Bradinn

Hello all, My wife and I have recently decided to start the new year by getting back to Geocaching. We have an account that dates back to 2002 with a fair few finds and it is linked to our current home location and email address. I am wondering, does anyone know if it is possible to keep this account, but remove all of the current find logs? We've been away from it for about 7 years and would like to start from scratch with finding caches. However, I don't want to archive or disable this account, because I am not completely sure that it won't lock my email address and prevent me from starting a new account. Has anyone tried this, or know if it is possible? Thanks, Gord.

This summer it seems we're into doing a lot of different things, mostly adventuring, trying to find new and exciting places in our area. We like to try the different things, so far the expeditions include: Spelunking (hard to believe in Ontario Canada, but we have pictures to prove it), stormchasing, astrophotography and general all around hiking. Pretty much anything where my wife can have fun with her camera equipment..... Gord and Karina www.amateur-adventure.ca "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

Interestingly enough, we have just started a site that has what (we hope) will become a major component consisting of downloadable GPS tracks for areas in Canada (or really anywhere for that matter). Be aware when you go to it, that the site is still in it's infancy at the moment, and has little in the way of content. We are hoping to achieve a measure of content from submissions from like minded folks, as well as our own travels. If you would like to send us any GPS tracks (or anything else for that matter) you can send it directly to us via the submissions link, and it will be posted on the site immediately. Now that we have the site up and running, we are looking for anyone who is interested in sharing their own adventures with everyone. You can find us at: www.amateur-adventure.ca Gord and Karina "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

Now that the long dark winter is behind us and the weather has finally turned to summer, we're beginning to expand this years geocaching season with more hiking and travelling. And I find myself with a question that I'm hoping some of the locals from the Durham region/Toronto area might be able to help me with. My wife is an avid amateur photographer, but this year she's trying to branch out beyond the nature shots. What we're looking for are items of interest along the lines of old buildings, abandoned mills, etc. Generally, man made structures that are outside of the city areas that would make good subjects for some photography. Does anyone have any thoughts that they could share with us? Thanks everyone! Gord. "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

Excellent timing. You have saved me from a terrible mistake. Normally I tend to read online reviews and check out programs before buying, but for some reason I had assumed that with Streets and trips it would be the kind of package that would not change as far as the base datum is concerned, and only have upgraded features. I hadn't bothered to do anything in the way of research. I appreciate your tip, and 10 minutes of reading on various message boards has confirmed it. "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

Although I live in Ajax, which is on the other side of Toronto from Hamilton, I know the area fairly well. If you can email me, or post an approximate address in Hamilton where you will be, I can get the coordinates and find you the nearest cache, then you could do a search from there for the closest. Actually, I have Streets and Trips loaded with all of the Canadian Caches, so I can help with the other cities as well, though I am not familiar with them. If you can provide me with a rough address, I can get coordinates as well as nearest caches to base searches on, if you like.. Gord, Team Bradinn "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

If you are looking for online sources for topographical maps, I can suggest a couple of good places to start, especially if you're looking for images to use with moving map software (OziExplorer, TrackMaker, etc.) Firstly there is Toporama, which has images available of all of the NTS map sheets (as mentioned in the previous post). You can search for an area, or if you know the map number you are looking for you can search using that. The nice thing is that the corner datum for the maps is provided, and they can be easily set up in moving map software. Unfortunately they are low resolution, the retail versions of these maps are high res. The maps are all at 1:50000 scale. The link for toporama is: http://toporama.cits.rncan.gc.ca/ If you are looking for something a little closer to home, and smaller scale which you can use for geocaching, you may run into the problem of having to spend a lot of money to obtain paper maps. The Ministry of Natural Resources does sell Ontario Base Maps which have most of the province mapped at 1:10000 which is a much more pleasant scale for plotting geocaching hikes, however to obtain a large area you need to buy a lot of maps. The Ministry does maintain an online viewer which you can use to view the maps, and if you have a great deal of patience, you can piece together a great and extremely usefull small scale map of any area you wish by using screen shots, I have done this for local areas and have had no complaints, everything aligned perfectly. Currently the Ministry does not sell softcopy versions of these maps, they must be obtained through dealers..... Link to the MNR data warehouse for the online viewer: http://lioib.lio.mnr.gov.on.ca/lioib/uien/LIOIBSelectView.asp Here is the link to an older post that describes the process of creating maps using the viewer: http://opentopic.Groundspeak.com/0/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=1750973553&f=5280962783&m=8030908135 Here is a link to a post that describes new information on dealers providing Tiff versions of the OBM maps: http://opentopic.Groundspeak.com/0/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=1750973553&f=5280962783&m=4710929854 DonnaG has posted excellent information about distributors who are now carrying GeoTiffs. I hope this helps. Gord Team Bradinn "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

