Trail Buzzards

eXplorist 600 Major: 1. This has only happened a couple of times for me and I suspect that it has something to do with the USB handshake between the unit and the PC. Most times though, my unit shuts itself off and I have to turn it back on. Minor: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 Priority Enhancements: 1, 5, 8, 11, 13 Enhancements: 2. 3, 4, 14, 17, 20, 23 Concern!!!! The cable for power and data is too lightweight for geocaching. The constant bending and twisting and screwing and unscrewing between uses (many times in a single day for me) has already created one defective cable for me within three months. It put me in a situation that I could not use my eXplorist for a geocaching tournament because I could not charge the battery and had no spare batteries. I sent the cable and unit back to Magellan. They replaced the cable but never gave me any details. I will now have to purchase the swivel base and leave the cable connected to it to ensure this doesn't happen again.... but why should I????????!!!!!

546 TBs / 1190 caches = 45.9% Massachusetts, USA

eXplorist600 Score: 4.41934 Likes: screen definition and color; file system; memory card; much better WAAS lock and subsequent accuracy; size Dislikes: cable and connection point.... should be like Garmin60C; slingshot.... I still walk too fast! Still glad I bought it.... even though I just sent it in for repair based on fragile cable (only a guess at this point).

I had been using my eXplorist600 since May with no issues.... then all of a sudden I started having intermittent battery charging problems. It culminated with the unit not communicating with my PC. So I sent everything in for analysis and repair. It is due back to me on Thursday. I will give you an update then on what happened.... that is, if they even tell me. But this brings up a serious issue. If the cable was defective, that means that the wiring is extremely delicate and will not hold up to the extreme geocaching abuse (on..off...on...off...etc.) and I will have to purchase a swivel holder to eliminate the stress on the wire.

I get a WAAS lock every time on my eXplorist 600... it just takes a few minutes more than the regular birds. I hardly ever get more than one WAAS sat. on my STP. So.... I think there is something to the 12 channels.

I use a very old Palm III with only 2MB of non-expandable memory..... but it works great for geocaching. I will not shed one single tear if it falls on a rock... or whatever! That is my suggestion.

Four years USCG (1968-72) including 10 month stint in Nam.... I still have the strong memory of people saying ... "Join the Coast Guard, you'll never go to Nam." Glad I did, even if I did go to Nam.

Actually, I would recommend that you get the DirectRoute first. I have both of them and depend on the street routing foremost. Most often I don't need to change to TOPO to go after the cache, but occassionally I do... especially to see stream and small pond layouts relative to the cache. Quite often you won't see the streams in DirectRoute. Since I have both loaded on my eXp600 .5GB drive, it is a quick changeover. Now, if Magellan had trails mapped on their TOPO, I think I would definitely go with TOPO after reaching the trailhead via DirectRoute. But, because they don't, there is little incentive.

WH, I believe your concept is very good. It has forced me to think back to my college days .... I haven't used a scientific calculator since. Now, with that said.... do you want the cache to be known for the scientific calculation challenge ... or from the difficulty of finding the TB tags? It seems more than one cacher has had trouble with the first waypoint. It just happens to be exactly where the the town is working on the road and the error rate of the signal is questionable at best. I can only recommend checking your coordinates to verify accuracy. If you say they are good, that is good enough for me.

There are many people that know the process of possibly identifying the location of a newly placed cache. There are also several ways to thwart those people. But what it comes down to is ... If you DO NOT want pre-approval FTFs in your caches, then wait until the cache is listed before dropping a TB in the cache. Now... if you want to learn how to find the cache, then I would suggest social engineering at your next geomeet.

Brewer & Bee Crazy have done at least two Audubon caches that require entry fees. I have listed two of them here for precedence. Good luck in getting the cache approved. Judging from the quality of all of your previous caches, I'm sure it will be worthwhile paying any fees. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...48&Submit6=Find http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...cc&Submit6=Find

Most geocoins are considered travel bugs, so you should check to see if the geocoin number has been assigned as a travel bug. It will probably be identified in the upper right corner of the cache page (in which you found the bug). If it is a traveling geocoin, then it should be treated like other travel bugs and not considered swag (or trade items).

Call Magellan and get an RMA. Tell them to hurry now that you are neck deep into geocaching

Maybe you have to hold the on/off button longer... doubt it, but then again.

I don't understand what the issue is here, folks. The loophole adds some fun to the game for those who know how it works and see the bug drop info on the screen. Why shouldn't the effort of a pre-find be rewarded with FTF rights?!?! So... what it really comes down to is .... if you don't want people going after your cache before it is approved, then .... don't place a travel bug in the cache log until the cache is approved.

Examine your 15th waypoint. You will probably notice a ' in the description. My STP balks at those things. Easiest is just delete the non alphanumeric.

I ungraded to 4.06 and put on Topo 4.20D. After testing showed that the GPS seemed to be working satisfactorily, I decided to upgrade directly up to 5.34, but this time I did not upgrade to DirectRoute. I think I will leave that on the laptop and just keep the Topo on the GPS. Thanks for your help.

Mind you, it's only a feeling, but I think that my STP doesn't hold the lock on the sats as well as it did with earlier firmware versions. I have geocached with another person who is still using 4.03 and TOPO and he had more sats. and stable, while mine, with DirectRoute, were coming and going. I have also noticed that even though I solidly pick up 3 or 4 sats, it doesn't mean I will automatically go to 2D or 3D and lock on. I have done a complete memory reset, which doesn't appear to have solved any problems. In fact, yesterday the EPE was consistently 60 - 128 ft. even though the sats told me I was at 3D.... but, the day before I was only showing an EPE of 6 ft and the compass was pointing right at the cache. Go figure. Anyone else see this unusual thing happening since upgrading to DirectRoute? I am thinking I should go back to 4.20D and TOPO and see if anything improves. I am also wondering if anything is wrong with the unit. Any feedback would be appreciated.

I am still having a problem. This time was updating my profile. I now have to have Netscape on my machine to handle updates?!?! Oh my, it sounds like a conspiracy

Jeremy, I installed a wireless card in my geocaching laptop and went looking for a signal. Once found I logged on and was able to create a pq using winxp sp1 with ie 6.0. My desktop has the issue. I do not recall whether I made or changed a pq after sp2. Anyone else on sp2 having an issue?

Just a thought.... do you think it may be related to my WinXP SP2 and your new servers?

<<For these issues. 1. Go to the front page and view the source. 2. Towards the bottom of the page should be a commented text: <!-- r2d2 --> or <!-- c3po --> Let me know what it says. >> And the answer is ...... <!-- r2d2 -->

It appears as if my thread got merged with SixDogTeam's thread of this title. His was in "geocaching topics" and mine was in Geocaching.com web site. His was then moved to here. At any rate.... I still cannot create or modify any PQs. I use IE 6.0 and know how to create PQs. I agree that the issue may be related to DNS, but I am still having problems. How many people are having this issue?

It also appears that the delete this query key does not work.

It appears that the submit information button does not work. Anyone else have this problem today?