ghost640

Thanks for the tip - I'll head over there. I noticed the Groundspeak forum was kind of quiet...

Hi - I have a favor to ask of you New Zealanders! I'll be going to a meeting in Napier starting November 6 and hope to get in a fair amount of geocaching. I'm wondering if someone could post of some of the 'must-do' caches in the area, in terms of great places to see, as well as ones that are easy to get to. I'l be hiking from the War Memorial Conference center or by public transit., maybe even rent a bike if that's possible. Any advice is appreciated! I have a few days after the meeting and might rent a car to get out a bit farther - where are cool places to go within an hour or two of Napier? Cool places with lots of caches are even better! And where do all the elves live? (sorry, you probably get a lot of that...) I also hope to surprise a lot of travel bug owners, picked up 5-6 to drop over there. Many thanks! Ghost640

Hotsync does work with Vista (given a bit of fiddling - I had to upgrade Pocketmirror). But the problem with Cachemate is that Palm's QuickInstall program does not work under Vista, and Quickinstall is used to write the Cachemate database file to the Palm. I figured out an alternate way to do this, it works if you had a Palm with an SD card (I posted this elsewhere, but it's relevant here). Here are the steps: Create a PDB file with GSAK (or whatever program you use) Insert your Palm's SD card into the PC's card reader so its recognized as a drive Create a directory called /CacheMate Copy the PDB file to /Cachemate Insert SD card back into your Palm Next time you boot up the Palm, it will scan the card and import caches from all the PDB files in that directory. THis works, I'm really happy to have an update cache file on my Palm again!

That will work, but wait till they come out with Vista support!

I can tell you what I do know, which may or may not help your problem. Hotsync works fine under Vista (with fiddlling) - the problem is that the Palm QuickInstall program will not run under Vista. My problem was that I had Cachemate on my Palm, but could not add new PDB files. I figured out how to do this today: Solution: Simple in retrospect (after killing the morning on this). Create PDB file with GSAK Insert SD card into the PC's card reader Create a directory called /CacheMate Copy PDB file to /Cachemate Next time you boot up the Palm, it will scan the card and import caches from all the PDB files in that directory. So that solved that problem. My advise to you, BeerBrewer, is to find someone with a non-Vista PC (hopefully that also uses a Palm) and use their Quickinstall to install Cachemate. I know that's lousy advice, except that it should work, and be a one-time deal (with luck). After that, you can use the SD card trick above to get caches onto your Palm. Good luck! Ghost

There are a couple workaround posted on the Palm site - one is to copy the PDB to an SD card and move it into Palm's memory. I'll try this & report back, would love to have cachemate working again.

Maybe, but if I were caching from N to S along the west side of Marlette Lake, I'd sure as heck want to know that I'd have to wade across 2 or three potentially large streams! In fact, Mapsend missed the reservoir. Also, I'm guessing the additional contour lines are interpolated - I'd prefer the additional info layers on the Garmin (plus, the upper map is easier on my old eyes...)

I don't do it, but I know geocachers who load the cache data as a waypoint, then append a letter to the waypoint name and load it again as a POI. The POI note field is pretty large (considerably larger than the waypoint note field, but I forget the exact size) so it will fit most clues easily, along with some other cache info. They use GSAK to select what goes in the POI. So each cache will be in the unit twice. As a waypoint (GC12345) and as a POI (GC12345A) with the wapoint containing the usual (Cache name, owner) and the POI holding the hint, terrain and difficulty. Great, thanks for the tip! Half the time I forget the PDA, and get stuck relying on skill (hence, DNFs).

That was once the case, but now (at least with Garmin) moving up does improve your reception. The older eTrex units (yellow, Vista and Legend) get fine reception when used properly. The problem is that many people do not do that. Anyway, when you move up a notch to the newer CX eTrex units, reception is significantly improved over the older Garmins. Step up another notch to the 60CSX and 76CSX and there is a MAJOR improvement in signal quality. I'm sitting at my kitchen table right now with an older Vista and a Map 60CSX. The Vista has no signal lock. Not one bar. The 60CSX right next to it has 8 solid sats locked in. Yes indeed. You can do similar things with the Garmin 60CSX and 76CSX. As for the original post, I would recommend you to get a mapping unit so you have maps right in front of you. Using a unit like the previously mentioned eXplorist or a Garmin 60CSX and the POI loader, you can load the hints and other cache data, making the PDA nearly obsolete. Hey wait, how to you load hints and other cache data into the 60csx You got my interest now - I have the 76csx (which probably allows this as well), but have been using a Palm & Cachemate for the descriptions. Thanks! And what are the coords for the one in Brian's kitchen - I'd like to get that on my list!

I set out my 2nd cache a couple weeks ago, and made it a music puzzle, thinking I was doing something new - should have known better! Anyway, you musical types might enjoy this one - actually knowing TOO much about music will probably slow you down on this one (designed for old-timey musicians...) Independence Hall Have fun, then stop by and pick it up next time you're in northern Minnesota!