This post has really gotten my own curiosity going now.... I'd be curious to see where the reference points are for my own area. Could you by any chance post the link for the database that you mentioned? I think it might be fun to hunt for some Canadian Benchmarks. Gord. Team Bradinn "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

In reply to your question, Photoshop is a commercially available program that is quite expensive to buy, although it is regarded as one of the best image editing software packages for the prosumer available. It is available as a trial download from adobe which is good for (I believe) 30 days. There are of course other ways to obtain it which we will not mention here, since such things are of questionable moral value..... "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

In reply to your question, Photoshop is a commercially available program that is quite expensive to buy, although it is regarded as one of the best image editing software packages for the prosumer available. It is available as a trial download from adobe which is good for (I believe) 30 days. There are of course other ways to obtain it which we will not mention here, since such things are of questionable moral value..... "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

I'm not sure what type of camera you use, but most digital cameras come with bundled software which can download the pictuers from the camera and store them on the hard drive. Once this has been done, almost all software packages have a method to export the image to either smaller sizes or different formats. Usually it is fairly straightforward, simply highlight the picture(s) that you wish to compress or change the format of, and select the export option (usually under the file menu, and may be called something different - refer to your documentation for details). This will prompt you to save the file as another name and will give you options for sizing and compression factors. This is generally easier than using a completely separate program, as it allows you to manage your photos from a single software package (and isn't as expensive as photoshop or some of the other high end commercial software packages). If you have any specific questions about the software you can email me, we have tried most of the packages that are commonly supplied with digital camers, and could probably put together a quick walk through for you. Gord, Team Bradinn "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

I'm not sure what type of camera you use, but most digital cameras come with bundled software which can download the pictuers from the camera and store them on the hard drive. Once this has been done, almost all software packages have a method to export the image to either smaller sizes or different formats. Usually it is fairly straightforward, simply highlight the picture(s) that you wish to compress or change the format of, and select the export option (usually under the file menu, and may be called something different - refer to your documentation for details). This will prompt you to save the file as another name and will give you options for sizing and compression factors. This is generally easier than using a completely separate program, as it allows you to manage your photos from a single software package (and isn't as expensive as photoshop or some of the other high end commercial software packages). If you have any specific questions about the software you can email me, we have tried most of the packages that are commonly supplied with digital camers, and could probably put together a quick walk through for you. Gord, Team Bradinn "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

So far, thank God, neither my wife or I have had any serious mishaps while caching, a misstep or two, but no injuries. It's funny though that some of the people I know tend to give me odd looks when I explain how we go out caching. We each have belt packs (or fanny packs I guess) we carry cell phones, FRS radios, (the GPS of course!) compass and hikers first aid kits. Of course, it isn't that bulky, we're not wandering around like geared up robo-cachers or anything, but even that kind of limited preparation has raised a few eyebrows. For some reason people don't associate accidents with their immediate areas. The way I see it, just because I've hiked the local conservation area a hundred times this summer doesn't mean that the next time I'm not going to have one of those freak accidents and fracture my leg falling 4 feet off of an embankment (true story, that happened to a guy out here!) and be left stranded and helpless until some passing hiker wanders within earshot. For the time preparation takes, it can't be stressed enough. Of course I've gotten a bit off topic here, even with the best of preparation, accidents still happen, and injuries still occur, but you can better deal with them. Gord, Team Bradinn "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

