CuplaKiwis

I'm absolutely no use to you but if you don't get what you need here, you could drop Nandor a line. He's my little Bro', and is an absolute whiz at this kind of stuff. I'm sure he could point you in the right direction. Just tell him I sent you! Aidan

You've hit the nail on the head here. The tongue-in-cheek banter (posts too, not just mods) is one of the best features of our particular corner of the GC forums. Long may it live!! It's a hell of a shame how blown out of proportion the threads have gotten in the last few days (in the general forums, I hasten to add ), and I'm glad that even with the thread-carnage here, senses of humour were maintained. Well Done All... Especially our Mods. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programmes...

Just noticed that there is no flame:smiley available in the clickables - most other BB's seem to have one. Although :antenna is reasonably close... My, aren't we civilised?!

I feel a ban coming on... (very good tho')

R.A.O.T.F.L.M.A.O.!! Very Nice. You were lucky, I almost hit "report" not "quote" there...

Not sure about for a GPSr, but last time I went climbing in NZ (up around Mt. Cook) my uncle decided he wanted super long battery life for his Video Camera. He wired up a Lead Acid/gel type battery (ie what you'd find in many motorbikes) as a external power source!! All 3.3Kg of it At 7000 feet Mad Bugger. He didn't run out of power tho'...

That's one I haven't heard for a while Oh how we laughed...

If it's not going and you've resigned yourself to that, then you have nothing to lose by pulling the back off (otherwise voiding the waranty) and checking for obvious damage - you might find you've just busted a solder joint or something - relatively easy to spot, and v. easy to fix. As I said - nothing to lose really! Other than that, I'm sure there are commercial people out there who can repair these things. Even fifty or sixty quid is cheaper than a new GPS... Good luck!!

Thanks very much for all the replies - I have loads to go on now. Will close this thread. Cheers, Aidan.

It really does pay to ask those who know! Cheers, Tony. This would be very useful.

Yes, true for cases of severe damage/inattention/whatever, but it's never that cut and dry. There's always going to be umpteen shades of grey - what one person finds acceptable (random eg. trodden grass) may be wanton destruction to another. The cynic in me can see this kind of thing heading further and further towards, oh I don't know: close monitoring of caches, fines for people who don't leave them in what somebody decides is good condition, god forbid - wardens for caches. I know, I know, just as OTT, but I really *really* don't want 'them' to take the fun out of it all!!

I've got a pFranc serial cable that I wired up a few years ago, butr would prefer to connect via USB given the choice. What's my best bet (financially and reliability-wise!)? Get a serial-USB converter (they seem expensive for what they are...) or track down a dedicated USB cable? Alternatively, how hard would it be to wire a USB plug on instead? I know lots about wiring/soldering etc, but sweet f.a. about USB, so is this even possible?! Cheers All. Aidan

Well of course My point is the differences seen across the web for the same product... Me, I always believe everything I read on the internet.

Interesting the stark differences in opinions you see for the same product... Interestingly, the note at the bottom indicates that it has been discontinued, which may explain the v. cheap price.

Yeah, I had one of them near the start of the winter... unfortunately quite effective for preventing onset of Geocaching (either that or it's the icy wind ) I afraid I'm a bit of a fair weather cacher!!

I've found a really good idea to get around this is to put in a three part hint, eg [Hint 1] Purpx gur cubgbf. [Hint 2] Ybbx hc! [Hint 3] Pnpur vf va n obyr va gur ynetr gerr, nobhg 2.5 zrgerf bss gur tebhaq. - with each hint giving the searcher a bit more info - so then they can chose as little or as much as help as they require.

I have that setup too if you still need help after this lot are through with you Professional, maybe, Mr. Rutson?

Near to an airstrip at all?

Try Mapquest - won't do a grid ref off an OS map directly (have yet to see one that can), but if you have lat and long it will take these in decimal or deg/min/sec. You need to zoom out to figure out where you are tho' - no text sorry!

Really? Wasn't the whole idea of geocaching to use a GPS in the first place? I find the most rewarding caches are ones where I have walked out my front door and just followed my GPS from there with basically no knowledge of what I'm getting myself in to!!

I was with Brinkster's free service for a bit, which is fine for your basic home page - 20MB as I recall. I've since switched to their basic paid service, which has been excellent - about $25 US per annum (got a half price deal) for 500MB + 7GB traffic allowance and a free domain name registration. More importantly, they've looked after me very well when I have had problems - that's the bit that matters IMHO

I'm pretty sure this is a brand new one. It has a slide out keyboard which the XDA2 (I think!) doesn't have. Besides, as far as I'm aware, this one is quite new to the market, whereas the XDA2 has been available for a while.

Ah, overlap in responses there... That's a good reason. Thankyou.

In all seriousness though, can someone please give me a good reason for why we need this? I realise it's all voluntary etc., but it just seems quite superfluous, and frankly, simply stating the obvious. I guess it may be a natural inlination I have to not doing what I'm told but something about this just grates on me, conceptually. Ah well, to each their own, I guess...

<embarrassed> Yes, OK... Well, it was late, and I was tired... Afraid I was mixing it with a discussion on a 'competitor's board a while back.</embarrassed> Thanks for correcting me!