CrazyL200

My current Ipaq 5550 has been totaly reliable and useable for the last year (I bought it second hand !!!!)

eBay themselves have allowed this and many other Guides about fake Storage cards Fake SD Cards (eBay Article). Also I know 3 people who have bought off different suppliers and been delivered a dodo. Remember a lot of sales on eBay are Buyer Beware. Fast cards are a must in modern PDAs, you can have the fastest processor, but if you have a bottleneck in the storage area, then there will be a greater number of system hangs and cashes, and that 655MHz processor might as well be a 200MHz processor. (That would mean in teams of speed you might as well stick with your iPaq 5550) And on the subject of that, you could get a memory expasion jacket for your iPaq and use 4 & 8GB Compact Flash with it I have spent 6 years in IT, trialing portable devices and testing them for heavy use in a business environment. Beware of PDA / Phone combinations, these tend to be generally a compromised lower specification, also if you phone breaks what do you have to look up phone numbers, usually the PDA goes with it as well, so you loose your contact backup source. They are like the music centre of the PDA world. Must admit, I've had a few cards off sellers on Ebay, but I always check their history and only buy from UK sellers normally. I once bought a X150 2GB SD card from a seller in Hong Kong and it turned out to be fine, both in terms of reliability and speed, maybe I was lucky. Also agree with the "one bit of kit for one job" way of thinking ... a 'phone is a 'phone, I'll use a camera for pictures, so I guess, the PDA is a PDA and I'll use the 'phone to call people. As you say, compromise usually happens when one item tries to do two jobs. Any more suggestions for which PDA to get ??

I'm currently using an Ipaq 5550 with PPC 2003 and a Pretec bluetooth datalogger GPSr. I'd like to upgrade to something faster and with more memory to aid speed as well as storage capacity. The datalogger is used for recording and storing trip records. (Not only for caching, but for business and hoilday use for future reference). I like the sound of the 550 as a straight forward upgrade / replacement, but also like the idea of the A701, which would also do away with the need for a 'phone and, at times, the laptop (with 3G/GPRS datacard) for internet connections on extended trips. Don't think I'll bother with a Palm somehow !!

I know this has been discussed before, but with technology moving faster than most of us can keep up, I thought I'd ask again. Which PDA ??? Must be able to run a 4GB card, or even 2 !!! Must have a decent size screen. Must have blue tooth and wireless. I run Tomtom and MemoryMap on my current PDA, with GPSGate to split the bluetooth signal to navigate (not just for caching!!!) and cache anywhere, so a lot of MemoryMap needs to be loaded at once, otherwise I'm loading parts of it too frequently while on the road. TomTom also needs to be used in Europe. I use the PDA as it should be - a pc / organiser in my pocket - for various other personal and business uses. 2 questions 1) Which one, if money were no object. 2) Which one if a budget of say £250 ish (Not including the cost of the card(s).

Guilty of 1-4, and likely to be 5. Therefore, the answer YES.

Just to add my thanks to all for a great weekend. Good to put more names to faces, and to meet friends old and new. Here's to the next one. That 5/4 is still bugging me

As well as making Flapping Draig event his 100th find, he teased the hell out of us (well, some of us ) by placing a 5/4 on Angelsey a couple of days before the event Congrats Mark, Beth and Jake on the milestone and for winding us up too.

Brodit mounts are good, I use two, one for the 'phone cradle and one for the PDA. No vibration etc... and because the clip into place, can be removed easily if required. Brodit website Bought them from GPSfor less

Ahh . that'll teach me to read what's written properly Not sure, sorry.

After you have posted your log, return to it on the cache page and at the bottom of your log there should be a link "upload an image for this log". Think there's a size restriction too.

The Windsockers and Kili or Bust arrived in North Wales yesterday. Apparently got completely soaked in the non-stop rain but had a good days caching They're out there again today and I'm joining them tomorrow. See you all there over the weekend.

ditto, thought I'd get bottom with only 2 finds and no TBs, but hey, ah well ..............

