Night Stalker

There is a cache in a park in my home town that kept Renegade Knight and myself flustered. We spent every weekend for a whole summer. We took our whole families to help us look. I finally found it one morning before I had to leave town to go to work. There was already a skiff of snow on the ground. I know for a fact that the cache owner took great joy in our misery.

I like to find signature items. I have a book of signature items that I have found throughout the western U.S.

If the owner has aleady checked on the cache and found it is not there he/she needs to disable it if it is going to be replaced or request that it be archived themself.

I own an Ipaq 3955 so assume that your process will be similar. I downloaded GPX View (A free piece of software to my Ipaq. GPX sonar will also work. After loading the GPX file into your GPS you drag the same file into your Ipaq. When you want to look at a cache open up the GPX file into GPX view and find the GC No. for the cache you are looking for. This will give you the cache page (Except pictures) as well as the clue and the last 5 logs.

Not to sideline this thread, but some of us think part of the fun is actually writing an interesting log when we visit a cache. It makes it a lot more fun for the cache owner as well...

I was looking at your profile, but it doesn't say where you are from. If that were in your profile it would be easier to help you out here.

Idaho style used to mean that it was hidden under an URP. URP stand for Unnatural Rock Pile. Cachers have become more Sophisticated or just plain sneaky in recent years so we don't see many URP caches anymore.

When I started caching lamp post caches did not exist. The first few were quite difficult since we had never seen one before. The first sprinkler head caches was also quite challenging. A small cache container was anything smaller than an ammo can. (the term micro had not been invented) I was #10 for the most finds in a day. That was 26, and it took starting at 6 am and finishing at 10 pm. It also required us to drive over 250 miles to get them all since cache density was non existent. The most common hiding tactic was an URP. (Unnatural Rock Pile) Having a new cache published in our area was cause for celebration.

I have been caching for some time and feel that I know where to look for a cache, but I spent most of one summer looking for one of my fellow cachers hides. If I had logged a DNF for every time I did not find this cache it would have filled a book. I knew better then to ask for help because the hider was enjoying my suffer way to much. The day I finally found this stinker it was beginning to snow. Sometimes you just have to keep looking. Sometimes you just give up and go on to another. I should have given up, but I couldn't deprive the cache hider of the joy of seeing me suffering.

I have both the 60CS and now the 60CX. There are a couple of properties in the 60CX that I find much better than my older 60CS. I have often cached under heavy tree cover and my 60CS has often lost sattelite coverage making finding the cache, and afterward finding my way out of the area much more difficult. I didn't realize how nice it was to have a memory card until after I got my 60CX. I travel all over the western U.S. for work. It is really nice to have the maps already loaded for my entire travel area. I used to go home on a weekend, and the first thing I would have to do is load new maps in my 60CS covering the area I would be working in next. Recently my boss has changed my mind after I arrived at my work location, and it was really nice to already have maps loaded for the area I was now going to work in. With that said the 60CS is a very nice unit. I have over 800 finds with that unit, and compared to other GPS's that were out there it was the best.

if the location is will not accept a full size container, you might try a Decon container. In my area they are only .99 and they are large enough for small trade items.

Whenever I leave a coin in a cache I make sure that in my log I identify the coin as a trade item or not so that someone picking it up won't have any questions. I prefer to leave unactivated coins in caches to the finder can either activate it or keep it whichever they want. That way no one is guilty of taking something they were not supposed to.

I own a 60CX and find it an excellent unit for geocaching as well as auto navigating. I purchased an auto kit with mine which included a sandbag type dash mounting kit, City Select (Now City Navigator), a power cable with the lighter power attachment, and a permanent dash mount bracket. I paid $150 on Ebay. It was one of my better purchases. I travel all the time when I work. This unit has saved me a lot of time in finding my motels and where I am supposed to work. I use it more now for auto navigation then I do for geocaching, and I use it a lot for geocaching. I believe from reading other threads that there are still issues with the Colorado so I would look at it very carefully before I made a purchase. I would want to take it outside and look at it's screen and then look at the 60. I have been told by others that the 60CX screen is a lot easier to read.

Renegade Knight uses a Garmin V and he keeps saying hes waiting for the GPS VI, lately he's told me hes now waiting for the GPS VII. He looked at the Colorado thinking it would be the replacement GPS, but he was disappointed with the display. I notice that he looks longingly at my 60CX, but he is to stubborn to admit that this is the replacement unit he really needs.

I have both City Navigator and Topo on my GPS, though its an older version of Topo. I use Topo for geocaching when I am in the hills and need to know about rivers etc. I use City Navigator because it auto routes me to the cache parking area. Topo may have all the streets, but it doesn't tell you where to drive to get to the cache. Being able to auto route has saved me a lot of gas and time.

I have a nephew who has over 700 finds, but if you check on line he has logged less then 200 of those. I would hope that you wouldn't delete that his out of the logbook.

You can adjust at what level each type of labeling displays. I just finally got around to setting my City Navigator display to the level at which I want my street names to display. you can also adjust how large a font you want the display to have.

You want the DVD so you can have the mapping files on your computer. I had the decision made for me as to whether to buy NT or not. NT was not available where I purchased my software.

I am lazy. I have never had the desire to learn cachemate or GSAK. I use EasyGPS. It is called that because it is Easy. All it does is allow you download your GPX files to it and then transfer them to your GPS. I have a Pocket PC for viewing the files and use GPX View. This does allow a bit of customizing your view, but not a lot, but that is all I need. Both of these pieces of software are free.

The Colorado still has a lot of issues, so I wouldn't look at that anyway until some more firmware upgrades come down. I use a 60CX. This does not have the electronic compass. I use to use the 60CX and decided that I didn't really need it and wanted to save the $50. I am not sure that I made the correct decision. This is an excellent unit for geocaching and Auto-Routing. Some people like the smaller units though for geocaching, in which case you might want to look at one of the HCX models. Both have the newer high sensitive hardware, so it will more depend on your personal preference. I would go to a sporting goods store and pick up both models to see which one you like better. If they will let you take them both outside so you can see how well the screen shows up before you make up your mind.

I had a SporTrak Pro before I bought my Garmin 60CSX. I found the SporTrak Pro very easy to use. It was somewhat hard to read in direct sunshine, but I suspect that all of the older black and white models had this issue. I got used to the boomarang issue, all you had to do was slow down as you got closer to the cache. I cache with a Garmin user and we would always give each other a bad time about the GPS he was using, but when our GPS's settled down we were always within 6' or each other. Sometimes I was closer, sometimes he was closer to the cache. I was a great disappointment to him when I bought a Garmin. He couldn't harass me anymore about my choice in GPS's.

I believe the difference was that I was changing credit cards entirely like the OP and it would not let me do this.

If you clear all your waypoints from your GPS you should be able to start over on the numbering. I have never had any issues with the number, but then I always renamed my waypoints with a name that meant something to me later on.

It is older technology, but probably ok. You would be better served with one of the newer units that are color. I am pretty sure you can get one for under $200 as long as you are not looking for the 60 series. Even if you are you could look at the 60CS. This is color with an electronic compass. Since the newer 60CSX and CX have come out you should be able to pick one up for around what you want. The only issues is that it only has 64 mb of ram. You will need to find an older version of City Select. I had City select Version 6 on mine. This allows you to download smaller map segments. This won't be any issue if you don't care to have the ability to Auto-Route.

I use Microsoft Publisher and then laminate my cards. I hate seeing the mush that can result when an unprotected card is left in a cache and gets wet. That is another reason that some cache owners do not like to see cards in their caches.