I installed the 2.90 update last night (after finding this thread earlier in the day - thanks!). Installation was seamless, the updated software version read 0.21 before rebooting and 2.90 afterwards. My ephemeris data collection under dynamics seems much improved! (Actually, I don't have any idea how much better my ephemeris is, but the unit worked fine when tracking a cache this AM, no harm, no foul, and it's good to know the firmware is up to date...)

Poison ivy is an antibody-antigen reaction, meaning that you don't react to poison ivy on your first exposures, but your body starts building up antibodies to it. The rash is actually a reaction between your antibodies and the active ingredient in PI (Urishiol). A strong oxidizing compound will denature the oils - I've used a 50:50 bleach water solution, just until your skin gets slippery, then rinse it off (not the greatest thing for your skin, but it beats the rash!). I bet Dawn would work well too, I use it for stripping the wax off my car, it's also good for killing off army worms. Useful stuff!

Tires. A set of Michelin Cross-Terrains, in good shape, would be perfect for a northern Minnesota cache.

I think the Cheeseheads are right - it takes a lot more pixels to make those larger fonts, and each pixel takes up some memory, so it makes sense that the smaller fonts are more efficient. Also the Serif fonts and the more complicated ones also take up more space - I always save everything in Arial, so I can fit more on my USB drive. Of course, those large drives are pretty cheap now, so maybe it doesn't matter as much anymore.

In the box storage is 128 Mb! Plugging in 15 caches is no problem, good way to get to know your GPS...

I'm a week into mine, it oriented itself after about 10 minutes no trouble. I found it to be pretty intuitive (of course, I upgraded from the 76s...) For car travel, plug your power inverter into your car's adapter, your laptop into the inverter, and the USB into the laptop - you're good to go!

Wow, I guess we're proving there's all kinds of people out there! I usually go geocaching with my labradoodle, she loves it, chases the odd critter, gets burrs, usually ignores my cache finds, but otherwise has a great time doing dog things. I've noticed on this web site that there are some extensive threads of people posting pictures of their 'geodogs', so I think the intersection of geocachers and dog people is a large one. I'm relatively new to the whole thing, but geocachers no doubt have the same cross section of jerks to good people as society at large. I bet your hound is glad to have you!

On my local NF less than 25% of the total land area has ever had a harvest entry, and less than 1% was a clearcut (too bad, the forest would be healthier with a few more well placed and well designed clearcuts, but politics trumps science). And this forest has historically been one of the largest timber producers. In the midwest the timber rotation is about 1%/yr, so forests are cut on about a 100 yr cycle -consequently mosts forest are aspen. Most of these (>85%) are still clearcut, although folks are getting smarter about how to design cuts (moving away from 40 ac dispersed squares). This places most forests are kept in a relatively young state (as forests go) - and while caching in clearcuts to 60 yr olds stands is OK (at least they are still forested!), it's pretty neat to get into true old growth hardwoods or pines once in a while - but those things are the exception rather than the rule, and rare in our landscape. Here the science says it's good to have representations of all stages of forest growth and types, but yes, politics does play its heavy hand as well.

Thanks Red90! I probably would not even have looked for that option... another portable drive! This is a great forum.

Yes, except you can take the microSD out and say "Look how small this card is!"

I just got a 76CSx last weekend, I used the CD to install the USB driver, and use GSAK as a waypoint manager. You can get stream and lake names from the Mapsource Topo product - worth the investment since it covers the whole country. Punctuation is your friend!

This is true - I just went from a regular member to a premium this past weekend ( well worth it, if only for those pocket queries), but as a regular member, just check the boxes for the caches you're interested in, and it will write them all to an *.loc file, which you can import into GSAK. I noticed the check marks are not "sticky" when you change pages, so you might have to do a couple uploads to get all the ones you want.

Too bad the forest service doesn't administrate National Parks. Heck I'm all for that. Keep in mind that National Forests are working forests - they are open to harvest, meaning your cache will likely someday end up in a clearcut. It's good to have a few places (Natl' Parks) where the forests are maintained under (relatively) natural conditions.

Thanks - yes, I learned that lesson the first time I tried to add one last map to a previous set! At least that's not as much of an issue with the faster connection, but its still pretty high on the list of 'bad software design". I was surprised that the microSD doesn't simply show up as a disk drive, the Garmin OS must get in the way.

OK this is odd - I loaded TOPO, then the Metroguide. The topo disappeared, and it took awhile to figure out that the Metroguide hides the topos. The Show All command does not show all. So I'm assuming that the order in which layers are loaded determine which ones are visible? Given this it seems like they all have to be hidden, except for the one you're interested in. Am I right, or is there a way to display layers simultaneously? I can see why the topos 'cover' the screen, but the Metro layers are point or line data, don't see why they can't overlay the topos.