and have the location show up. I don't really care about descriptions, etc. I can get that from the 62 if I need it.

... $30 eBay special Nuvi 265. ... I've been thinking along the same lines. My GPSMap 62sc is not easy to use in a vehicle unless you have a navigator to operate it while you drive. I can't justify an expensive GPSr for the car but an eBay special sounds good. It would be worth $50 or so to have a unit with a big screen and optimized for road nav. I've never really felt the need to have one purely for navigation. I'd primarily be using it to et me close to a cache, trailhead, parking location, etc. Most of the time, I know where I am going, but navigation to some of my service calls would be nice. There are so many Nuvi models listed. Question is, which should I consider?

I have a 62sc. Much better satellite reception than my old Magellan Meridian. Meridian acquiring second satellite and 62sc already has 7. Battery life good, maybe up to 10 hours if you don't use the backlight. I'd prefer a matte LCD screen. You have to get it just at the right angle to avoid glare and reflection, and/or turn the backlight on full, which cuts battery life significantly. As far as accuracy and stability I can't really say. It will get you in/out of the woods without getting lost, but half the time it is about 15-25 feet off, even with the fixed known waypoints I set in my back yard and averaged. The readings are definitely not very stable most of the time. Within a couple of minutes it will think you have moved 20 feet. Many times it has walked me around in 20-40 foot circles while looking for caches. Can't say if this is common with all consumer-grade GPSrs or not. Maybe all are this bad. Maybe mine has developed a problem, because it didn't seem that bad initially. Maybe the Government has decided to degrade GPS system accuracy because of threats. Maybe there has been a lot of solar flare activity which has degraded the GS signals. I don't know. See http://freegeographytools.com/2009/one-final-look-at-gps-positional-accuracy-with-sa-watch http://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=rjf.2011.78.88&org=10 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0098300411001063 for discussions of accuracy. It looks like maybe this is typical using WAAS. I don't think response time is that good. I read somewhere it only updates once a second. Might be every half-second, but if you are driving, you'll be a few hundred feet past the waypoint you're trying to find by the time it tells you you're there. Built-in camera is handy but only takes good pictures in good light. If you leave it in camera mode, it eats batteries pretty quick. Documentation stinks. Controls and functions are not all that intuitive/logical. I just spent 10 minutes trying to get it to change the way it sorts waypoints.

The Garmin 62 manual is not very detailed and I haven't been able to find any other good reference. The manual lists many functions with no real detail on how they work. I have also heard there are a lot of undocumented key combinations to access "hidden" features/functions but aside form that, I'd just like to know more detail about how the standard stuff works without spending 100 hours experimenting. Anyone know of a good on-line info source, or have any info they'd like to share?

It sounds like a firmware problem. Maybe a bad download/install of the last update. I had a similar problem when trying to view geocache descriptions. I thought my 62 was shutting down but it was actually locking up when I tried to view descriptions of certain caches downloaded via PQ. I fixed it by rerunning the pocket query with those caches and reloading the file to the GPS. Possibly when you search the unit is finding a corrupt waypoint file.

I want to do the same thing. There is not much difference between the closed and open icons. Actually I'd just as soon use a smaller icon for all geocaches. Creating a custom icon is not the real problem. It appears that Basecamp won't let you assign a custom icon to geocaches because it treats them differently than other waypoints. I think it should be allowed. The other thing I'd like to do is assign a different icon (like the star used on geocaching.com maps) to my caches. Since there is apparently no attribute in the gpx files marking a geocache as "mine" this would have to be done manually. However if you could just replace the standard open chest icon then all found geocaches would be marked with the icon you want. I have not found where Basecamp stores the standard icons. I figured they would be files somewhere in the program directory. It appears they may be embedded in basecamp.exe. Anyone else try this?

I don't know about that. There have been a couple of my caches that I could not easily find when I went back to check even though I "knew" where I hid it. If the logs indicate everything is OK I tend to just let things be and sometimes my memory fails... I finally had to revise one micro cache because I had such problems going back to it, even though I "knew" where it should be. I think that one moved around just enough to be a problems because either people just hid it slightly differently or it fell out of its hiding place ahd people re-hid it slightly differently. There is another one that I expect I may have some trouble finding when I go check it this fall, because the woods all look the same in that area and I haven't been back in a couple of years.

I have the same problem with IE8 on Windows XP Home SP3 and my 62sc. Geocaching.com pop-up says "Garmin Communicator Plugin NOT detected." Garmin Communicator is installed, does show in add/remove, Garminn test page works properly in IE. I was able to send to to the GPS using Chrome.