chameleon family

ok, I figured it out...

I just bought a etrex venture hc and have connected it to my Mac, i downloaded the garmin communication software and it shows that it recognizes the gpsr. I go to a geocache page and hit "send this to gps" it connects and show its transfered the coordinates, but when I go to the gps, its nowhere to be found... am I doing something wrong?

I would recommend a GPS with a high sensitivity receiver like the Legend HCX or the 60csx. So what you are saying is, the hi sensitivity receivers with sirFstarIII is better than a quadhelix antenna... which would give me better reception under tree canopy? And how does that compare with what I have in the etrex legend. No doubt! It is way better than the Legend. I see a Etrex legend HC at gpscity.ca for $154... what does the HCX offer that the HC doesnt have

I would recommend a GPS with a high sensitivity receiver like the Legend HCX or the 60csx. So what you are saying is, the hi sensitivity receivers with sirFstarIII is better than a quadhelix antenna... which would give me better reception under tree canopy? And how does that compare with what I have in the etrex legend.

We currently use a Garmin E-trex Legend for geocaching, but recently it has been exhibiting signs of dying. The screen goes all garbly-gook every now and then, you have to turn it off and on, take the batteries out... in any case, we are worried we will be stuck in the woods and the gps dies. So we are in the market for a second unit and as many of you have two units, sometimes it makes geocaching easier. I would like something with a better antenna.. quad helix but I dont want to spend a lot of money. I have narrowed it down to the GPS60, it has the better antenna. Can anyone give their review on this unit. Will I be able to download waypoints from geocaching.com with this unit? I don't need any mapping functions, color... just good antenna, an arrow to point me to the geocache and the ability to download waypoints. Thanks

Where can I find small waterproof containers? Like the kind to store matches... maybe even just 1-2 matches!

How do I find out which caches I have done that were my FTF's. I think I have about 4 but I can't remember which ones they are. Is there an easy way to find out?

another quick question.. its more and etiquette thing. If I was able to take geocoins/TB's down to Florida with us, would asking people to drop off their TB's etc in my nearby geocache for me to pickup and take down with me seem ok?

thanks for the quick reply!

I will be taking a road trip in May from Toronto Canada to Orlando Florida and would like to stop off at caches along the way, most likely at rest stops off the highway. How do I go about doing this. I was in the "Cache's along a route" but couldnt seem to locate anything. I would like to target one in every state. I guess I could just go too google earth and look there. any ideas?

I went to the Tom Tom site and downloaded the One's manual where it indicated that you can enter long/ lat. Now with that being said, I would not use it soley to geocache with, as you said, I am sure some units will get confused trying to figure out why you want to drive your car into the bushes. Maybe the older Tom Tom didnt allow you to do this. I know in the garmin series the newer streetpilots dont let you enter long./lat.

I am pretty sure you can enter long/lat into the Tom Tom one, the question is whether it has an off road function. I am in the reverse situation from you. I have a garmin etrex for geocaching and looking to get the Tom Tom one for general can navigation for trips and to aid with geocaching. I think having an in car unit while geocaching in unfamiliar areas will help you navigate better. What I would do is keep the Tom Tom one and get a cheap handheld, like the etrex legend.

I was actually looking at the Tom Tom One, which is around $379 canadian and has the new sirf chips and you can enter long.lat manually which as stated, only some of the garmin nuvis allow, the streetpilots dont seem to have that function. The Tom Tom also has Macintosh software, which allows easier management of routing/maps etc. since I dont have a PC. The only drawback is that it uses the Telemap software as opposed to the NAVTEQ which is suppose to be far superior for North America. TeleAtlas map has better Euro maps, apparently, which doesnt really help me. The Tom Tom One is also very portable and slim, much like the NUVI's and not like those odd shaped C330-550's garmin has. Has anyone used the Tom Tom one, and if so, are they happy with the TeleAtlas map software? I'm talking North America of course.

We are looking to purchase a car unit to a) Compliment our Garmin etrex for geocaching when in towns and cities not familiar to us For general trips (ie. drives down to Florida different cities in canada) So we are looking for a unit that can have coordinates inputted manually for geocaching, has decent maps of Canada and US preloaded, we would like it to speak the street names when indicating turns and something that is not terribly expensive. ie. over $600. I have heard the units that use the sirfstar (sp?) chips are better for accuracy. We have a macintosh computer, so compatability would be a bonus but not necessary. Thoughts between Tom Tom, garmin, Magellan.

We are heading down from Canada this weekend and wanted to know if there are any camping stores that sell geocaching stuff... TB's, coins etc. Anyone know of any places in Buffalo area?

aye , looks like this topic has been beaten to death.

I recently came across a card that had a picture of a geocoin. It was meant to travel as a geocoin but I guess the owner didnt want the actual coin to travel for fear of loss. How does this strike you. I kinda like finding the actual coin... kinda like finding a picture of a TB, thoughts?

Nope, I don't think they've gone anti-mac. I browsed the forums this morning with Firefox and MacOSX 10.3.9 with no problems. Since you see the problem on OSX and OS9 on different Mac's, it would seem like the problem lies upstream (unless you've got 3rd party firewall software on OS9). I would try connecting one of the mac's directly to your cable or dsl modem and see if the problem persists. If it does, you can probably declare your router innocent. My next troubleshooting step would be to use an alternate DNS service (OpenDNS is quite good) to see if your ISP's DNS services are the problem (I'm presuming you'd use a different DNS server at work). At that point, I'd be out of ideas. Let us know what you find out? Jon BTW it just occured to me that you might only be talking about difficulty with the cache pages. Do you have the same problem accessing the forums or just the cache pages? I just tried connecting directly to my modem, still no luck. I called my provider and they couldnt figure out the problem either, apparently they could access the sites ok. I just found another site. apple.ca and apple.com that I cant access, whats going on!!!?? oh, I also have problems access any pages to do with Groundspeak.com

Maybe some smart computer person can help me out. Up till last night I was able to access the geocaching.com webiste. When I try to connect it gives me the "a connection failure has occured" error message. I have two macs one running OSX 10.3.9 (safari and Internet Explorer) and the other OS9 running Internet Explorer and I am on high speed cable. I can access any other website, e-mail is working fine, I have tried restarting, clearing my cache (computer that is) history to no avail. I can access the site via my remote access through work. So what gives? Any thoughts? Dont tell me they have gone anti mac!!!

Wow, I didnt know it was in bad taste to congratulate FTF's. It was our first cache to hide. We've only been geocaching a month and FTF's seem to be exciting to some people. We will take your advice and not out any scrolly or blinky things.

How do i add those scrolling red FTF banners when someone finds your cache on your cache page.

I want to go the paperless route. Right now I have an Etrex Legend an old Palm V with a serial to USB adapter (which I have only an Palm V install disk for OS9.x) a 12" powerbook running OSX 10.3.9. Does anyone have a similiar setup that is paperless?? is there a Palm V driver for OSX? Oh, I tried using my serial to USB adapter that worked on my Palm V to hook up my Etrex to the Mac but it doesnt seem to want to connect... do I have to get a name brand one? ie. Griffin??

Cool, thanks for the info!

Yea, the first ones we got we took them home and logged them before we placed them into another cache... but our last time out we moved them directly to the next cache, now we will be much more vigilant. One question regarding geocoins... whats the rule in taking them out of circulation... are they meant to eventually be collected by someone, or do they just keep going forever.??? if i take one out of circulation to keep, is that a no no??

I checked, can't see the numbers... and you mean to tell me there are people out there that will "steal" TB numbers to log a false pickup??? say it isnt so!!