Team Caracache

Further to the above, which response was after a 1 hour live chat with UK Chat Technical Support, that got nowhere, I was delighted to receive an email the next day with a zip file that contained all the missing profiles and was extremely easy to upload to my Oregon. This too was from UK Tech Support, and saved me a lot of money. Thanks.

Recently I noticed that my Oregon 550 GPS had lost some base software. I did a factory reset, but the missing stuff, chiefly the Profile Templates did not reappear. Anyone any ideas on how to reload original base software? ( I can't find my backup - must have gone 2 or 3 computers ago). Just need a Geocaching and Automobile Profile. At the moment I only have Recreational. Garmin Support were not interested. and said I should exchange it for 30% off., which is still very expensive for something you cant make calls on, nor access the internet or messages. Surely the software files for these things must be available somewhere!

Me too with my Oregon 550 . Gave up with Garmin Support- as if they can't carry spare rubber surrounds for a £400 device and need you to pay another £400+ - 30% to have a device with a button that works. This button cover and the aerial brace on the G60 series are the parts that fail most. OK mine is 5 years old but I am not about to exchange it at that price. I too bought the replacement rubber cover from the Dutch guy and saved myself a lot. I expect he was pretty happy at €24 for a piece of rubber. It fitted well and I found the correct glue he recommended. Back in business, until I noticed that the same GPS had lost some base software. I did a factory reset, but the missing stuff, chiefly the Profile Templates did not reappear. Anyone any ideas on how to reload original base software ( I can't find my backup - must have gone 2 or 3 computers ago). Just need a Geocaching and Automobile Profile. At the moment I only have Recreational. Garmin not interested. Change it for 30% off again.

I agree entirely. I sometimes need to refer to an archived cache for a piece of info, but with both the new search and the old search it is a fruitless task.It doesn't matter if you have the exact name. The only way I have found is if you know who placed it then you can find all their archived caches through their profile. It hold the be too hard to find caches even if you get the capitalisation or punctuation incorrect. If every time I searched for an actual cache I gave up and declared a dnf as quickly as the search function here does, then I wouldn't find many!

You could always read this guide to start: It can be previewed to ensure it is what you want. If not modify it. When the pocket query arrives in your email, open it with a program like EasyGPS or whatever you use and send it to your GPS. That's it!

It has spread to the Algarve too. Tried all afternoon, but kept getting:- 500 - Internal server error. There is a problem with the resource you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed. Maybe it is being improved!!!

Well here we are 6 months later and still the same result. I have only recently tried out a friend's Oregon (he was finding it difficult as he is 78 years old and no computer expert), and saw that most of the caches he had on board were littered with html tags making them difficult to read. His practice had been to download caches to his Oregon one at a time using 'Send to GPS'. I searched a bit and asked a few friends, and discovered this bug. I am not aware if it has been notified directly or only aired here, but if the 'Send to GPS' function is to be useful to those who want to use it with the Oregon, then it should perhaps be addressed. Besides, it can give the game away by enabling cachers to see hidden parts of a cache page or even coordinates, that they are meant to discover as part of a puzzle.

Has anyone got hold of the new Garmin Oregon 550 or 550t. I saw some info mid April but have only now seen this on their site:- https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=26876

I have just borrowed a new 400t from a friend to evaluate and help him set it up. I am a premium member. I used the 'Send to GPS' function from a cache page and loaded a single cache details. However the cache description came out in html. It was written in html when composing the cache (I wrote it) but it is not much use in that format as a paperless geocache! I tried another of my caches and the same happened! Since then I loaded another via the .gpx file method by dropping the file on to the Oregon drive in My Computer, and this one seems OK, although I don't know how it was written! Grateful if anyone can explain why this cache description was loaded as html? I stress this is a first try and I am more familiar with the 60 Csx, and I really don't like the way you can't utilise the display on the Oregon while it is connected to the computer nor can't delete caches without connecting to the computer and removing the file! Is this a bug?

Sounds easy when you state it like that - assuming you know what you are doing - but I wouldn't know where to start with either backing up bookmarks - and 'stuff'. This presupposes that the rendering problem isn't caused by one of my add-ons!! Is there an idiot's guide to backingup, uninstall and reinstall to the same content state anywhere?

I am hoping this is not just specific to my computer, but although the geocaching.com pages load properly when I first start my computer, after a while I find that the display goes to low res view or doesn't display properly. This only happens on geocaching site and more rarely on Blogspot. I am using Windows XP Home with SP2 - (SP3 caused a lot of problems) and I browse with Firefox 3.0.5. The short term solution is to switch rendering engine with IE tab and it displays perfectly. However in that display, I cannot use my favourite FF add-on, Nuke Anything Enhanced, which allows me to cut out all the stuff I don't need before printing a cache page. Anyone have any ideas - I tested my Java which is the latest 1.6.0_11 and that seems to be OK?

Probably a stupid question, but is there a way to send the cache page files to a mobile phone that can store word and other text files etc on a mini sd card I have a new Samsung SGH-U608, but haven't been able to unravel how to use it fully, bu since it can store all sorts of media files and text files, can the cache pages be converted to a form which would read on the phone?

