jtomason

Of the 3 caches that I have listed as of today, 2 of them were FTF by the same gentleman who was STF on the 3rd. He told me that he would have had FTF on all 3, but one was posted late at night and someone else went out. He is an early morning hunter. My latest cache was published at 7:30pm and he had it logged within 12 hours. I don't know him, he's just good at it. In fact, I was a little miffed that he found it so quick.

You should have no problem using this as long as it is rated for more current than the GPS uses. I think you'd have a hard time finding one that does NOT work.

May I suggest that you go back up and read post #9?

Law Enforcement: Haven't had the pleasure yet, but as mentioned, be entirely honest and forthcoming. Me, I would show the cache description on my Colorado if necessary. I am a member of the Civil Air Patrol and occasionally go out looking for Emergency Locater Transmitters that signal the position of a crashed aircraft (but which normally around here are set off by accident). When we check airports, we use amber emergency lighting to be visible to active aircraft and the tower. When I go caching, I usually have it (magnetically) mounter to my roof- both in case I am stopped somewhere and want other drivers to use caution (if I am on the roadside) and so that muggles have less incentive to question me - I look official. I had a cache in a shopping center that I was trying to find late at night, and a bunch of teenagers were hanging around. When they saw me pull into the parking lot, they assumed I was security and left the area. I have a number of radio antennas on the Jeep as well (ham radio operator), which adds to the "officialness". If I *really* needed to play the part, I'd have the portable radio on my belt as well, but thus far that hasn't been necessary. The side benefit to this is that less people think I am a terrorist or anyone else to worry about. For everyone else, when you have a muggle that you don't trust (or when you don't feel safe) I'd suggest the clipboard approach as noted before, along with a survey story - comparing the position of known objects to geospatial references for survey purposes (or some such nonsense). If you feel threatened, get a "text message" from your "partner" and excuse yourself saying that you are holding him up and don't want to make him come back there to find you!

dadgum, that's one cache per person!

Tampa, FL: 5 Miles: 160 10 Miles: 463 25 Miles: 1894 50 Miles: 3629 And just for giggles: 1 Mile: 6.

I'm seeing conflicting info on this, so here's the question: If I buy City Navigator, can my Colorado 400t become a driving nav unit and replace a TomTom, say? If so, who has good prices for it? Thanks, Joe

I bought some at Wal-Mat the other day and there were plenty.

AND there have been two updates since it was started.... Tell me - which updates? The last Update is Version 2.40 from 18. FEB 2008 Beta is not an update It is when you own the 12v cig lighter plug.

OK, I'm a newbie and all, but may I say one thing? Geocaching is big enough for all interests, and we have several varied interests here. Some people here are numerologists. Any cache will do! Some people here are aestheticians. Any cache, as long as it's a great view. Some people are hideologists. The better the hide job, the better the hunt. (These people love fake tree stumps and hollowed-out pinecones!) Some people are exercisicians. As long as you can't drive to within 1 mile of it, any cache will do. Some people are kidchachists. Make it simple, please, she's 7 and easily frustrated by DNFs. Some people are obviologists. They don't mind a hunt for the cache, but prefer it to look LIKE a cache once spotted. And lastly, some people are ironmanologists. If an ordinary person can get there... WHO CARES? Personally, I skip the caches I'm not interested in finding and leave them for others. When I am with my kids, I try to go for the larger caches in the more urban settings - since in FL we have lots of things in the woods that can get you and my kids like trading. When I'm by myself, I don't mind a few steps into the wooded areas, but I'm not going all Rambo looking for something 10 miles in with no trails. I also qualify as an obviologist - when you spot it, it should be obvious it's a cache. But you know what? If you enjoy making/finding caches that are damned near impossible to find, go for it! It's not my thing, but if it's yours, I'm all for it. Maybe I'll make and hide one for you. So for me, this whole thread is "pointless". To each their own.

