Scaber

You really don't need an expensive PALM for paperless. Especially if you will mostly be using it for geocaching. I know a few fellow cachers who have left or broken their PALMs while out in the boonies. A PALM with 8MB memory is about what you need to get started. Having one with an SD card slot is nice to load thousands of cache info. I got a used PALM on ebay for about $20. Once you go paperless, you'll never go back.

Hey Art Begotti, Weren't you on a plate?

At first the trade items were interesting and gave an additional reason for the kids to help find. They love any new junk they can get their hands on. After awhile though the luster of finding caches for happy meal toys wore off. I haven't traded anything for quite awhile. The joy is in the hunt for me I don't care what is in the cache after I find it.

I'm not sure it that is a good price Canadian but I'm sure you can check online to see the running price. The unit itself is a great unit period. I found about 1000 caches using the older ETrex legend C. The x denotes an micro SD slot which you can use to store maps or points of interest. The unit is smaller than some others like the 60c series which allows you to be a little more inconspicuious in urban areas. It will store 500 caches or waypoints. It is water resistent. About a month ago I dropped mine into the refecting pool in Washington DC and it came through fine. If the price is good, go for it.

I use CacheMate and love it. After several hundred cache finds I switched to paperless caching using an old Palm that I bought off of ebay for $20. I use CacheMate with GSAK and they work great together. I dump 1000 caches into my GPSr and update the card on my Palm. I have thousands of caches stored on the Palm. Although I don't have experience with GPSsonar, cachmate has worked great for me. I don't leave home without it.

While vacationing in I visited a straight forward virtual cache logged it and emailed the answer to the question to the owner. The owner replied that my answer was not correct but gave me the option of keeping the find. I deleted the find because a wrong answer is a wrong answer. In your case, if you didn't sign the log, you didn't find the cache.

Last New Year's Day I was looking for a cache while driving my wife's new van. Missing the cache in a unfamiliar neighborhood I attempted to do a U turn to turn around. Apparently I did not see the car in my 8 o'clock position and one ticket and a deductable later my wife got a new driver side door and paint job. With all of us driving around while having our eyes glued to a GPSr, I can't be the only one involved in a geo accident. What have been your accidents or near misses?

I once retrieved a cache that was on top of an old telephone pole in the woods. The large pole only had spikes sticking out the sides in order to climb your way up. It was a little nerve racking but still one of the more memorable hides.

Yes, you are wrong. Now go away with your head held low and go find another park to hide some caches in.

It's hot out! Cachers melt in the hot sun.

I prefer to use the GSAK/CacheMate combo myself. I am not super computer literate but this set up is very easy to use. I can download my PQ's into my GPSr and Palm Pilot in about a minute.

I just like saying "skirt lifter."

I log a DNF on the day that I did not find it and then a "found it" on the day that I did. In my DNF logs I usually say why I think that I got the DNF. This may indicate that I believe that there may be a problem witht he cache or the area. It most often will indicate that I'm sure the cache is there but I couldn't find it today.

Store parking lots and what we often think of as "public" places are actually privately owned. Once asked to leave by whom ever the owner entrust into security you are bound to. My brother worked in a mall. He parked his car in the customer spots instead of the employee spots late one night after the store was closed. His car was towed by mall security even though they knew he worked there. He tried to fight it but in the end lost because the lot is private property and the owners can set up any rules they want, fair or unfair.

I just have to get this off my chest. Please bear with me. DON'T USE PRE-PRINTED LABELS IN MICRO LOGS. Lately I have seen this happen far to often. The logs are small and people use their pre printed Avery computer lables and take up half the log. If it is a micro log sign as small as you can so there is room for other cachers to sign and so that the cache owner does not have to come out to replace the log. Thank you. You may now return to your regularly scheduled forum post.

I agree with the others that GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) is the product to use. Once your pocket querries are down loaded you can do so much with it. To answer your question though yes you can view the descriptions and logs off line in a brower. But what is more convient than that is to buy a used Palm Pilot or Pocket PC and use GSAK to export all that cache info into your Palm Pilot. If you use a Palm you will need an additional piece of Software for the Palm called CacheMate. Go paperless with a PDA. It sure beats dragging your laptop out with you. Check out the link for a great article on going paperless with a PDA. http://65.34.18.106/content.php?article.15

No!!!

Yes, this is normal for Garmin. In the past I think that the amount of data contained on a topo/street map would be too great to be practical. Of course from their perspective why make one product when you can charge for two. If you buy topo you will get topos, trails, rivers and some roads. If you buy city navigator you will get detailed roads. Or of course you could buy both. Garmin makes sure that no one gets a free lunch here.

That is the 10,000 dollar question. Many have been told that they would receive 2008 only to receive V8. There has been mixed results when contacting Garmin directly. Many people, myself included, have purchaced the new etrex H units are waiting to make sure that we will get the 2008 maps before ordering. We will see.

This is one of the best tutorials on how get started with paperless caching using GSAK (or how ever you get your .gpx) and Cachemate (in order to load it onto your Palm). It got me started. Check it out. http://65.34.18.106/content.php?article.15

Go with the 2 GB card. I ordered the Vista Hcx and bought a Sandisk 2 GB card off of ebay for a total of $25 including shipping. It always better to go with more memory if the price is right. With 2 gigs I will be able to load maps and all the POI's that I may want. Go with the 2GB.

I just ordered a Vista Hcx and will be ordering City Navigator when the full 2008 version comes out. Once I have both can I search by address to get turn by turn directions on the GPSr unit? I currently have a Legend C with only base maps. With the Legend C I can only find by waypoint, cache, city, exit or marine. However if I wanted to get turn by turn directions to 123 geocache street I don't think that I could enter that. I'm sure that I could create a route on my laptop and load it onto the Vista but I want to be able to enter address' in while I am out and about. So will I be able to do it? Plus if I can tout the combo as an car navigation system it would help the almost $400 expenditure go over better with the wife. Thanks

I also had considered both units. I currently have a Legend C. I went with the Vista Hcx mostly because of the compact size. If I did the majority of my geocaching in the woods I would opt for the larger antenna of the 60 CSX. Since much of my geocaching is urban I like a unit that I can hold in my palm, put in my pocket or even pretend to use as a cell phone as I try to "look natural". Just my nickel.

I just posted the similar question. I have spoken to representatives at Garmin, TigerGPS and REI and no one has heard that CN 2008 will be coming out as a stand alone version any time soon. I am in the same boat as you. I most likely will break down and purchace CN v8 from Garmin and hope that they give me 2008.

Not to kick a dead horse here but there has been a lot of discussion about City Navigator North America 2008. Currently CN 2008 is only available as an update to CN version 8. We keep talking about when it will be available as a stand alone DVD product to load onto our new receivers. After talking with representatives from Garmin, TigerGPS and REI, NO ONE has heard that this update will be released as a stand alone version in the foreseeable future. For those of us who have new Garmin GPSr's with no old version of CN to upgrade that puts us in a pickle. In order to get current maps that means 1. Purchace $140 CN v8 and $50+ 2008 upgrade 2. Purchace CN v8 and live with older maps or 3. Wait for who knows how long until CN 2008 is released as it's own stand alone product. I'm not sure what Garmin's marketing strategy is with this update. If I pay the $140 for the newest version of City Navigator why shouldn't I get the most updated maps?