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ALPINE-X

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Posts posted by ALPINE-X

  1. Congratulations on your purchase of a GPSr. You now have no excuse for getting lost....

     

    I have an older Garmin Emap, but you are on the right track with locking onto roads. When in the car (and not off-roading) I set it to lock to roads, as this will keep you on the most likely road you are traveling on, even if the accuracy of your location is off by a little bit.

    Once out of the car (or off-roading) I turn lock to roads off, as it will cause your location to jump around if there are any roads in the area you are walking in.

    Also, get used to checking your position accuracy when getting close to a cache location. If your accuracy is more than normal (20 feet), try walking to and from the cache location a few times from different directions, as this will often give you a better position. An alternate way is to use the 'averaging' feature of your unit ( I assume it has this, check your manual) . Another trick is to try rotating your GPSr around slowly to allow it to pick up different satalite signals (the more you have, the better your accuracy). My unit shows which satelites it's picking up and how strong the signal from each is.

    Happy Caching.....

  2. best buy carries a few GPS units in stock. if you are looking for a deal, you can probably find an opened package model for cheap, since they seem to come back to the store a lot. I got mine that way because I didn't have that much money to spend on one.

     

    walmart has a few different models, and walmart.com has a larger variety at good prices.

     

    ebay has used and new units, but then..., it's ebay and everything bad that goes along with that.

     

    there is a forum here for buying used units, you are then dealing with an unknown seller though

     

    I agree with the above, I bought my Garmin Emap as an open box at BestBuy over 4 years ago for under $200 (about a 40% savings). It's performed flawlessly ever since, even though I've used it for off-roading extensively (re: lots of dirt, dust and vibration). This way I got a fully mapping GPSr for about the same price as a non-mapping system normally went for.

     

    One other thought:, Figure out what level of GPSr you think you need at this point, then buy a unit several levels up. This will keep you from having to upgrade anytime in the near future as you will undoubtably find yourself looking for more advanced features once you get into caching.

  3. Funny you should ask, I've thought about this myself. My older brother was a sniper in the army. When he got out he bought an upper gillie suit (just covers the head and chest), as I guess he missed his old sniping days. We would go out in the woods by our family cabin in Mt. Laguna, CA and he would hide and I would try to find him. With no movement and the suit on he would simply disappear into the surroundings.

    Anyways, I did a quick word search and found a couple of forum topics on qillie suits:'

     

    look here

     

    or here

  4. Playing around with Google Earth and discovered the 'measure' feature under the tools toolbar.

    This is really helful when figuring out the shortest route to a cache, or adding notes to a cache page about distances to a cache.

    Just thought this might be useful, as it's a lot quicker than trying to measure distance using the GPSr at home.

    The below image shows the measuring line (white line) from the cache to a possible parking location, not shown is a pop up window that shows you the distance.

    ecde0681.jpg

  5. For those of you who've never visited Sidney Nebraska in winter, I was sent to inspect the installation of a gas pipeline pumping station we were installing just across the border in Colorado. If it hadn't been for Cabelas next to our hotel, I would have gone mad.....(thank you Cabelas for letting me browse your superstore for 3 days while we waited for the weather to improve)

    Here's the best part of Sidney (Cabelas)...fdf53c87.jpg

     

    And here's the bad (the 1f was the current outside tempature...)

     

    fdf53c3c.jpg

     

    "That cache has got to be here somewhere!!!

    fdf53d2e.jpg

     

    Here's the link to my on-line album of my trip to Sidney...

    Sidney-Trip

  6. I'm working on placing my first cache and have the following questions:

     

    1) Has anybody ever added a couple of desicant bags (silica gel bags that absorb moisture). I know this won't help if the container gets really wet, but with just normal swetting of plastic (I'm using a medium sized 'lock n lock' container), I thought this might help keep things from getting damp.

     

    2) I'm thinking about adding a couple of AA battery 2 packs as swag. Is this considered safe for a cache? They do contain battery acid, but I wouldn't think this would be a real problem, unless one of them exploded, which seems fairly unlikely.

     

    3) I've wrapped my container in camo-tape, but was thinking about hot glueing some leaves, branches and dirt (taken from the area I'm placing it in) to really add some stealth to the container. I think it might be interesting to try to make the container look as 'natural' as possible and have it fairly out in the open, as opposed to trying to conceal it with a rock, or bushes. Has anybody had experience with creating or finding a cache camo'd this way? The cache will be located off of a hiking trail in an area with shrub brushes.

     

    Thanks for any input, as I'm trying to create a decent first cache, as opposed to throwing a sucrects tin under a light skirt :laughing:

  7. It's not that I'm anti-Jeep, it's just that I'm pro-Samurai :P

    ed3130f7.jpg

    But seriously, there are some people who view any motorized vehicle as 'the enemy', throw into the mix a vehicle that is not only designed to go off-road, but actually gets used that way on a regular basis,

     

    Around here, groups/people get pretty(very) upset about people driving in rivers, wetlands, etc- Anti off road advocates use pictures such as this to support the claim all we do is "ruin the environment"

    Snorkles are frowned upon too, since with your hood underwater, you're obviously "harming the environment"

    Groups such as mrr browse the internet, looking for ammo to use against OHV users in MN.

