GeePierceS
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Posts posted by GeePierceS
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I've done some testing with my etrex vista and previously my geko 201, and both are most accurate when they are sitting 'flat' with the screen facing straight up, held a bit away from your body (yes, even your head shadows the satellite signal), in a clear open space. if the GPS hasn't been used in a LONG time as you indicated, you should do a firmware update, also, put it on top of a picnic table or your car or something in a wide open space, and leave it alone for at least 1/2 hour to get a good solid lock. I got my etrex vista last month used, the previous owner hadn't turned it on in over a year, it took a LONG time to get a good lock, when I did a flash upgrade, it became much faster.
enabling WAAS in the setup menus will improve the accuracy of the fix, however it can slow down the update rate.
each time you turn on a unit with a magnetic compass (assuming that feature is enabled), hold it on the palm of your hand, face up, and go through the compass calibration procedure, which is to tell it to calibrate, then turn around slowly and smoothly twice until it says its good. once you do this, the magnetic compasses, at least on mine, seem to work just fine.
if you disable the magnetic compass, then it only knows what direction you're traveling when you're actually moving, so you have to hold it out flat and walk in a straight line until it gets a bearing lock. swinging it back and forth and so forth can really confuse it.
I use the 'navigation' compass screen for almost all my cache finds (ok, only 31 so far, but I've only been doing this for a few weeks and not real hard core about it).
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Also, if you go to this section of the forums http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showforum=50
You can click on your state, which will bring up a list of events and newly published caches.
thats problematic for California. as I said, there's about 400 caches within just a 12 mile radius of my house, and I'm in the smallest county of the state (not counting the City/County of San Francisco).
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Honestly i would just go get a new GPS probably a yellow Garmin Etrex they are inexpensive but much better then the Gecko or go for a Etrex Legend I first used that when I started caching and loved it. Just my opinion. BTW if you want to get rid of your Gecko, if you get a new GPS, Im looking for old and broken GPS send me a message and ill pay shipping to get it off your hands.
heh. Actually, I've acquired a used Etrex Vista the day after I broke the Geko... but its really not any more sensitive or accurate than the Geko 201 (which I broke the screen on). Its got more features, and more memory and a bigger screen (and often takes more clicks to navigate through all those features).
so, I dunno, but I think I'll hang in there and see if I can find another geko with a good display but busticated brain, and try my transplant...
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I've got a daily pocketquery that looks for any new entries in the last couple days within a dozen miles of my home. as I'm a computer geek, I'm online nearly constantly, and check my mail all day long, so I usually get the pocketquery notices in less than an hour after they were sent.... every time something new pops up, its already been FTF'd, often the day before I even saw it.
are there any other ways of doing a search for new caches? say I'm ready to go take a break from the computer, and want to see whats new /RIGHT NOW/ before I go out... there's something like 400 caches in a 12 mile radius of me, so its kind of hard to just look at that list to find 'new' stuff...
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I use Krylon's camo spray paint, and it works very well with the plastic. I didn't even prime it - the paint is meant to straight onto plastics.
if you want spray paint to stick really well to plastic, wipe it down with a rag dampened in acetone first. this will take the glaze off the plastic, and leave it a bit cloudy. let the acetone evaporate before painting and don't touch the surface after wiping. do this outdoors, and figure on disposing the rag afterwards just to be safe. acetone is relatively harmless as solvents go (women use it to remove nail polish, after all) but theres no point in breathing the fumes. its also very flammable, but burns at a fairly low temperature (releasing toxic gases!)
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if anyone has a Garmin Geko with a dead GPS but working display, I'd love to take it off your hands for postage, or any other similar unit with a 0.92" x 1.44" (2.3 x 3.7 cm), 64 x 100 pixels B&W display...
I cracked the display on mine, and its not worth $59 to have Garmin fix it, but if I can get a scrounge unit, I can transplant the display (I've already taken mine apart and determined this is eminently feasible).
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standard and easiest geocacher disguise......
put your GPS unit to your ear. Laugh and talk. Pretend its a cell phone, and wander *presumably* aimlessly while talking and kicking rocks.
variation on that theme, wear a bluetooth cellphone ear-thing (Lt Uhuru?), then you can walk around with the cell-er-gps in your hand in front of you, while having a conversation with thin air.
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There's somethign like 400 caches within a 12 mile radius of my house in sub-suburban santa cruz county in coastal central california. there's many 1000s more in a wider radius.. I've been casually caching a couple weeks now and found 30 or so. I suspect the greater SF Bay Area (of which I'm towards the southern extreme) likely has one of the highest density of caches anywhere.
