TheCatMan

I too found out today the Google Earth Network KML has been disabled. You'd think that if they are going to disable it they would post a note on the front page of geocaching.com so that you would know. This way you waist a lot of time searching to find a fix. I'm uninstalling Google Earth as using the cache locating feature was the only reason that I had it installed.

In trying to tack down the status of a travel bug that had been in the hands of geocacher for about a year, I discovered that the person is trading travel bugs and not logging caches. Total caches logged = 21 with the last logged 10/18/07. There were a total of 55 travel bugs moved and discovered with the last logged on 07/23/08. It wouldn't bother me other than the fact that the the person has had mine and several others for an extended period of time and isn't answering emails.

I am new to Geocaching, only 74 caches found. I, finally, decided to buy some tags and place some travel bugs. So far I have had two people decide that they want to take my bug off and attach there own item it its place. I have tried to think of good names for my bugs and have gone to a bit of trouble to come up with a story that went along with the personality of the attachment. Maybe all I should do is tie a rock to the tags and not concern myself with what people do with them. Personally, I don’t like the idea of someone deciding that they like my attachment and deciding to swap it out. What is the etiquette here?

Jeff, Thanks for your answer. It is beginning to make sense now. If you get into the undercover of trees, the eTrex notifies you that the signal is weak. This warns you to find a clear view of the sky so that you can regain your direction. The Magellan SporTrakPro gives you the impression that it hasn’t lost its lock and leads you off in the wrong direction. I guess that the SportTrakPro is too proud to admit its inadequacies. The other thing that I noticed is that if you are on a trail with a lot of switchbacks, the eTrex’s pointer switches back and forth as you make your turns. The Magellan keeps pointing the wrong direction for an extended period of time, giving you the impression that you are going in the wrong direction. There seems to be quite a long delay for the Magellan to find its way. My conclusion is that the Magellan is only good if you can go directly from point A to point B. Since geocaching involves going in other than a straight line, the eTrex is my choice. I still plan on getting a new GPS with mapping features, but it will be another Garmin. ThCatMan

I have been using an eTrex for a little over a year now. Due to all of the high recommendations from the list for the SportTrakPro, I decided to take advantage of Costco’s great price of $189.99 after rebate. Today, I went out to try out the SportTrakPro on a cache that I had recently found with my eTrex. I admit that the area is hard to navigate because of tree cover, but the SportTrakPro kept pointing me in the wrong direction. As I assumed that the GPS was defective, I rushed back to Costco to exchange it. I tried the same route this time with my eTrex in one hand and the new SportTrakPro in the other hand. The eTrex led me directly to the cache and the SportTrakPro again pointed in the wrong direction. After that, I did some rather thorough testing to compare my old eTrex and the SportTrakPro by marking different landmarks in the open and in the trees. I then tried to navigate back to the marked points. The eTrex was far more accurate, in my testing, than the SportTrakPro. If some of the points that I marked would have been caches, I wouldn’t have found them with the SportTrakPro, but I would have with the eTrex. This makes me wonder if the batch of SportTrakPro’s that Costco got were defective, or if the SportTrakPro’s doesn’t work in Oregon, or what. I can’t believe that everyone on this list that has been recommending the SportTrakPro can be wrong. I will be returning my second SportTrakPro tomorrow and will stick with my eTrex, for now. My wife was encouraging me to get a new GPS as I am hooked on geocaching. But I told her that, based on my experiences, I wouldn’t use the SportTrakPro if it was given to me. I was looking for more accuracy, not less.