bunkerdave

I have a Sony Clie PEG-UX50 PDA (Palm OS, of course) and a Garmin 60CS. I wonder if anyone knows where I can get a cable to pair the two? Can't seem to find it on the sites that are listed in this thread, but some of the sites are just a little confusing, too. Thanks heaps! bd

AFAIK CacheMate does not have a 'Home Co-Ords' setting. You can search for your nearest caches in CacheMate by going to the 'Srch' menu, selecting 'Nearest Caches' and then entering you desired Co-Ords. One way for you to add your Home Co-Ords is to create a waypoint in your GSAK database and export that to cachemate. You can then select that waypoint in CacheMate and then under then 'Record' menu select 'Nearest Caches'. This is a good idea...wish i had thought of it...I just put that in and it works like a charm. Thanks! bd

Quick question... In the past, when I have wanted to load a Cachemate PDB file to my PDA, I have first deleted all the files that were already in there. What I am wondering, is if I can keep all the information in Cachemate, say, find logs, etc for the OLD caches after I add the new ones? I have not bothered using the find log tools, because i knew I was just going to delete the whole thing the next time i updated anyway. Anyone have any feedback on this? bd

Oh...and what happened to all my cool macro buttons on the GSAK toolbar? It's easy enough to do this thru the file menu, but I LIKED 'em! Additionally, I am reading a lot about the CM2GPX files. Do I understand correctly that there is a way to do a hotsync with my PDA, and have my PDA tell GSAK (via the PDB file) which caches I found and when? Right now all I am doing is waiting for the updated GPX from my PQs, but if I could have it done immediately, that would be pretty cool, too, tho not really necessary, since my "daily update" PQs give me all caches in my state than have had anything changed on them in the last 24 hours. I have not thus far bothered with the LOG feature on CacheMate, as cool as it is, because my 60CS tracks which caches I have found automatically, and if I find the cache without needing any info from CacheMate, then my PDA stays in my pocket. HOWEVER, that means I have to go in and tell GSAK which caches I found, one by one. If cachemate can tell GSAK which ones i found, then that would make it worth updating as I go. The additional information would be kind of fun to have too. bd

I have been reading this thread for a couple hours today at work...and am excited to get home and try some of this stuff on my own GSAK. Thanks for the tips! One thing I am wondering about...is there a way, or might there soon BE a way, to make the updating an automatic feature? What I mean, is presently, I go in and click the button, and it searches thru my e-mail and imports anything that is there. Might there be a way to set this to happen at a certain time of day, say, 4 a.m. when I am sleeping, so it's just always updated, and I never have the queries in my e-mail? ( I set GSAK to delete them after they are imported) It's not like it's a hassle to click the button, what I really am after is not having to wait for it to import the files, since I like to get home, update my PDA and head out after work or whatever. It presently takes a few minutes to run, and then I have to load the files into my PDA and GPS, so any time i could save would be great. And thanks Clyde for a wonderful program! bunkerdave

I was about 245 when i started caching 4 years ago...then i dropped to 212. Now I am up around 260, give or take, but this is the healthiest i have been since college. I think the weight thing has more to do with getting divorced and my own cooking, and then learning to cook a little, than the exercise I have been getting. Also, since I am very tall, 6'9" to be precise, the heavier weight is actually more healthy for me than the lower weight was. (Yah, tell that to my KNEES!) So anyway, there's my stats - interesting to see so many on the Jeremy Irish Diet...seems to be very effective.

I hear you, but by your logic, no one should ever drive off-road because some people are irresponsible. Thank you for yanking my words out of context. Getting back to the POINT: Cemeteries are places of emotion. Many people, I would daresay the majority, have strong feelings regarding these and other places of memorial. It behooves everyone, not just cachers, to treat such places with respect, out of respect for the people interred therein, but also out of respect for their loved ones. After all, cemeteries, funerals, headstones, what-have-you are not for the dead, they are for the living. All I am saying is that as ambassadors for geocaching (which every one of us is, like it or not) we do ourselves a disservice when we choose to enjoy our sport in a manner which MIGHT cast it in unfavorable light. Why take the risk? SUPPOSE the director of the BLM were to learn that there was a geocache hidden in a cemetery where a deceased loved one is buried. And suppose that this director felt that was inappropriate. Do you think that when a policy regarding geocaching crossed her desk, she would be more or less likely to look favorably on geocaching as an acceptable use of public lands? The parallel with off-roading is this: The vast majority of OHV users are responsible users. They stay on marked trails, and obey all laws and regulations govering their activity. Every once in a while, someone decides that the trails and roads are not exciting or challenging enough, or whatever, and they choose to deviate from those prescribed routes. This upsets other users, and the agency concerned is forced to take action. Thise usually results in MORE restriction on ALL OHV users, never LESS. And the crappy thing is, that those who are most hurt by it are those who keep the rules. The ones who break the rules will most likely just go right on breaking them, and making it progressively harder and harder for other enthusiasts to enjoy OHV use, as the remaining trails become more crowded and farther apart. I think you can pretty well substitute "cachers" for "ohv users" in this statement, and "lands" for "trails and routes," and see the issue at hand.

