marty621

Hart, Sounds like a no-brainer to me...................so your going caching?

I recently took adavantage of the $30 Amazon Visa offer and they applied the $30 credit instantly.

Near 07747 zip code in Old Bridge are two of mine, Night Vision and Blackjack in the Blackness. Night Sweats is up by Madison I believe. There is another set by Moose is Loose I think, down South Jersey near Little Egg Harbor if I recall.

I am not sure about the HP units, but I transfer waypoints, routes and tracks back and forth between my Garmin GPS units and my Sony Clie PDA using GPilotS software. http://www.cru.fr/perso/cc/GPilotS/ Its also supported by a Yahoo Group, GPilotS

I might be interested depending on my schedule.

I grew up right by Whale Creek and if I know the parcel, its mostly swampland. But then again, that works for me.

I think keeping track logs of trails is great idea. I have some if anyone needs them. I have: Cheesequake State Park---all trails, roads & perimeter roads Monmouth Battlefield Park--- Nearly all trails, roads & perimeter roads Allaire State Park ---- about half the trails and roads Hartshorne Park---- about 75% of the trails and perimeter roads. Herronton Woods--- about 75% of the trails and perimeter roads All are in MapSource format. Interestingly, I gave the Cheesequake files to the Park Officials and never even got an acknowledgement.

Since I have moved away from the area, which would make cache maintenance tough, I may archive some of my simpler caches in Cheesequake Park.

Just goes to show how incompetant some police are. Also shows how resources are wasted on blowing up caches when it should be focused on real security issues. So much for the investigative abilities of that department. How hard would it be to do an internet search and find out a little about geocaching.

I started with Garmin 12xl then went to a StreetPilot. Then an eMap. I find the the eMap to be about the best all around for me. If I had seen what features it had before I got the StreetPilot, I would have passed on the StreetPilot. I use the eMap on the motorcycle, kayak, and bicycle. It works good on all but the bicycle on which it shuts off from vibration.

"Mothers" brand also makes a plastic polish I have used on motorcycle helmet shields. Works pretty well on small scratches. Its a real fine abrasive. I think its cheaper than Meguiars. I doubt it could hurt to try it.

I stumbled upon a Browning 10mm Ballistic Lite at a sports store on closeout, its a two AAA lite waterproof to real deep. Its is real bright and a nice focused beam. It simply blows away AA Mag-Lites and is probably equivalent to a two D cell Mag Lite. It comes with battreies, red and other color lenses and spare bulb module. Got mine for about $7 but that was a closeout deal. Its worth a lot more.

I can say definitively that a Sony Clie SJ20 has a serial connection. I believe that the entire SJ series has serial connections. Mine works well with w/ GPS.

Dick's Sporting Goods have blaze orange ball caps $2.99 and nice flexible mesh orange vests for $4.99

Be aware that you need to get into the park for the last stage and the park closes at dusk.

The cache was fine when I logged it, however there was a woman hanging aorund the bench on the other side of the brook from the cache, she appeared to be a homeless person because I think she was bathing in the stream. I was very discreet about my activity by the cache and I suspect she did not see me there. I doubt she would have any interest in it anyway. There are a great number of teens that frequent the park though.

I am with Hoopy on this one. I avoid parks when I can for similar reasons. Many of these rangers are wannabes in that job as a stepping stone to be a real cop. Parks officials have lost sight of the reasons we have parks, for recreation. I have found real cops to be way more tolerant ( and reasonable) of far more serious offenses than park's officers. I recently visited a park, which I forget at the moment, but there was a sign posted that said, No Skating, No Rollerblading, No Bicycling, No Ball Playing. What can you do in this park, the exciting sport of watching the grass grow? I know there are problems in some parks that must be addressed, but I for one happen to think that a park can be a nice place at night. I might have said it before, but I am growing tired of being looked at as a criminal when I go caching. Someone who recently visited one of my night caches said that some police officers who tracked them into the woods said we should notify them in advance of any future searches for the cache. I say baloney, this is recreation, should we notify them when we use the comfort station also?

So is the date friday or saturday? I think I can make either day.

Navigate is a program for the Palm system that might be useful, written by Rick Chapman. Its available at http://fermi.jhaupl.edu/navigate/index.html I am not yet familiar with all the features of the program but have used it successfully.

Chances of getting it are pretty much dependant on where you go. I have been in some very rural parts of NJ and never seen a tick on me. Yet where I live they are real prevalant. Rashes sometimes don't appear in 50 % of the cases. I won't stop any of my outdoor activities because of Lyme, we just need to be cognizant of the symptoms and do not delay in getting treated. Lyme tests are not very definitive, my research seems to indicate that, in order of increasing reliability they are: Blood, Lyme Titer, Blood, Western Blot, Urine PCR. The doctor tells me that these headaches are not due to Lyme but in fact, may be caused by trying to solve Team Ekitt and Team Og's puzzle caches. I guess if Lyme is the Geocacher's disease, Poison Ivy is the Geocacher's Rash.

I'd worry about the car wash grabbing the wire and ripping the whole antenna off the roof. Repeatedly crushing and bending the coax is not a good thing, make sure the same spot on the coax is not squeezed each time. If I was going to mount the antenna semi-permanently , I would slit the weatherstripping or poke a very small hole thru for the wire. Actually on some cars there is a bit more room in the weatherstrip at the corner of the window.

Avroair, What do you mean by some caches are not meant to be found? I think multis and caches that have extensive use of the GPS are the way to go. If we all used survey-grade GPS units with few centimeter accuracy, then micros would be more appropriate, but with the accuracy constraints of present handhelds in the woods, it can be just a waste of time. I have plenty of ideas for navigation problems or physically challenging caches, but have not posted most of them becauseI believe they stray from the direction of Geocaching.

Maybe I am missing something, but isn't it pointless to essentially fake a screenshot using a graphic editing software? I thought the whole point in a screenshot was to irrefuttably document the location where the GPS is. If this software can actually download a screenshot that is great. I find I can take a reasonable digital picture of my GPS screen.

Firstly, I have set some micro's myself and I believe that they certainly have a place. Having just failed to find one, without commenting on cachers rights to set them, I was wondering what others thought. I just think that maybe we are missing the jist of our sport, which is GPS navigation, when we change the game to hide and seek of micro's. We have to remember the accuracy capability of our units. For example. if the unit is only capable of 10 meter accuracy in deep woods and we are searching for a 1/2" x 1 1/2" green bison tube, aren't we missing the point of the sport. Yes, we should introduce challenge, but I think micros should be used judiciously. Micros are fine when hidden in some object that is uniquely identifiable in deep woods or other homogeneous environment. Let's hear from others.

I use a Sony Clie SJ20, but a SJ22 is basically the same unit. They are cheap, now, I have seen them as low as $79. They have the necessary serial connection to allow use with the GPS. Cables can be had from PC Mobile. I use it as a storage device for my tracks, since my GPS has limited track strorage. Using GPilotS software the unit can emulate a GPS with regard to downloads/ and uploads from the computer. Geoclipping software is used to load cache descriptions into the Clie'.