jsignal

Here is a response from the ND Game & Fish that I received this afternoon: In response to your inquiry as to why the ND Game and Fish Department would ban geo-caching, I’ll attempt to give you the executive summary. Geocachers, regardless of how careful they are, will have an impact on the habitat on a wildlife management area (WMA). These WMAs are managed for specific purposes, namely wildlife production and public hunting. The management costs of these areas are paid for by the sale of hunting licenses and excise taxes on the sale of hunting equipment. Not so many years ago, geocaching use on our lands was very infrequent and the associated impact was of little significance. However, we have been getting steadily more requests from geocachers to use these areas and there have been recent instances where geocachers have conflicted with the hunting public on our WMAs. When these types of conflicts are brought to our attention, we have a responsibility to address it. The question that we must then answer is, if we are asked to limit to the use of a WMA, who should have priority use? It is our belief that those who are helping pay the bills for the management of these areas should be granted priority use over those that do not. In terms of wildlife habitat impacts, I would agree that geocachers and paintballers are not in the same category in terms of disturbance. None the less, they do both have an impact on wildlife habitat and also create disturbances to wildlife. It would be irresponsible for us to ignore that fact and do nothing to prevent it. I should also tell you that our Administrative Rules do not get amended without due process. The first step we take is to advertise the proposed amendments and announce a public hearing to gather input on the proposed changes. We received very little opposition to the proposed changes during that process. It is certainly not our intent to eliminate geocaching as a hobby for those of you who choose to partake of it. However, in the opinion of the Department, we simply don’t think that our lands are the appropriate place to do it. I hope this helps clarify why the decision was made to prohibit geo caching on WMAs. I realize that this decision may not be applauded by everyone but again, we do have a responsibility to our constituents and we believe we are fulfilling that responsibility. Sincerely, Scott A. Peterson Wildlife Resource Section Leader ND Game and Fish Department [phone number removed by moderator--please don't post personal information of third parties without their permission, Thanks!]

Thanks for the information. Those devices/connectors never showed up in all my google research. One of them is exactly what I was looking for. The car adapter is sold out anyway. Maybe the battery pack is the way to go... except then you can't use it in the car for long distances. There's no "perfect" solution! -Jason

I checked out the PC-Mobile site. It looks as if they are discontinuing that product. I still haven't seen any other solutions that would be reliable or are well-tested. Thanks for the reply. -jsignal

My old eTrex Legend is wearing out. So in my quest to replace it, I realize that consumer GPS technology has advanced a bit in the last five years. I was considering two options: Bluetooth GPS receiver + my Palm TX OR one of Garmin's handhelds... perhaps another eTrex or GPSMap model. Using the Palm TX with a receiver would be very cool. Big screen, turn-by-turn routing with voice (if I got Garmin's Mobile 10 with navigation software), pocket query results, etc, all in two small devices (the receiver and the Palm). But the Palm is not rugged, doesn't have replaceable batteries, the screen would be hard to see, etc. And it would be nice to not HAVE TO carry two devices to cache. So I was thinking... would it be possible to connect any of the current Garmin handheld models to a Palm TX via a cable of some kind? And would any sofware for Palm recognize the GPSr? Like I said, there are numerous Bluetooth receivers that should work with my Palm TX. But I'd rather get a handheld GPSr and play around with connecting the Palm TX and that handheld GPSr via a cable. Anyone ever tried this? Thanks, -Jsignal