Rhubarb Man

Hi Stringman_UK, Sorry the hunt's not going well. Been there.... My setup to make it an enjoyable experience : Android Official Geocaching app. - £6 ish Premium membership - £4 a month ish ( try the app without if you need to, I think the searches are restricted tho ) Use the mobile as the caching machine. There are then two choices : 1. If planned ahead ( like I try to do ), at home on the wifi do an 'Advanced search' of the area you are expecting to visit. Check it covers the area you want with the map ( still using the wifi !). Save this as an Offline list. This will save all of the caches including hints ( I like this bit :-) ) in the chosen area to your phone. Go there and cache ! If you turn mobile data on on your phone ( there could be costs associated with this !!!) , you can navigate by maps. If mobile data is off, you can still use the Radar or Compass settings. 2. Arrive at your destination and do a 'Find nearby caches'. This again will incur mobile costs if you're not on a contract. If any of this makes sense and sounds do-able, there is one extra thing to consider. The battery life on Android phones ( as you probably know ) is not good. I've bought an extended battery and have got used to pressing the 'Home' button between caches. This ( appears to ) save battery life. With a fat battery and a full charge, there's 6 or 7 hours caching to be done. And another fat battery is £13. I hope this helps. Jem.

Hi all, This is really beginning to annoy me. If I sit at home and have a list of caches (however obtained, e.g. saved list, local search etc) with the GPS OFF (in offline preparation for a geocaching session), then select 'View On Map', the display assumes I am at Lat. 0, Long. 0, and I have to zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom (you get the idea) into the map to display the small area that the caches are in. Surely the software could look at the boundaries of the found cache area and adjust the map view to cover the required area automagically ?? Whadiya reckon ? Rhubarb man.

Urabus, I absolutely agree ! I was going to post this request but found that you have just done so. To Summarise : You have a list of caches, saved or searched. You view them on a map (very useful (better if it had footpaths, but thats another post....) !). Select one of those caches to look at all of it's details. Press 'Back' from these details and you are presented with the original list NOT the map that should be one 'Back' press away so that you can select another cache to look at. Try it, it's flippin' annoying !*!*!*! Especially when you are investigating an area with several caches in. Jem.

Thanks for the answers. What I'm after then is OSM map support in the official app. After posting the original question, I borrowed a chums Garmin Vista Cx. Within a few mins I had installed a UK OSM map onto the sd card and was browsing around the local footpaths. Ok, it's not an absolute requirement, but it would be a very, very useful feature. I have geocached with a PDA manually putting coords in, with the battery lasting about an hour. Next was a Nokia 5530 with the Geocaching Live software. This was a big step up in the enjoyment factor!! Now, I've an Android phone and the official app. It's great for a rough plan or just stopping somewhere and having a rummage. OSM support is (if that's how you get footpaths shown), at the moment, for the way I use it, the next big improvement to have. Cheers, Jem.

Hi all, How do I get footpaths shown on the map that the Official Android app. uses ? All I have is Street or Satellite (both Google maps I think), neither of which show the footpaths. Bearing in mind that alot of caches are reached (in the UK anyway) over public footpaths, it's an absolute requirement. Any ideas ? Jem.