Actually My wife and I are currently engaged in a summer project to map some of the trails in the local conservation areas around here (since the city who maintains them has no official trail maps). We start by loading a small scale detailed topographical map into OziExplorer, then go out and hike the trails, come back and plug in the yellow Etrex, hit the button and voila...instant trail map! Works like a charm, and once you have the map configured, it's about 3 mouse clicks to have a displayed track map. One suggestion if you like....while you're out, if you plan to use the tracks to show where you've been, then take lots of waypoints and give them names at the time. For example, trail switchbacks, crossings, general areas of interest. Othrewise if you download the track you end up wondering what the little squiggle off in the left was..."now was that where we went to see how far that cutoff went? Or was that were I stopped to visit the third tree on the left?" Waypoints really help, and lots of them when you're deciphering the whole thing on your screen at home. Hope this helps! Gord, Team Bradinn "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

Well I have to chime in here and say that I am also one of the lucky ones. When I first brought up the idea of caching to my wonderful and supporting wife it was with some hesitation. She loves the outdoors, but I didn't really think she'd be all that interested in the "cache hunting" end of things. Well as it turns out I was quite happily wrong, and now we are an inseparable caching team. I get to carry the GPS and she gets to point the digital camera at anything and everything, it works out really well. We've gotten to the stage of planning extended road trips to cache now. I couldn't ask for a better partner. Now some of the people at work of course give me the tolerant smile and nd when I ry to explain it...."oh yes?" they say..."doesn't that sound like fun..." but since I'm not married to them and don't have to go out with them on the weekends, well....it doesn't bother me at all. "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

Is that thing a coordinate display? In larger scale I saw a UTM coordinate display, but when I got down to 1:5,000 it changed to displays of individual meters. I have had no experience using UTM, so I wasn't sure if this was still a display of UTM or not......I'll try it though and see if it works! I've been meaning to spend the time to figure out this UTM thing anyway. Thanks for the advice! Gord, Team Bradinn "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

So in my ongoing quest for clear concise topographical maps that can be used with various moving map software, I think I have come up with a nice alternative to Toporama. Since I have started (which is fairly recently) I have found toporama to be a little too large in scale, the 1:50,000 maps are nice, especially the high res versions, however I have still needed something much closer for trail mapping and fine definition. Since I haven't seen this anywhere else on the forums, I will post it (unless my search failed to turn it up - if I'm posting redundant information, my apologies). Recently, the Ministry of Natural Resources in Ontario has posted an online browser for the Ontario Base Maps (OBM) which have most of Southern Ontario mapped at 1:10,000 and the rest at 1:20,000. The link to the MNR Data Warehouse is here: http://lioib.lio.mnr.gov.on.ca/lioib/uien/LIOIBSelectView.asp When you access this page, there is a list of options for viewing different material. The last entry on this list is: "Topographic Features", this is the link to click on. It will take you to an online applet which allows you to browse and select areas to view. There are several pros and one major con to this site. The major con is that this site is SLOW!!! Well, actually the site is fast enough...the applet is VERY SLOW to redraw the maps. It is pulling all of the available layer information and organizing it into the map you request. One of the reasons for the speed is that the browser is completely customizeable as far as the details the map presents, you can add and remove any content to customize the view. (major Pro), as well, the viewer allows you to zoom in much closer than 1:10,000. In my playing I have found that 1:5,000 produces a nice image. The browser also allows you to "print" the screen as a digital image which can be saved. As the Ministry does not put individual mapsheets online, and they are only sold as CAD format files at over $100.00 a shot (I have contacted most of the dealers in this area - if anyone knows anywhere to buy straight image files of the OBM sheets - please let me know!) this gives you a nice alternative, although it is tedious. I have made a couple of maps now by taking a series of between 9 - 15 screenshots and piecing them together in photoshop, them importing the image and calibrating it with a little help from the location sensor in MS Streets and trips (one more con - no lat/long information). All in all, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the final product turned out in Ozi Explorer. As I said, tedious, but you end up with a very nice highly detailed small scale moving map of the area you wish to map. This site covers Ontario only, but tere are links in the MNR site to other provinces land data. I have been playing with this in my spare time, some of you may easily find more efficient ways to use it, if you do I'd love to hear about it! Gord, Team Bradinn "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

