Gummi

.....ahhhh........... guess I should have looked at the link..... Like wandererrob said, some people automatically think big brother (there are a couple of groups boycotting walmart, benetton and others because of rfid (funny reading ..hehe)). Of course you also have people getting injected with an rfid chip in case they get lost (only helps physically though).

That would be kinda cool, but...... 1) Just the mention of RFID is still controversial to some. 2) You'll need to do a multi to direct cachers to at least a micro with a log. 3) An RFID reader will need to be provided for cachers. I would guess the ratio of Palm OS to PPC is around 3 to 1 possibly 4 to 1. Just cause the palm can be had so cheaply when compared to PPC. The cheapest RFID reader I've seen for the palm is almost $500 and requires palm 4.2 or higher. One in Compact Flash format for windows is just over $200 for the cheapest and overall average price was close to $600. Unless you can loan an RFID reader for free or even small rental fee, I doubt it will be approved, though it doesn't hurt to try. Also incase you haven't read the guidelines yet for placing a cache: http://www.geocaching.com/about/guidelines.aspx

I have the same case, the glare can get bad at times and I have to keep taking my sunglasses of to read through it. I saw some cases at lowes the other day at the check out aisle, even had a gpsr on the cardboard advertisement. They had a metal belt clip and seamed pretty sturdy, but they are holster type only.

The yellow etrex is your best bet for that price. But you'll want the pc cable to upload the .loc files using GSAK or easyGPS. If you have a pda then look at getting a premium membership here to get .gpx files and use cachemate(palm) or gpxsonar(ppc) to have the hints and logs with you at all times. I went with the Legend due to it can hold 1000 waypoints and had the better display as well as it comes with a pc cable. You can look at walmart's website for bundled deals also. Their gpsr's are cheaper online than in store, but you do have to add tax and shipping.

Well I did say after not using them for a month or so (1-3 months). The chargers I have are Energizer CHM4FC, CHDC and a quest CH1000. I'm trying a set of 2500mAh energizers in the quest right now, I'll let them sit a few days and see what happens. I know the quest will continue to slow charge while the energizers will shut off after 12-15 hours (I would reset them the next day and the next and the next, but they wouldn't come back). I always buy them in 2 sets of 4 batteries and keep the sets together, never mixing and charging. Oh...... and I guess you can say it's somewhat hot and humid around here.... I live in florida. I have thought about going through the pain of warranty replacement, but I'll have to go to the store and write down the energizer warranty info for their rechargeables.

The Minolta Dimage 7 was used as test camera for quality, batteries and battery packs by a number of magazines and websites. You can google "minolta dimage 7 batteries usage" too see some more info. It was one of the first 5MP cameras on the market and is about 6 years old. On alkaline batteries it's a miracle to get 20 pics. The 2500mAh were great (almost 100 pics), but from what I have found out only if you use and charge them regularly. So far every NiMH brand I've tried all loose there ability to hold a charge when not used for over a month. I've only tried energizer, quest and rayovac rechargeables and have 3 slow charge units, two are different energizer models and one by quest. I've gone through so many 4 packs of rechargeables I find it better to get a 24 pack of cheapos for 3-5 dollars. If lithiums where the price of energizer or duracel alkalines I'd go with them.

I've given up on NiMH. I used them mostly for my minotla Dimage 7 (a battery eater), the 1600mAh energizers where just alright in the camera while the 2500mAh energizers where just incredible as far as the number of pictures taken. I bought the 2500's after the 1600's stopped holding a charge, well after not using them for a month or so, they just won't hold a charge anymore. I've tried repeatably recharging them but it's no good. The other complaint about NiMH I have is storage life, after about a week of no use the charge is about half. Now I just use el-cheapo alkalines anymore for everything! Lithium batteries are nice but for the price I don't mind swapping el-cheapos 1 or 2 times.....

Most likely it's someone new (possibly with kid(s)) that was introduced to caching by a friend or relative and never told the rules or etiquette of caching and never explored this site. A nice addition to this site would be a welcome email with links to some of the basics like TB's & coins, glossary, etiquette, possibly the cacher's creed sent to new members after the validation email is confirmed.

Zlib requires Palm OS 3.1 or higher, if you have that then you may want to verify or re-install the SysZLib.prc (c:\program files\plucker\viewer\palmos\) or SysZLib_hires.prc file on your palm. The auto-install for plucker (and GSAK) broke when I installed palm desktop 4.1, so I had to install plucker manually. I used the SysZLib.prc with viewer_en.prc on a palm VIIx with OS 3.5.3. I haven't used spinner, but you may want to look at turning commpression off if everything else fails. But to make things easier you may want to look at cachemate & GSAK.....

