SparkyInCali

You might want to do some craigslist searching or other source becaue if you want a pda bluetooth and mapping you will have to squeeze to stay in a $250 budget.I would recomenfd whatewver bluettoth gps you go with to make sure it is the sirf3 chip in it.They are only a small price difference more but definitely worth the $$$.

Usually someone thats posting an advertisement doesn't join then wait year to make their first post or take the time to fill out a profile.

I had been having the same problem with my 60csx for a while and it can be rather annoying especially if you are trying to record a tracklog.I talked to garmin and actually got an RMA # but kept putting it off since I didnt want to be without the gps for a week or two.I ended up opening the case and adding slight bit more bend to the tabs for the battery tray to give them more contact pressure although I didn't use any bulb paste as stated above.I also added a small piece of electrical tape on the back of the sd card so it would have more pressure and stay more firmly in place as well.In the pat few days I have had zero fade outs and this is even using it mounted to my motorcycle which has a lot of vibration.I also noticed that the battery level indicator is more consistent now as sometimes before it would show only one bar and then would creep up to three bars.I am hoping this has fixed the problem for good.I will post a follow up later to let everyone know the results

Depending on the palm and gps you can start here http://www.pc-mobile.net/gps.htm

You dont need a seprate gps if your pda has one built in.You can use cachemate for both the paperless part and navigating to the cache.As far as not being as accurate as a handheld gps that is based on what gps chip they use more than what they are in.Many people like the seperate gps for a few reasons.For me it had to do with a few difent reasons.First my garmin is much more rugged and has been dropped many times ad n issues at all.A pda is generally much more fragile so if you are doing only urban caching it may not be as much of an issues but I like to keep my pda safe in my pocket in my case safe from dnger.The second for me was battery life.When combined al onto one unit the battert drain can get pretty bad for long caching days.Now my gps is on only ocasionally and my grmin uses AA batteries which can be replaced on the go.I sometimes still use just my pda when I am ot and about and find myself with a little extra time or a new cache goes active nearby

You can easily load your tri state area on a 512 card.Using CN8 everything west of north dakota ,nebraksa kansan and oklahoma is right at 400mb so you still have room for custom pois and tracks as well.The easiest way to figure out is open mapsource and select the maps you want and it will tell you on the right hand side under maps how much room they will take up.

Mapopolis is great for street navigation and urban areas but won't do you much good out on trails and such.I am assuming you are already using the gpxtomaplet program to overlay the caches onto the mapoplis maps.There sevral options for trail navigation out there but of the ones I have seen ll of those are no help for road navigation.If you dont have one already get a program like cachemate or gpxsonar for paperless caching information.I persoanlly like cachemate a lot yes its not free like gpxsonar but for $8 it is a great piece of software and with the included cachnav plugin can be used for navigatig to the cache like a standard hanheld gps goto screen.I spent about my first 4-5 months caching with this setup and loved it.If you have any other ?s post them or if you need help with any of the programs I am always glad to help by personal message or on yahoo messenger

I was just wondering how you like the Garmin 10.Is yours the new one with the sirf3 chip?I was looking into buying as a secondary gps(ok I already have two but whos counting)I like the idea of havig the same maps on my gps and ppc.Also I am trying to figure out how the software unlocks.Does it unlock to the bluetooth device or to the pda I am asking becuase I have a few pdas and would love if it wa susable on whichevr one I happened to be using that day.Can you also load the garmin topos and other mapping ino the que softwre similar to the 60 series ?

From what I have heard from most of the people that have lost one Garmin will usually send you out one for free.On a related issue I just checked it out on a suggestion from another local cacher and if you need new belt clips you can get them at the dollar tree stores for $1 each and they seem to hold just as well as the Garmin one and much much cheaper.I bought 4 or 5 so when I break oe I have a replaceent ready to go

You can either do what red said or switch to the database you want them in before doing the import.Cachemate will import the caches into whatever database is active at the time

If you give a little more detail about what devices you are using for gps and or pocket pc or palm you might get some helpin more useful solution to your problems.