This is correct. Most (all?) combination FRS/GMRS radios have the no-license-needed FRS channels as 1-14 and the license-needed GMRS channels on 15-22. Many GMRS'ers will get annoyed if they hear FRS users and some will go to the trouble of locating you and notifying the FCC. Now, personally speaking, if/when I decide to do more than urban-caching, I'll have my ham radio with me for a few reasons: Much greater range, lots of repeaters to choose from, and a much bigger audience of people to contact with who *enjoy* having the radio on and count amongst them people who are handy with lat/long and mapping (APRS for you hams). If you go into the "real" back country (unlike what passes for it here in FL) and are concerned for your safety, I suggest you look into a Personal Locator Beacon that sends your lat/long to the CORPAS/SARSAT international rescue satellites so that Search And Rescue folks know that you're in need of help. They aren't cheap, but they will work even when the other geocachers, FRS users, and hams aren't listening or close enough.

I placed a front-yard cache yesterday -- my first -- and thus far, no problems. Without giving it away, the cache is in between the sidewalk and the road -- technically NOT private property. I included the following in the cache's description: "This is an easy to find cache in a residential neighborhood. The cache is easily reached from a publicly accessible location with no permission required." Further, it's a pretty easy cache to find, minimizing the "I've been here too long" factor. You can drive right up to it, and lots of visitors to the neighbors park their all the time, so the activity is mostly normal. I wouldn't put one up next to the house/garage or anywhere further back that you couldn't get to it from the sidewalk or street for the reasons listed above. I had actually considered a different location for it that would have been a bit more challenging, but it would have required going 5' or so onto the lawn and I felt that people would be uncomfortable with that. I wanted this to be a nice, easy cache, especially for those who involve their kids. I almost got to meet the FTF, but they drove off just as my daughter and I came back from a geo-run.

Update bumpage: I just bought a 400t from walmart.com. Recent s/n unit.

It's ok, I'll respond anyway. Me too. The problem with Wal-Mart is that they can't even look to see what stores carry a given item - it's call or visit each location! However, wal-mart.com has them for a great price and will ship them to your local store free of charge (7-10 days), or you can pay extra and have it shipped to your house (a lot faster). I had mine shipped to my house and it took 2 days.

Yeah, it was truly a disappointment as it looks really sexy on the box. I had trouble finding good info on it and decided to give it a shot, but for my uses (photo geolocation, interfacing to Street Atlas and other software, use on a ground team in the field), its shortcomings were too much. Given the state of their web site, I had zero hope that they would fix all of its problems with firmware updates. The real attractive items were the aerial map overlays (which would be good for geocaching, actually) and the weather, but my iPhone does an awesome job on both accounts; I will have to just hope for cell service/wifi. The XM integration was so badly executed that you can't even sign up online and get the right weather package -- the XM site insists on activating the much pricier aviation package. You have to call XM, and even they need a few tries to get it right. The lady at XM didn't seem surprised in the least when I canceled its service and didn't even ask me why... My guess is she knew.

I'm a TWO Jeep man..... The 97 ZJ - which now sports an ARB bumper since this one got ripped off in a snatch gone bad.... I also have a 06 XK, the daily driver.. Limited, Hemi, Nav... The works!

I tried both FF and IE but still have the same problem on both. Unit is registered, Communicator is installed, but the trial page still complains about both. Later on when I tried this it worked. Weird.

I just bought/tried/returned one. The good: XM Radio, weather, and GPS all-in-one Gorgeous screen Sensitive receiver The bad: Downloading aerial and topo maps is like pulling teeth. You do it as a bajillion separate downloads of a few sq. miles each from the crappiest website ever made. No joking. No batch downloads, nada. It's HORRIBLE. Accessories are difficult/impossible to find. Runs on a battery pack, and unless you engage all the battery saving features (which pretty much renders it useless), you'll be dead in an hour or so. Recharging it? You better have AC power. See the accessories gripe above as well. The weather is craptastic. Takes a long time to download, and it's jaggy/blotchy -- i.e. highly crappy resolution. Track files are in a proprietary format that no converter I could find will handle. No NMEA - no way to allow it to send data to any other app but their highly crappy app. Overall: GREAT idea, HORRID execution in firmware, software, and web site. Hardware is nice, but they really need a AA battery solution. Replaced it with a Garmin Colorado 400t and am happy.

I tried both FF and IE but still have the same problem on both. Unit is registered, Communicator is installed, but the trial page still complains about both.