BuxCamper

My neighbor and I went to a ham radio conference a couple of weeks ago near the Jersey shore (we live near Philadelphia). He was sure he knew the way (and I'm not familiar with that area so I took his word on it) but his wife's car's GPS kept telling us to turn. I thought it was always trying to bring us back to the original route. No it was smarter than us. We ended up an hour off course! Once we followed its instructions, it got us to the place. Moral; look at what its telling you and CHECK THE ETA AND DISTANCE.

Picked up an 8 pack of Matchbox/Hot Wheels sized cars at the dollar store. So 12.5 cents per drop. My son also donated a bunch of little things from his room. Most of the time I've TNLNSL but when my son is with me he always wants to trade. The last one I spotted something I wanted to trade for.

A new program is GeoBuddy. Its expensive after 90 days but the author (same as EasyGPS) recently ran a $30 special which I hope he repeats so others can grab it, I did. You can configure to load the GPSr with the GC or friendly name. It can get terraServer & topo maps of the cache area, directly access the web plus a whole lot more. Palm and PocketPC support is coming. I also used EasyGPS and did not have a problem with cache names. There is probably a setting for which to use but I'd have to pole around it again to find it. GeoBuddy asks you when you start it the first time. Thereafter the dialog box to change it is a bit buried but you can if you want. So far I'm happy with GeoBuddy.

Please note that I am NOT going to explain to shift supervisor why the car has to be towed out of the mud or a branch punched a hole in the radiator! Probably is better if I move away from the scene anyway lest I accidently damage some evidence.

In another thread I commented that I have considered the possibility of finding something that requires police intervention. I wonder how many LEOs carry a GPSr at least in the patrol vehicle? Would make it easier to give my coordinates to 911 and wait until the police arrived rather than trek back to a trail head and then lead them back. Stupid me would probably forget to mark the location for a return journey.

"Excuse me Joe, could you remove my pacemaker before we go in? Here's a rusty pocket knife, cut right here." At least MAS offered a clarification. I don't know who would have authority to enforce any ordinances/rules on that area. But I hope they have the same understanding.

OK this is what I get for trying to do too many things at the same time (ham radio contest and geocaching "paper work"). It seems my PQ zip contains two files. One is the cache info and the other is the cache info plus extra waypoints like parking. I opened the wrong one and all that would ocnvert was the extra waypoints. Both the file converter, EasyGPS and GeoBuddy would count the caches (and if it could show the info) but in that file, only the extra waypoints really counted. All sorted out now and the data is in the Palm. So in the end, yep, I did something stupid.

Well I probably did something stupid. I deleted all of the caches in my Palm's CacheMate database with the intent of importing all from my latest PQ. However, when I loaded the PQ in CacheMate's file conversion program it indicated it read 250 (the size of the PQ) but only found 41 unique. And that's all that it shows me and gives me the chance to export as a PDB to the Palm. If the conversion program is keeping track of what it already converted I can't find it on the PC. I don't think its the backup PDB file since I've deleted it and the one on the Palm several times. How do I get it to put the entire PQ into CacheMate? Note, I have not installed GSAK but if that's the route I have to go, so be it.

The one who can walk right up to a cache without a GPS and no prior knowledge of its location other than reading the web page for it.

Now that's a deal! THANKS!

Let me give a second vote for the Garmin Venture Cx Very good unit. If you have a digital camera you probably have a USB cable that will fit it. I'll also vote for the bright yellow color, however I also use the included neck strap and hang it on my neck instead of putting it down.

Due to geocaching I've now been delving deeper into the various parks around me. The thought of coming across a body has crossed my mind. Being that I'm in surburban Philadelphia, carrying a cell phone is an option as I can get a signal almost anywhere.

I didn't even think about a watch. I usually wear a cruddy old DIGITAL watch. Its an electronic device! Time for a sundial. Now if a small plane goes down in Baxter SP and the pilot or passengers have the ability, do they have to turn off the Emergency Locator Transmitter? This is so vague on so many levels.

Oh no, here comes lunch.... ROLF

In a couple of threads including a recent one about repairing a cache for an AWOL owner it has been mentioned that the area has a posted sign indicating electronics are not permitted. What the heck does this mean? Does it mean somebody with a hearing aid, pacemaker, insulin pump not to mention consumer electronics like GPSr's cannot enjoy the area? OK, I probably wouldn't like to hear a cell phone ring from the middle of the woods but I can think of a lot of things that can be done to damage the area and a cell phone ringing or navigating with my GPS are not on the list.

Disregarding MAS for a momment... I feel if you want to replace the container and recycle/clean as much of the contents as practical, go right ahead. And if you choose to log or not that you did is up to you. I would save the container and as much of whatever didn't go back in as you could (camera sounds like it should hit the trash) in case the original owner wants the stuff back. I wouldn't save anything that would become a storage problem esspecially if it starts to get moldy.

I just got a card in the mail telling me the UPC I sent for my Garmin Venture Cx is invalid. The phone help says to send the number to their resubmissions department but there is a big hole in the box where that number was! And the web site is down. I think I made a copy of everything but it is at work. Does anybody have the UPC number for a Garmin eTrex Venture Cx that they could post here or send me? Thanks in advance.

Checking the datum is the fastest thing to do, it needs to be WGS84.

"North American (insert continent of choice) Geodetic Survey." "We're measuring continental drift and I'm trying to find a marker that was placed here last year." Handy to have your paper or paperless notes with you. Many years ago I was trout fishing at a state park. There was a small waterfall posted as no fishing there. I stopped for a momment to look at it and let a friend catch up. The care taker (not a warden or ranger) who was known as being a cantankerous busy body came running up to yell no fishing allowed here. I told him I was just looking and that wasn't prohibited by the sign. Never mind my fly rod was resting on my shoulder the whole time. He was more inclined to yell than observe the situation and react accrdingly. Certain people should not be given any level of responsibility!

I stand by my parking ticket link. When the NYPD looked at parking tickets it gave them a lead, others followed and eventually the whole picture. Did the ticket solve crimes, directly no. But it started a chain of events the details of which - I admit - I forget. A license plate, maybe a picture and description of what's been happening may jog some investigator's memory leading him/her to take a closer look at the in-duh-vidual. Getting caught muggling doesn't solve something else but starts things rolling.

No, or at least I doubt they would invest a lot of time/effort into investigating it. But if you filled a complaint with the police along with a record of all the caches he allegedly muggled and with pictures of him and his car/truck, I would hope that they would at the very least go and talk to the guy. That alone might be enough to discourage the action. Even if you add up an average cache value of $10 each and you break that magic felony number with the total, the authorities probably won't bother. However, it may trigger a link to another more serious investigation that has been profiled and this kind of action fits the profile. Its possible these acts of selfishness and stupidity could be the break law enforcement has been looking for. Stranger things have happened. Son of Sam was done in by a parking ticket. A cacher whose in law enforcement may be the best way to look deeper into things.

Are you suggesting Signal had something to do with this? Maybe that's why he has the antenna sticking out of his head! He has become one with the GPS satellite.

A friend works for Lockheed-Martin whose GPS satellite ended up as toast in that explosion. They have a piece of debri with the perfect imprint of the frog it smashed into. Its in their most valuable archieves and he couldn't sign it out to show to our radio club.

Take the matches out of the book and just leave the imprinted cover. Still personalized, but no longer directly flammable. You could restaple the bottom portion so it looks like a regular match book.

I participated in a wooded area clean up that had a flood roll through (not a geocache or CITO event). We got the bucket from a cherry picker out, however the dumpster at 350 pounds tare weight and full of dirt is still there.