Geocaching is a predominantly white sport because there are more white geeks than black geeks. Other than Steve Urkel and Lamar Blackman,(from the old Air Jordan Commercials) name one geeky black guy...I dare you. Not sure why the asian population isn't into it yet. Have to do some research. Most geocachers I know, myself included, are just a pocket protector and a slide rule waiting to happen. What you have to wonder is why are white, middle class, 30-50 year old males so driven to go out and buy gadgets FIRST, and THEN figure out what they are good for? (written with tongue firmly pressed against cheek)

The only problem I see here is that there are as many positions and opinions on a topic like this as there are people on the planet. I am a pretty open-minded guy, and even I can see where a lot of people would have a real issue with a cache being hidden in a cemetery. For that reason alone, I would not do it. There are just a lot of other, better places to do it. If someone is going to do it, at least place it away from graves so that those who decide to hunt it don't run the risk of appearing disrespectful to others. Geocaching is getting well-known enough that many folks know what we are doing as we wander around with GPS in hand. Ultimately, the deciding factor should be "how is this going to reflect on caching as a whole?" We are all ambassadors for the sport, with every person we talk to who knows what we are doing. This is true, whether you like it or not. We should take a lesson from the off-road vehicle users who are finding their playgrounds closed and shrinking because a minority of their number can't seem to respect the rules and other people. We certainly don't want to suffer the same fate.

Anyone who has taken children on a trip in a car can appreciate this.... My girlfriend and I have taken her kids on at least two trips of three hours driving or more since we started dating...not once has the time passed without a great deal of stress, as the three kids sit across the back seat and touch, kick, breathe on, look at, be near, NOT look at, and otherwise annoy the hell out of each other pretty much the entire time. Mom is at her wit's end...and I sit there with my XM radio cranked up as loud as it will go, headphones jammed in all the way to my brain stem...... enter: geocaching Took them on what was going to be a quick cache hunt a couple weeks ago...no one wanted to go, guess it sounded boring...so i bribed them with a SoBe beverage if they went and behaved, and off we went. First cache was a micro, hidden in an electrical switch box and affixed to the side of a building on the college campus...the kids LOVED it....next question: "Can we do ANOTHER one?" "ok" Ten caches later, kids are exhausted, can hardly keep up anymore, and no one has eaten or peed in 4 hours, and no complaints. Kids sit in the back seat between cache hunts playing with whatever piece of swag they traded for in the last cache, then trade it for another one when/if they get bored with that one. Kids take turns navigating to each cache, and handle the rotation on their own. I enjoy pointing out birds and scenery, mom enjoys the kids not fighting for a change. Mom thinks I am a genius, we are planning trip to Disneyland...plotting caches every 50 miles or so...we just might make it without the headphones. Geocaching: Not just for fun....sometimes it's a matter of life or death.

My ex-wife used to complain about all the time I spent geocaching. Enough said. I suppose the fact that since I started caching I have taken up canoeing, hiking, backpacking, snowshoeing, skiing (downhill and cross-country) rock climbing and mountain biking all originally as a means to get to various caches, and then as life-enriching recreation in their own rights says more about my attraction to the sport than anything can. All those things that I never had thought of doing until i needed them to find a cache...it seems that necessity is truly the mother of invention. Or something like that.

I might have to do that...a 5k is what, three miles? A little pain in the name of love might be just what I need. What could be more romantic than a bunch of gatorade-swilling, sweaty singles? Hmm...sounds a bit like most of the dances I don't go to anymore....

I get an error on my Verizon Motorola V710. "System.formatException Invalid Length for a Base-64 char array Method: FromBase64String" That's what I get....any hints?