Where do you find the information on emmissions and mileage for indivisual vehicles without having to trawl the manufacturer's websites? DVLA

Point taken, and apologies to the Scots if that's the case, but it'd still be a good one to use for commemorative reasons ??

Well the government have worked out, from emmission figures that my 4x4 is quite a clean vehicle. I only pay £135 a year RFL as it is a band D vehicle and the new version of mine is even cleaner (band C - £110 per year). So in terms of poluting the environmet is a lot better than most of the petrol cars on the road. It'll be even more environmentally friendly when I'm producing and using my own bio diesel. My other diesel is capable of 60mpg and is also band C, which is why it gets used for shopping trips and does most of the family outings etc... Unless the outing is to go off road or caching, or better still, both at the same time.

As it's an archived cache, and so is the nearest one to it, would it not be a nice idea to place one (at the original co-ords if possible) to commemorate the UK's first cache. Maybe someone nearby would be able to look into it. I'm sure it would become a popular cache.

Hmmm... sounds like another poke at 4x4s. Will definatley be repling to that. Especially as mine spends very little time in built up areas and gets used for doing the stuff 4x4s are built for. Including caching. Where did you find that little gem.

Wiil cache up with you somewhere between Denbigh and Angelsey on Friday

Wouldn't miss it for the world, arriving Friday sometime and not going home 'till I've run out of PQs

Fantastic, a nice interface, that's easy to read. How about adding most in a week finds and predictions as above. Well done - get it released, I'm sure it'll be well received.

Have now got 2 Brodit mounts on the dash, one for the PDA and one for the 'phone cradle. Just need one now for the Vista C. Must say the Brodits are good. Easy to fit, solid (absolutely no vibration with the weight of the PDA on it) and well made. Let's hope they're more reliable than the cheaper things I was using before. Hopefully it's a case of "You pay your money .... etc... "

Was working fine for me last night.

Yes, same as before, LED on, but no power to the PDA or to the 5v auxilary output. So the failure is internal, I'd suspect, due to the raised temperature it runs at, that the transformer or a diode has melted. When I get chance I'll take one of the others apart and do some tests. This one only lasted 10 days of use. I use mine virtually every day and for quite long periods of time. I also end up with it switching on and off quite frequently via an ignition fed cigarette lighter socket, so it's possible a current surge could happen during starting the engine, but I wouldn't expect it to be enough to do any damage to anything plugged in. The contacts do look a bit flimsy, but they also look fine, no marks / damage etc... so I'm fairly certain it's the result of extended use and temperature. Off to spalsh out on a brodit set up for the PDA and Vista C.

Two of the failed ones were from GPS for less, and another from PDAmods, they seem to be widely available. Exactly as the one in the picture here. They all have a sticker on them "FOR 38/39XX" To be fair to GPS for less, when I emailed them after the first one failed, they just sent me out a replacement without any quible. I noticed it running quite hot, but put it down to the spare battery I sometimes use, which isn't genuine HP. But even with the proper battery in, it seems to run a bit hot. Tried it again today and this time the red light came on, so power is getting to it, but neither the PDA or the GPSr would power up from it. I'm now back to using the Arkon which has always been faultless, it's just that I prefer the cradle type that the PDA just drops into - saves messing with the arms and the plug in lead. Think I might try the Seidio or Brodit one now. GPS for Less have just emailed me saying they are sending another (the third one now) out to me. That's packed in now and they want it returned for a refund - no hint of trying to find out why they keep packing in.

Ring your local council offfices and ask to speak to the Rights of Way officer (don't let them tell you they'll pass on a message and get him to ring you back, ask to speak to his secretary, if he's out somewhere) - he'll be straight out to the farmer to point out the error of his ways. Lean on the H&S implications - what if ??? --- family, small children, bull unseen until half way across the field etc... etc... ROW officers are more than happy to help out in these situations.