I have been trying to put up html cache description pages with moderate success, without even knowing how to write html code, by writing it in Open Office Writer (or I suppose MS Word), and then saving as an html file, viewing and copying the page source, and pasting in the box provided on the cache form. However I have always had to use the codes mentioned above, modified, to insert pictures and links, and have no idea how to position things exactly where I want them on the page, eg if I want two photos side by side, or surrounded by text. I have heard that some people use MS Front Page or similar to do the layout, and then load it directly, but I am not sure how that works, and Front Page is too expensive for this occasional use. Does anyone know how to do an html cache description layout and upload it, or of any free programs which can be used? I write blogs and the blogspot.com and vox.com make it very easy to upload exactly what you want including pix and links, and is it asking too much for geocaching.com to provide a wysiwyg editor, or are our cache setters (except me!) too computer literate and skilled in html to need it?

Right, so this is something you have to know about yourself, and will not be detected by Garmin Web Updater? Web Updater has only offered me v.6.11.6. I have downloaded the v.6.12.2 to a computer using English XP and copied the twoEnglish lang. .dll files to replace the same files in Portuguese on my Portuguese computer. Now this gives me an English language version of mapsource, but I have noticed that some other files in the Garmin folder are not identical, so I guess time will tell whether the program works fully. Thanks very much for your help. I will try writing to Garmin Support asking why they cannot make a language choice option for this Mapsource program. It is bad enough Microsoft forcing me to only have the Portuguese version of XP installed on the computer I bought here, unless I pay about €120 for change to the English version. OK so now I have the latest version up and running and I tried to load my .gpx file from my computer, but it still isn't having it!! Same message as before- 'C:\Documents and settings (etc).gpx could not be imported'. Is there anything else I can do?

I was using Garmin 'Web Updater' which I was encouraged to download when I installed mapsource from the disc that came with my 60 Csx. I also went to 'Help/ Software update' in the mapsource toolbar. I see this version 6.12.2 is available for download from the Garmin support site, but it is a full version, and I was trying to update a product I already have!! I have the problem that I have Portuguese Windows on my computer, so Mapsource install program detects this and installs the Portuguese language .dll file. Having the original disc, I was able to download the English lang .dll and replace the Portuguese one which was installed, giving me the program in English. However if you download from the web, you don't get the option of which language you want to use. I wrote to Garmin Support about this when I first got the program in January, but no reply nor acknowledgement. Using the English lang 6.10.2 .dll with the latest version gives an error mesage asking to install the correct Language version. Any genius out there can send me the 6.12.2 Eng language .dll and English Language unlock wizard files ??

I finally got the mapsource update to respond, and it came up with the latest version is v.6.11.6 which was 1 kb. When i tried to update it came up with error messages about the windows 16 bit subsystem. Is this typical of garmin Mapsource software!!!

Yes I do have the latest version I think, v.6.10.2, and I did get a drop down 'file type' for .gpx files sothat is exactly what I did, but MapSource still claims the 'file could not be imported'. Is there any possible reason it would reject a .gpx file

Thanks for the info above, but when I tried to open the.gpx file in Mapsource, I just got "C:\address.gpx could not be imported"! Is there another way?

That seems to be a problem. I have the .gpx route file on the micro card. I have Mapsource on the computer - and I guess that the file should go from the GPS card to Mapsource and then back to the GPS internal memory. Just that Mapsource does not detect this file when the GPS is connected and the box for transferring routes is greyed out - only the 'Maps' box is available. Grateful for an Idiot's Guide to transferring the file to internal memory! Thanks

Be gentle with me on this one! Do I understand from the foregoing that if I load a route, say created on Google Earth, first as a .kml file then used for a pocket query to make a .gpx file, then copied to the micro card then the 60Csx has no way of using that route to show me the way to follow it? It is the first time I have dabbled with this, and I was hoping that it would do so. I have managed to load tracks created in OziExplorer which appear in the Track files and can be followed, but am in a state of confusion about using files saved on the micro card (except the map files which appear automatically once loaded).

Well, luckily I am getting a weekly mail which notifies me of 'new' caches in my area. Don't know how, as I have just had a look at My Account, and can't find the 'enable' button mentioned above. Please enlighten me! This is very useful , but also it would be nice to have 'reactivated' caches shown in this weekly mail. Sometimes caches are temporarily disabled because of robbery or maintenance, and when they come back to active status, it would be nice to be notified. What do you think - oh I forgot - you don't get the mails!!! Anybody else know how to get this suggestion implemented?

Great! thanks for that - a useful tool. And a very comprehensive set of replies from others, especially the info that you can input the GPS format coords into Google Earth and get a result, provided you follow their import format correctly.

May be a very quick and simple answer to this. My GPS gives coordinates in the form N37º24.123 and W008º56.789, and this is how geocaching.com refers to the cache locations (fortunately). However Google Earth gives Lat. and Long. N 37º 24'29.12" and W 8º56'08.45" for example. Is there a way to get the decimalised display of minutes and 'seconds' on Google Earth to match the GPS coordinates, or is there an easy converter from real minutes and seconds to decimal minutes and seconds to three decimal places?

We are very new to the Game and based in Algarve, and we would certainly support any local forum for interchange of ideas and to boost the number and variety of caches here. Count us in on the support, but regret we have little we can add on the technical or admin side of getting it up and running owing to being fairly computer-illiterate!!

And now with Avatar -reborn!!