Geo-Magician

Almost any mobile hardware will do. Search for Wherigo and your desired OS (Android, Apple, WinMobile, Symbian, GARMIN, ...). You are looking for Wherigo-player software. Often the term WIG is used for "W"here "I" "G"o. Android - Whereyougo Symbian - OpenWIG Apple - used to be named PiGo, now Apple Wherigo‎ Garmin - Garmin Wherigo player comes free with Colorado or Oregon. If you have one, that's the way to go. Whereyougo will do the trick in that case. Hard to tell you "the simplest method". Since there are so many options we need to know your existing hardware, your background and experience. If you have a Garmin (Oregon, Colorado) GPS, it is straight forward. Download a cartridge, copy it to the Wherigo folder on the GPS and start playing (Garmin does however seem to have stopped supporting the software, bug fixes are still pending). Use whatever you have. If you have nothing I suggest to get a used Android smartphone with GPS plus Whereyougo player software. An alternative is a Nokia smartphone and the Symbian OS running OpenWIG. These solutions should cost you around 60$ if you buy used and smart. You might be able to pick up a used watertight Garmin Colorado or Oregon GPS. That is hard to answer but I guess Garmin Colorado, Oregon with Garmin Wherigo software might be a likely candidate for pole position. The WIG player came with the Garmin device. Second rank is most likely Android and Whereyougo followed by Apple iPhones running PiGo (now Apple Wherigo) Sure is. Should be possible (legally unlocked, without contract), you might have to use a prepaid plan to make the phone work. Better ask someone who knows his mobile phones and contracts.

Mir fallen drei Dinge zu diesem Thema ein: 1) Wer in der Welt herum kommt, stellt fest, dass das Klauen aus dem Cache (Downtrade) leider in unserem Heimatland erheblich mehr verbreitet ist, als im Ausland. Es gibt natürlich Länder, da sieht es in der Dose aus wie hier bei uns. Es gibt aber auch Länder, da sieht man in der Dose förmlich den Stolz der Cacher, miteinander fair umzugehen ... 2) Früher habe ich mich sehr über das Downtrading geärgert. Inzwischen sind hier in der Gegend (Hamburg) aber fast alle Dosen leer. Aus den ursprünglich im Cache vorhandenen 10 Goodies ist eine halbe Eichel geworden. Diese teilt sich den Platz mit dem einsamen Logbuch (der Kuli ist meist auch schon verschwunden). Geocoins verschwinden in letzter Zeit quasi regelmäßig. Ich befürchte, es werden vermehrt "Schätze" ohne Kenntnis der Regeln gesucht. Den unwissenden Suchern kann man eigentlich kaum einen Vorwurf machen. Es ist leider inzwischen viel zu einfach, am Spiel teilzunehmen... 3) Wert: ich stecke manchmal Werbegeschenke (Schweizer-Taschenmesser, Laserpointer, ...) in die Dosen. Hier in der Gegend wird dann z.B. gegen eine Murmel getauscht. Die Murmel hat schließlich 20 Cent gekostet, das Werbetaschenmesser ist ja umsonst... P.S. Das Argument der Verschmutzung der Trade Items über längere Zeit erübrigt sich, wenn ständig fair getauscht wird. Dann kommt immer ein höherwertiges Gut in den Cache und ein leicht minderwertiges wird entnommen. Granted, es gibt immer wieder mal einen Ladenhüter im Cache, aber das müsste bei fairem Tausch die Ausnahme sein. P.P.S. http://www.geckos-geocaching.de/tausch-fair-mach-mit/aktion-tausch-fair-mach-mit/

Larry, my post will unfortunately not help you with your main issue but for the mismatched distances (0.1 up to 1 mile differences in the "from here" and ... list) it might help to realize that despite all advertising the phone is no GPSR. The GPS chip in the phone might be identical to that in a GPSR but the fine tuning for the phone is not optimized for GPS position accuracy (this takes to long and is to costly during the rapid development cycle of mobile phones). There is GPS reception with the phone and it is often quite good but under deteriorating conditions the GPS chip in the phone will have trouble to find the exact position. In your situation (sitting in a chair) the GPS signal will most likely be bounced of nearby walls into your window, will be weakened passing through your roof, will be shadowed off completely by metal structures, ... Worst of all, the phone might totally loose GPS coverage and resort to GSM tracking ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking ). This will result in distance inaccuracies up to a mile. Some phones/Apps will make you aware of this, some won't. My guess is that the difference in the distances results from inaccurate GPS position fixes maybe even mixed with GSM tracking. This gets better when the phone has stable GPS conditions and worsens when the GPS conditions deteriorate. You will have different results every time you re-run the test (plus the mysterious inputs from the app). Here is a nice comparison of GPSR http://www.kowoma.de/gps/geraetetests/iOS/precision_wbt202.jpg and mobile phone GPS http://www.kowoma.de/gps/geraetetests/iOS/precision_iPhone.jpg accuracy. All this does not explain your real trouble and I have witnessed your experience over and over again geocaching with a fried who uses the app. We normally end up with me (GPSR and pocket query) providing the GC-code for the cache and he punches it in manually. I assume most people who use the app are not aware of this problem because they never compare the GC website with the caches provided through the app. Good luck with your quest to get this sorted out .

Use ozVGA to get a better screen display. You will need good eysight ;-) but it works. HTH