Lol..no, nothing to report there. We talked a bit after the initial meeting on the phone, and it turns out she had some real issues with the fact that I frequently go caching on SUNDAY. Welcome to Utah, I guess. Just a different brand of religion, if you ask me.

Caching seems to be getting around.... I went to a dance the other night at the suggestion of some friends who were going to be there...from out of town and whom I'd not seen in a year and a half. At the end of the dance one of them introduced me to a lady I'd not met, but whom I had been wanting to meet. Ok, maybe I'm a little cautious about that. Anyway, we talked for a while, and I ended up getting her number. The next day, I called her (to make sure the number was real) and she asked me if my license plate said something like "GPS HUNTER" or something...(it actually reads "GPS HUNT." I said it did and she told me about a guy she'd once met who took her geocaching but that he didn't really seem to know much about what he was doing. She asked me if I had ever done that and I told her "yeah, a time or two." (I have 588 finds, 25 hides) and asked her what she thought of it. She said it was pretty fun, although he seemed to get rather frustrated when they couldn't find it. Imagine! Anyway, I told her I had been doing it since not long after the whole thing started, and might be a little more experienced. Not sure if this is the start of one of these wonderful geo-romancing success stories some of you have shared, but maybe I can get a little of that karma you all seem to have found. At least I don't have to worry about selling it to her. bd

In July-August 2001 myself,BBnot2Busy, Hunt4Elk, Cachunuts, Dmower, Tslack2000. and UtahBill placed 8 caches around the state of Utah which together comprised the "Utah Megacache. " The game was that on each Friday afternoon for 8 weeks the coordinates were posted for each of these caches and the first person to log those caches and report to me with a code word from those caches was awarded points. Each cache had an item in it that had the code word stamped on it. The item you found was from the "Pilot Zeros"cache at 41d 00.000 N 113d 00.000 W. I don't know where you got it, but that is where it started out. This coin does not need to be tracked, as the game has been over for three years now. Interesting to see the items floating around out there tho.

Not quite right...the "geocaching screen" shows up anytime you set a GOTO for a waypoint that has the UNFOUND GEOCACHE icon attached to it. It doesn't matter how close you are, but you do have to have "off road" (as the crow flies) navigation activated. The alternative is the "follow road" navigation, but this only works if you have street navigation software enabled. The way I handle it is that I use the ROAD navigation until my GPS tells me I am "arriving at (cache)" I then hit MENU on the map screen and RECALCULATE. It pops up a window with two options: Off Road and Follow road. I select OFF ROAD and hit ENTER. Then if I go to the compass screen, it shows the arrow, and the three Geocaching fields at the bottom of the screen. From there it works like any old GPS as far as pointing you to the waypoint you have selected. The geocaching features are pretty slick. When you click FOUND from the compass screen, it automatically changes the icon of that cache to a FOUND GEOCACHE icon (a treasure chest with the lid open) and also enters that waypoint in the calendar for that day. Makes it very easy to track your finds on those 20-30 cache/day marathons.

After you click on the "Mapsource File Generator" icon at the top of the GSAK window, (or whatever it's called) you get a window that lets you determine which icons will show for each type of cache, or whatever. The lower right part of this window allows you to customize the waypoint name and the description fields however you like. Click on HELP and it will give you the codes for each bit of info you may wish to have in that field. I have mine set up to include the FULL name of the cache, the GCXXXX waypoint name, (for easier searching in CacheMate) and the type of container, as well as the cache type. You can also set it to show terrain/difficulty ratings, which I have used in the past. I use the "smart name" for the waypoint name screen...I tried using the GCXXXX code, but I find the smart name conveys more information at a glance. Regarding the up load via mapsource...I recommend generating the MPS file and using your USB to load them. Besides being FASTER, it allows you to see all the caches in the file on a map. You gotta love that USB connection, esp when you are cramming 1000 cahes into a GPS. I think mine takes about 8 seconds. Sick, sick sick. Let me take this opportunity to also say how much I LOVE this program. It is incredible to me the amount of work that must have gone into this. Knowing now what I do, I would gladly pay for this software. I can't believe how easy it is now to manage the waypoints. I get a new ZIP file from GC.com query generator each day, and if there are any new caches in my entire state, I know about them. Each week I get an updated ZIP of ALL the caches in my state, so that if any go archived or inactive, I know about that too. I can search by virtually ANY criteria I wish, and set it up so that my GPS holds any information I want. After a cache hunt, I just check the ones I have found, and everything else is automatic. It also makes my PDA files unbelievably easy to maintain. I have over 3000 caches in my PDA right now, and with the expandable memory, I can hold much more. Sure has come a long way since I used to copy and paste each new cache page into my Memo Pad, as well as copying and pasting each set of coordinates into Mapsend. I can now load 1000 caches at a time right into my 60CS, and it takes just moments to update it. This is the best waypoint manager I have seen, bar none, and I just would love to shake the hand of the person who was good enough to put it together. Thanks heaps! People like you are what makes this sport so great.