Excellent idea! As you mntioned in your first post, most cachers being gadget freaks, well, I guess I would qualify there, since I just acquired a set of FRS radios to use while cacheing so I can talk to my wife when she walks faster than me..... I'm more or less on the same line as most of the others, any channel is fine with me, although once the discussion is ended there should definitely be some posting of which channel we will be using, to make it easier for people who are wading through the posts looking for the final answer.... Gord, Team Bradinn "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

Hey thanks for all the great suggeestions, you have given me hours of wonderful internet searching to do during those long boring times at work....... I'm glad I was able to peak your interest Olar, actually this whole question came about (as I mentioned) from a reference in a topic in the unusual hunts forum, and it got me to thinking, the other half of Team Bradinn (my wonderful and understanding wife) and I are constantly looking for interesting and new places to go see. And the usual tourist traps are getting tired...and too crowded for my tastes. I want to see something with a real bit of history in it, that not everyone sees. And of course, it's a great way to plan a geocaching roadtrip, pick an interesting spot for the destination, and cache along the way.....so I guess it's not really as off topic as I originally thought. In my searching however I have come across some very interesting things, including one in particular that had caught my attention some years ago...Urban Spelunking (in abandoned tunnels and subway lines) Here is a really interesting link I found that might be of interest to those in the Toronto area, as it has some good stories about tunnels and lines in Toronto: http://www.infiltration.org/ Mind you, the link is for interest only, since I'm sure that the whole thing is as illeagle as anything...... Gord. Team Bradinn "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

I was flipping through some of the older posts on the site tonight, and I came across a couple of threads in the unusual stories message board about unusual places found while cacheing, and another regarding wreckchasing. It struck me as something fairly interesting, and there were several links to sites which contain approximate coordinates for plane crashes, ghost towns, mines, and one of the ones that looked the most interesting, abandoned Nike/Hercules missile launch sites. Unfortunately there were no links that I could find that had anything even remotely Canadian. A bit of quick net searching proved equally unenlightening. The idea quite struck me however, and I find myself wondering if anyone has ever seen or heard of any sites, or books along this line for Canada? I think I'm hitting that stage in my life (and of course, geocaching seems to be helping it along) where the regular tourist sites just aeren't doing it anymore, and I am finding myself looking for something a little more interesting or challenging to go looking for. Any thoughts? Gord, Team Bradinn "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

I converted to XP pro before I got started in Geocaching, and all of the software I've been using, including Easy GPS has had no issues running under the XP environment. I've never needed a patch or workaround. Hope this helps! Gord, Team Bradinn "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

Thank you! I think I must be going blind and senile as old age hits....I never made the connection, I know that my Etrex is multilingual, and I had no idea that the basic Etrex software was for "english only" but sure enough, as soon as I read your post I logged on and there it was...Etrex European! Although I was a little annoyed with Garmin for stating that this download will only work on the mulitlanguage units after you enter the page, as near as I can see, nowhere else does it note that, and I made the automatic assumption that the European version was...well....for people in Europe, and that the Etrex version was for North America. My bad! Anyway, it's all better now! We're updated and ready to go. Hey thanks again everyone for all the help! I really appreciate your responses! Gord Team Bradinn. "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

Thank you, I appreciate the replies! I confirmed that I have the same three files, and from all the tests I have done, it has no problem recognizing COM1 as the active port. In fact the updater program will recognize the GPS with no problem and will inform me that it is running version 2.06 (although I just now noticed on a further attempt that the pop up message states that my Etrex is running "Euro" version 2.06 - not sure if that's important - it doesn't show up anywhere else). "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

I checked all of the cable connections, and to be sure, once I received the error message I opened EasyGPS and tried a quick test. Both the Garmin updater and Easy GPS are configured to the same COM port, and I can upload/download with EasyGPS without error. I have also ensured that the interface is set to Garmin. From what I can see (of course, I am no expert) I seem to have everything hooked up and functioning. "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."

I want to thank you for your suggestions. I have acquired Streets and Trips 2002 and you are absolutely correct, it is excellent software. I'm quite impressed with it. I'm still working on Trackmaker, theres a bit of a learning curve with it I am finding, but I'm getting there. Thanks again guys! "When I was a young man, I journeyed to the West to find myself......it turns out I had the wrong coordinates."