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Either learn to keep track of what direction you are facing or carry a real compass. The electronic compasses included on some Garmin models are pretty useless for caching as they have to be calibrated frequently and take a long time to realize you have turned around. They work fine for hiking, because you generally just stop and take a reading, rather than walking back and forth in circles. What I did before a got a better GPS was to write down the cache coordinates and set the GPS to display the current coordinates. By knowing which way was N/S/E/W I could walk until the numbers matched and the cache was always nearby.

I found an urban cache with an ammo box today. It was G.I. Joe sized. The cache owner had posted a photo of the ammo box on the cache page and it just didn't look right. Later, when I was browsing one of the cache container / swag sites I saw a similar-looking ammo box with the dimensions given -- 2.25" x 1.25" x 0.5". It was actually more expensive than a real ammo box.

And to add insult to injury, it was probably an 8-track as well.

Not sure if the same files are generated for a Magellan unit, but with a Garmin unit using a Windows XP box, right-click on the zip file and one of the options should be 'extract here' -- do this and it will extract the files into a usable format. The files are then transfered to the GPS manually through Windows.

This was in a city park -- hopefully no one snapped a photo or got video. I'm thinking seriously about making a fold-up ladder or step-stool that will fit in a pack. Sadly, the cache has been disabled. Our recent monsoon rains apparently washed the cache and all the leaf debris out of the fork in the tree. The cache is probably between here and the Gulf of Mexico by now. Here is the cache: deciduous bifurcate Now reincarnated: My Webpagedeciduous bifurcate subsequent emergence Sadly, the same guy who got the FTF on the original cache also got it on the new one. How hard was that? Said he waited a day for someone else to FTF first.

...Assuming they are a premium member and can do a pocket query, rather than having a GPX file for each cache. And even then there are two GPX files that get transfered. One xxx.gpx file and a xxx-wpts.gpx file. Otherwise they have to use GSAK or some other program to build a GPX file of multiple caches and upload it. At any rate, the Colorado is pretty cool for a paperless caching solution. We snagged another 8 caches today including a Wherigo cache. Didn't have to carry another device or kill a single tree to do them. If you have a routable map installed, the easiest thing to do is to switch to the automotive profile, then look up the cache to navigate the roads to the cache. WHen you get close, exit the navigation, switch to a geocaching profile that does not lock to roads, go to the geocaching shortcut, pick the cache, then walk to the cache. The only caveat is the routing software assuming apartment complex roads are real roads and can be used to get to a cache. I usually cache on the weekend, then on Sunday night I upload the field notes, log the found caches, then do a new pocket query and replace the existing on on the Colorado. Takes maybe 20 minutes, tops.

This has been a good unit for me: Holux M-1000

Looks like Cyclegadgets got some in and sold out -- they're saying the next batch is due in at the end of April. Hopefully my order was on the first batch -- not holding my breath as I haven't received a shipment confirmation yet.

If you vehicle has a heated windshield it may also block any GPS or satellite radio signals. Does the windshield have a gold or metallic tint to it?

What Klatch said. If I'm enjoying the outdoors, I don't take anything that may distract me from the surroundings. Too many sights , sounds and smells out there -- why take tunes?

Ohh, that's pretty bad. Thanks for the culture lesson too! Were they wearing Burberry? When I was over in London I kept seeing adverts for clubs that had dress codes. I kept seeing 'no trainers' and assumed they meant jogging suits, as I have seen clubs in the U.S. list this as a no-no. It wasn't until later I realized they meant sneakers. Should have tried to get in with my motorcycle jacket and boots!

I have both a 4 GB Kingston SDHC and 4 GB Sandisk Ultra II SDHC card and they work fine on my Colorado.

The Maha charger recomments charging at no less than 1/3 of the rated capacity so the charger can properly detect a full charge condition. On the 2700 mAh Powerex batteries I charge them at 900 mA -- full charge in under three hours. The Maha charger requires a few more button presses to set the mode and charge rate, but no big deal once you figure it out. Each battery is charge separately. It also steps through each active charging position and shows you the charge rate, battery voltage and estimated charge in mAh, and when each battery is done, it says so. After two different Wally-World charger / battery sets for the camera, I decided they were junk and dropped the cash on a good charger. I was not disappointed.

If you write or read the card in the Colorado, it makes no difference as its USB 1.1 -- slow as Xmas. If you use a USB reader to connect the card direct to the PC it should go a bit faster, especially compiling and loading a mapset. Doubtful it would make a bit of difference as far as the Colorado reading the map data or GPX files though.

How would you rate the 660 ?? Amazon runs it for a little over $300 every so often and I was thinking about one for the wife.

Hey, I didn't know R.A.M. had that swivel -- might need to add one to my pending order for the Colorado mount.

There may be a way to tweak this distance, but I haven't run across anything obvious yet. I did look over the automotive profile file to see what settings it has, and the only thing I saw related to routing might be in the marine settings. There is an entry called <OffCourseDist> with a value of 500.000000 -- not sure if this will relate to the automotive navigation, or if manually editing it will work, but it might.

My 300 does the same thing every once in a great while if I get carried away and push buttons faster than it can think. It usually starts working in 5-10 seconds when its little pea brain catches up.

The beeps on the Colorado aren't very loud -- you have to rely on watching the screen to see upcoming turns. However, if you set the backlight to shut off, it will come on as you are warned of an upcoming turn, and as you approach it.

This was in a city park -- hopefully no one snapped a photo or got video. I'm thinking seriously about making a fold-up ladder or step-stool that will fit in a pack. Sadly, the cache has been disabled. Our recent monsoon rains apparently washed the cache and all the leaf debris out of the fork in the tree. The cache is probably between here and the Gulf of Mexico by now. Here is the cache: deciduous bifurcate

I can't remember if there is an option to disable this feature, but by default it should re-route within a 1/4 mile or less of missing a turn (at highway speeds anyway). The re-route has worked fine on my 300 with CNNA NT 2008.

In my experience, the cheap chargers that come bundled with the batteries you buy at Target, Best Buy, etc... don't fully charge the batteries and may ruin them over time. I went through this with a digital camera and switched to a Maha charger on the advice of someone from the scanner email list. Like night and day. The batteries I was ready to toss out came back to life, and the new batteries have consistently performed as they should. I use the low self-discharge batteries in the camera and the 2700 mAh Powerex batteries in the Colorado. More money, but less headaches.

Hey Zimsworld, if you carry one of the Victorinox SwissChamp models you can ditch the tweezers, scissors, toothpick and pencil, and probably a few more things. Check it out...

I bought a Holux M1000 for my Nokia 770 and have been very pleased with it. Much better reception than my GPSr and it runs forever on a battery charge. Several placed have them in the $40-50 range if I recall correctly. Ok, found the source: Holux 1000 @ Semsons

What XopherN71 said except a Colorado 300 with CNNT NA 2008 and Topo 2008.