I have had my fill of rattlesnakes this year. Three so far....one just today. Seems every one of them sounds different. I wish they'd all get on the same key so I know one when I hear one.

Well, here in Utah, the land that never wakes, and goes to bed at 10pm, there isn't much open usually by the time I get done caching. Wendy's is open till 2, so they usually win by default. Salads there aren't bad, either.

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Truth is, most of the stuff I find in caches isn't even worth my cheapest sig item. I'll save it for the GOOD swag, Thank you very much. Gripes: -Business Cards...I DON"T CARE WHERE YOU WORK! -Money...you wanna shop? Go to a MALL! -Vacant lot caches...this is neither interesting, nor is it (usually) public property. -Coordinates more than 90 feet off....really people, it THAT hard to take an average? Ok...that's enough for now....I am sure these have all been covered already anyway...

You know, it occurs to me that I did hear about some kind of glut on virtual caches in the last year or so. I guess there are some things I missed. That said, it looks like this has been taken care of. I withdraw previous inflammatory post. Cache on.

There must always be some direct communication from the admin(s) to the cache owner prior to archiving ANY cache unilaterally. This is simply common courtesy. I am not saying this did not take place, although given the tone of Team 360's original post here, I suspect it did not. Additionally, communications should include a request for rectification any issues, and adequate time should be allowed for implementation. I am also not saying this did not take place; it appears it did not. *ONLY* after the contacts/requests from the Admin are ignored and/or rejected, should action be taken to archive the cache unilaterally. I myself was virtually inactive from caching for nearly a year and a half, and one of my own caches fell into serious disrepair. I eventually got around to archiving it at the suggestion of a local cacher, but there was no attempt by local admin to take matters into their own hands and do it FOR me. We are fortunate, I feel, to have at least one admin in our area who understands what decency and courtesy are truly all about. And who understands that caching is really about the people who participate, not simply a few servers and guidelines to be pounded upon and enforced. As for "reasonable" frequency of visits, I would be very interested to hear what would determine this. I have caches that are logged almost daily, as well as some that get visited once a year, if I am lucky, and someone gets really ambitious. Am I required to hike to 12,000 feet every year to check that my cache is still ok? Is it enough for me to contact the most recent finder and ask how it looked? In the situation at hand, it seems to me that it would have been entirely appropriate for this cache to be changed from a traditional to a virtual (I was of the impression that it WAS a virtual) until a logbook could be placed at the site. I am not interested in indicting anyone of anything, but to me, I have a hard time believing that anyone who went to as much trouble as it appears was taken to place this cache in the first place would simply ignore contacts regarding his cache. If, in fact, no effort was made by the admin to rectify the issues prior to archival, then let me be the Nth person to say, "SHAME ON YOU." I would be every bit as incensed as Team 360 appears to be. Let me add my name to the already lengthy list of petitioners for a swift and solid solution to this apparent debacle.

I guess the fact that my GPS(s) are always perched in their cradles on my dashboard makes them something of an unavoidable topic of conversation. It's kind of like having a ring in your nose and expecting people to NOT mention it. The fact is, GPS, gadgets, geocaching, etc...is my passion...so the way I figure it, if a woman doesn't understand the appeal of all that, then she certainly won't understand me. As I mention in my profile, I got a globe and a world atlas for Christmas when I was 6. The tops of all the mountains on the globe are worn off, and the atlas has no cover...but I still have both of them. They are both severely outdated, but they are two of my most cherished posessions. My three and a half year old daughter comes to my house (I am divorced and she lives with her mom most of the time) and grabs one of my many globes and loves looking at them. Of course, few things could please me more. I have not met too many women who actually seemed to think caching was strange..then again, I am not dating any of those I have told about it, either...so who knows? Seems like all the ladies I know who are outdoorsy at all (an absolute requirement for me, as with any cacher-guy, I am sure) see the appeal of using GPS to explore new places. Plus, it shows that I know how to ask for directions. I just ask a little box on my dash instead of stopping at the nearest gas station.