     

    We almost lost access to all public lands recently. We are fighting to keep our access, but it isnt easy.

     

    As for the jeep TB, some MN cachers might be known as anti jeep. The first and second years contests- the circulation was bad, and was intenetionally derailed by many. They didnt participate this year.

     

    I sense its the promotional aspect, or the anti advertising/commercial aspect.

     

    I call 'em Buzz wreckers.....

     

    Oh, and 88UpDigger.jpg

     

    Ps- I know your not doing damage in the pic, but the point is- its still ammo for "them"

     

    32s? :unsure::blink:B) umm, no fender trimming and running 37s B) now, back on topic :P (its all good, i love to mess with jeepers)

     

    now, in that above pic of the samy he is on a road, the road goes through the river. we have lots of those kinds of crossings in the mountains. Normal stuff. Now, if you go off the trail and start making your own trials, thats bad. following a trail, you should be good. a lot of trails start off as logging roads also. and "ammo" for serria club Nazis is everywhere. Any offroading pic they have an issue with...

     

    Good eye Paranoid56, the Sami is on 3N16, a forest service road in the Big Bear area. The Crossing is Lower Holcomb creek. The ironic thing is, this photo was taken on the only section of this entire road that is paved (in order to keep if from washing away during the wet season) It would serve the Anti-Off-Road types right to use this as an example of how we "Off Roaders" are destroying the envirement, only to find out the vehicle is actually "On-Road"

    p.s. No fish were killed in the taking of the above photo.... :blink:

  8. While creating my first travel bug I noticed that the word 'goal' under the header 'Current GOAL' on a travel bugs home page is all capital letters. Is this on purpose?, does 'GOAL' stand for something like 'SCUBA', or was this just a typo?

    See my example below:

    :D

     

    AMERICAN-EXPEDITION

    Owner: ALPINE-X

    Released: Thursday, August 31, 2006

    Origin: California, United States

    Use TB121GC to reference this travel bug.

    How do Travel Bugs Work?

     

    Recently Spotted: In the hands of the owner.

     

    Current GOAL: My mission is to TRAVEL TO ALL 50 STATES

  9. I've always been an avid camper, hiker and off-roader, so naturally I've used a GPS for many years. I stumbled upon a cache once while off roading in the Anza Borrego desert in Southern California. I had heard about geocaching, so I went ahead and signed the log, and kept he idea of geocaching in the back of my mind.

    Recently my 3 year old son decided he wanted to go searching for burried treasure (pirates are big right now). My initial response was to tell him that there wasn't any buried treasure around our area, but then I remembered geocaching. I logged on and found out that there were three caches at our neigborhood park, the closest being 500 feet from our front door. Now were hooked, as my son and I try to search for a cache almost every day, as it gives us a good excuse to GET OFF THE COUCH and head for the woods!!

  10. Here is my list of items, all fit into a medium sized fanny pack. The Survival items all go into an inner small bag, as does the medical supplies

     

    PERMANENT SURVIVAL ITEMS

    COMPASS

    MIRROR

    PONCHO

    ZIP LOCK BAGS

    ZIP TIES

    SEWING (SUTURE) KIT

    TOILET PAPER

    BUG REPELLANT

    WHISTLE

    DUCT TAPE

    SURVIVAL MATCHES

    FIRE FLINT

    SHOE LACE

     

    BELT GEAR

    GPS (IN BELT POUCH)

    BATTERIES (IN BELT POUCH)

    MULTI-TOOL (IN BELT CASE)

    WATER BOTTLES (IN BELT POUCHES)

    WALKING STICK (NOT IN BAG)

    CAMERA

     

    PERMANENT MEDICAL SUPPLIES

    IODINE

    LARGE BANDAGES (6)

    ANTISEPTIC PREP-PADS (6)

    ANTIBIOTIC OINTMENT

    SCISSORS

    TYLENOL/IBUPROFEN/MAXALT

    GAUZE &TAPE

    KNIFE, SMALL CLEAN

    SUN BLOCK

    BAND-AIDS, SML,MED,LRG,

    NITRILE GLOVES

    STING RELIEF WIPE

    TWEEZERS/MAGNIFY GLASS

    MOLESKIN 2X3 (2)

    BUTTERFLY BANDAGE

    BASIC MEDICAL GUIDE

    THERMOMETER STRIP

     

    LOOSE GEAR (IN OUTSIDE POCKET)

    CHAP STICK

    NOTEBOOK

    PEN, PENCIL

    FLASHLIGHT, SPARE AAA BAT

    SWAG

    FOOD

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