Just recently got a palm VIIx for under $10 with all the books, software, cradle and keyboard from ebay. Doesn't even look used! Installed cachemate, 550 caches and 227 benchmarks exported from GSAK with all the logs. HackMaster and a few hacks (battery & greenlight), along with plucker, cspotrun, some ebooks and games and still have over 4MB of mem left, with contacts too. I would also say anything with 8MB or more will do fine. Cachemate looks awesome but is only for the palm OS, I haven't seen gpxsonar yet (for pocket pc) so I can't comment on that. If all your gonna use it for is caching and maybe the addressbook, notes and simple things, go with a cheap palm on ebay.

I compared the RD files for FL-Brevard-west-melbourne, the higher numbered file seems to have a little more detail, labeling is also a little different. One file labels all the state roads, the other is either missing the SR abbreviations or is labeled differently. Other than that, they appear identical. I may check a couple others. One of the maps is missing the details of new construction for the past 3 years in one area, which also didn't start showing up on google or yahoo until just recently thou. ***** ok, the higher numbered file is from 2000 the lowered number file was from 1997 I wonder when they'll update them?? I'd be happy with 2003 or 2004!!

Making free maps in Garmin img format: Software I used: sdts2mp GPSmapedit cgpsmapper sendmap After getting the needed software, download the maps you need from 'data.geocomm.com/catalog/'. Select the state you want, countywide data, the county and then Digital Line Graphs (DLG) 24k. You also need to register (it's free) before downloading. Then download the files you want. HY=water RD=roads&trails RR=Railroad You'll also need the master (00masterdd_lrg.sdts.tar.gz)so download it once (there will be a note and link at the top of each files page). I unzipped sdts2mp & 00masterdd_lrg.sdts.tar.gz to their own folders, then copy the contents of the masterdd directory to the same dir as sdts2mp.exe. I mainly downloaded the higher numbered RD, RR, and sometimes the HY for each (I have seen 2 of each type and found they both compile to the same name, so I've only grabbed the higher numbered file for each type, which also is just a little bigger in file size). Unzip (I use winrar) each sdts.tar.gz to it own directory. Then do a copy & paste on all the files in the sdts2mp dir to each of the sdts you just extracted and double click on sdts2mp.exe in each dir. The HY type files could take awhile, I was running multiples at once. You can then load the newly created mp files in gspmapedit, you can label the streets with mapedit, but it will take up alot of time and research. Then your ready to export to Garmin IMG (you did install cgpsmapper right?). Finally you can send the img files to the garmin unit with sendmap.

...Opps! I did have to zoom in VERY close and had the map detail set to the lowest setting. Thanks!! I was also wondering what the difference was between the dlg file names, I noticed there is usally 2 files for each, RD, HY, RR, etc. One set would have a lower number than the other set. An example would be 1497816.RD.SDTS.TAR.GZ and 878941.RD.SDTS.TAR.GZ. They also compile to a mp file with the same name using sdts2mp. I've been using the larger numbered file to create the maps.

I seem to be missing something, after uploading the maps, their not visible. I downloaded a bunch of maps DLG-24k (RD & HY) from geocomm and extracted each to their own dir. Ran sdts2mp on each to create a mp file which I then opened in gpsmapedit. The lat/long looked ok for everything so I then export using cgpsmapper to the img format. Once I converted the bunch, I used sendmap to upload them to my garmin legend. While uploading the unit showed a tranfer screen and after transfer rebooted, but the maps don't appear to be there. I re-ran sendmap and tried re-sync, and it looks like the maps are in the legend but they just don't show. Did I miss something, forget something?? This was my first attempt at making maps from scattered info on the web.

Just Band aids, Bactine & deep woods off. I now wear heavy-duty leather gloves for searching, eliminates cuts completely!

Worst case scenario is replacing the back cover assembly and reconnecting a few wires. How can they want $115 to do that? Looking at my legend their are 4 gold discs inlayed into the back cover. You could try to fashion your own gold disc out of a piece of solid copper wire. 18 gauge may work, but would need to file the top and bottom at least semi smooth. Or as a temporary solution, you could try creating a small ball with aluminum foil and then press it in place.

I wanted to try and use POI as waypoints just to get the info fields (like address,phone & comments) that POI allows since waypoints don't allow comments and such.

Does anyone know of any software (freeware/sharware) that will allow creating and editing POI's and send them to GPSr? I just received a etrex legend and it seems like a very nice little gadget, actually zeroed out on part 2 of keiths bad wickham nightmare. I have yet to actually see if it will store 1000 waypoints though.

I just recieved a etrex legend this morning, went out this afternoon and it seemed to be off abit. I found that in the system setup the WAAS was disabled by default. Something to check.....