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FWIW, I bought the eTrex Vista, he still has the Legend, and the serial cable (I already had one). both are in very good condition, older B&W units, with limited mapping functionality, WAAS but not the high sensitivity receivers of the newer SiRF or MediaTek(?) units.
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yeah, gsak + the serial cable rocks.
I'm using %found=FG%drop2 as the waypoint code, works out nicely enough.
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ah. the 'pocket' part of it had me fooled into thinking it was something for handhelds. the queries load just great into GSAK.
thanks a bunch!
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It would be really handy to be able to generate a upload of the caches shown on a given view of the 'searching with google', say a page like http://www.geocaching.com/seek/gmnearest.a...;zm=12&mt=m
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I'm a relative newbie to the geocaching game, with around 15 local caches found so far.
so in a search for something better than a letter sized clipboard to haul around with cache pages (and not being nerdy enough to carry around any sort of PDA), I found a day-timer on clearance at a local stationary store...
anyone else printing their cache pages on 5.5 x 8.5" 7-hole day-timer pages? for now, I've been hacking letter sheets in half and hand punching them, but I'm about to go ahead and bring a ream of inkjet paper to a local print shop who said they'd cut it in half and 7-hole drill it for $15, this will give me like 500 sheets to play with
Once i get the serial cable for my Geko 201, and don't have to enter coordinates by hand, I figure I'll be knocking off a lot more finds.so... I'm curious what sort of field books others use...
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ah. for now, I've been manually entering waypoints with the 3 buttons (UGH!) but I have the serial cable and garmin waypoint mangler on order...
Once I get that, it will be a lot easier to manage the silly little thing.
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Apparently it has to do with "unattended property" on federal land. It appears the park superintendant may allow property to be left unattended at his/her discretion. Here's a quote from one NPS site (highlights are mine):
"36 CFR Section 2.22 - Property
Property may not be left unattended for periods longer than 24 hours....
hmm. I guess I got the idea it was flat prohibited by http://www.geocaching.com/about/hiding.aspx ...
You will be in violation of federal regulation by placing a cache in any area administered by the National Park Service (US). The National Park regulations are intended to protect the fragile environment, and historical and cultural areas found in the parks.also the two NPS parks I most frequently visit, Death Valley NP and Yosemite NP both have statements to that effect in their literature. DV's park compendium states: “Geocaching” articles left at a geocache site unclaimed for over 24 hours will be considered abandoned property and impounded." which concurs with your section/quote above.
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if there's trees overhead, after I've marked a waypoint, I like to tell my GPS to 'goto' that waypoint, walk a 100 feet or so away where its clear overhead, and walk directly towards the waypoint, see if the GPS indicated direction and distance agrees. then do this from a few different angles, if they all triangulate on your marked waypoint, its probably correct, otherwise, adjust it.
if your GPS supports WAAS, this can get you a much more accurate reading, at the expense of slower updates, and more battery consumption. my little geko gets within 10' with clear skies overhead.
at typical USA mid latitudes, 0.020 arcminutes difference is something like 100 feet give or take, and 0.001 minute, which is as accurate as most GPS's readout, is like 5 feet. without WAAS, my GPS gives 20-30 feet accuracy under the best of conditions and in light woods maybe only 80-100 feet accuracy and repeatability.
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http://forestry.about.com/od/mappinggis/p/fed_geocache.htm should have some good answers and jumping points to start from. These are NOT the guidelines however of the forestry service. Best for the owners of the cache to check with the local forest rangers office and if the answers there are not satisfactory, take it to the next level.
dialing back to the original topic... that about.com article isn't very good (about par for about.com). its got one flat wrong entry (NPS websites specifically state all geocaching anywhere in any National Park is against federal law), and its got two contradictory paragraphs about NFS, so I dunno what to believe.
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I was going to post a really similar question re full logs......
ok, so the best thing is to leave the original log, perhaps in a fresh bag, and add a new blank logbook, annotated on the first page about what it is? maybe sharpie the cache name on the cover of the new log, along with a 'Vol. II - date ?
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I have a geko 201, which only supports 6 char waypoint names. what do folks do to enter 7 char waypoint names, leave out the C in GCxxxxx ?
Once i get the serial cable for my Geko 201, and don't have to enter coordinates by hand, I figure I'll be knocking off a lot more finds.
finding new caches in an area...
in General geocaching topics
Posted
the previewed queries don't seem to reflect changes since the last time the query ran.
but, persistence has paid off, since posting this, I've scored two FTF's on local micros with a couple miles of home (and one 2nd to find).