If you are a premium member you can create a pocet querie to get a batch of up to 500 gpx files sent to you instead of having to download them one by one off the cache pages.They can be very useful.I have queries set up to cover 75miles around my house so I can get updated data on every cache at least once a week.I also use queries to help in the hunt for ftfs or if I want to go caching in a certain area I can create one to cover that entire area.Queries are one of the reasons I upgrded memebrships the other was notifications which can email you when new caches go active.Caches get archived or disabled etc.

Select ll the caches you want to view in gsak and export them as a gpx file.You can then open that gpx file on your phone using cachemate and it will contai all of the caches in that gpx file.You will wnt to experiment a little bit with the # of caches you have per gpx as if you try to load too many it will take a really long time for cachemate to convert them all.You can also have multiple databses in cachemate just like gsak.Its a little confusing at first but once you get used to it it becomes very easy

export the caches as a gpx.transfer th gpx to your ppc.Uss cachemate to load the gpx file.It will do the conversio oin the ppc but be aware it can take quite a while.The load gpx command is on the mai screen of gsak at the bottom its the red arrow pointing towards the three sheets of paper

This is related to Garmins limit of only allowing 2025 map segments to be loaded on the gps at any time.Unfortunaltely the topo segments are very small so you will reach the limit well before the whole us is loaded in topo no matter what your card size is.THe only thing that will fix this is if Garmion ups the segment limit in the future or releases topo with much larger segments.For now you will have to decide what areas you really need the most and stay under the 2025 limit

pmed offer

You do not have to use the macros to do it.It cn just be a normal gpx file.The macros just help with making different categories making the info different and such.I am using one of the gpx macros that I then modified a little bit to suit how I like the information but before the macros were up I was doing it by manual gpx export

A huge thanks to primes suspect for his greasmonkey scripts.I found them searching for some other greasmonkey scripts and love the funcionality they add.I love firefox and use it 99% of the time.It would be great if the memory hit and speed were a little better but I guess if you want lots of featre you have to pay for them somewhere.

Ok guys quit giving away all the secrets around here Just kidding I have alerts set for a large raduis for new caches and also have the query set up like others that I can preview whenever I want .I wonder if there is a greasemonkey script for firefox that could automaticly refresh at certan ntervals for those that leave the window open. Around here if you arent on site within the hour you usually wont get the ftf and some areas are even less time.

I really hope someone in the bay area get one soon so I cn see and play with it a bit and decide if I want to buy one for myself.I want one because of the new toy factor but I have most of the options it has with me on most cache hunts since I usually carry my 60csx and Treo which has aerial imaging or topo info.So far it looks pretty good

Don't know of a way to do it other than the possibilty of using sendmap.In your ituation with the csx though just put in a little but bigger card and upload as many maps as you think you will need for whatever traveling you might be doing.I have a 512 and have quite a few of the western states loaded even though I only travel in California and Nevada its still nice knwing they are there.When the price cpomes down a little bit more I plan on buying a 2gig and loading it all so I should never have to relod again.The nice thing i I still have the 64mb card so if I want to trave soemwhere right now and dont want to reload all of my maps I could just load just the area I am going to onto the second crd and swap once I am there

Do not buy the cards from Garming.Just go to ny electronics store and pick up a micro sd card.They are getting cheaper everyday.I just noticed the price on the 2 gigs dropped $10 at Frys when I was there and the 1 gigs were pretty cheap but since my 512 holds more than I need no reason to upgrade yet

Gps tuner should have updted pretty frequenty if it did not may be an issue with the reciver not the software

Open your c drive and open the garmin folder.Create a folder named Mapsource Topo (the name doesnt really matter)Copy all of the files from the cd into the folder.Once this is done run the setup program from the folder on your hard drive.If you do it this way there is no need to use any special programs or edit the registry.

It will be intersting to see what the sensitivity of the reciever is.I really hope I dont end up liking it too mch I dont want to buy another gps right now.Now if they came out with software from garmin for the aeriel photos I would be very bery happy.Maybe a new handheld from Garmin with the sirf,3axis compass,color hi res aerial photos with unlimitd waypoint capacity based on your card size and maybe teh ability to store more cache information and I would be very very happy