ShutterBug98027

Thank you, Briansnat! Sorry about that, I didn't know where to put this one. I have an Explorist 100 that I think needs replacing. The rechargable batteries have been replaced, but there is something wrong with the screen, because it fades or goes blank at times. I can't find any loose connections or broken/corroded contacts on the screen.

I will try hard to make this NOT sound like I am in the confessional. It has been almost 6 years since I have even thought about geocaching. Life changes, injuries, illnesses and the rest have taken their toll on my time. I am getting out into the woods again, visited a couple of my favorite caches, and had a BLAST! Well you can take the geek away from the tech, but you can't get the tech away from the geek. With Christmas coming up, I would like to get a new GPS, so any advise would be welcome! I have an old Explorist, that I would like to retire. S Bug.

I remember paper hulls on shotgun loads. I remember when the plastic ones came out too. That was early 60's, I thought. Either that or my dad was shooting some vintage ammo.

When ever you are out caching, do not for any reason, ever, absolutly never, set the unit down. Finding that particular "Cache" was very difficult. It is amazing how that neutral gray of the E-500 blends in with everything.

I'm sure you have heard this one before. Is there any way that we could initiate a search "give me all the caches around X location further away than 5 miles but closer than 20 miles"? I think we have that type of search as a premium member. I was just hoping for an easier way to test a search.

How about a couple Micro Cache containers and a few TB's? (To my wife: This would be a great one for me too, hon!)

Merry Christmas! and welcome to the madness. If you go over to the Finding/Hiding geocaches part of the site. You will see that above the Forums. My first search was just to find out what was withing 10 mi of my house so I entered my zipcode and hit enter. The lights didn't dim, but there were a huge amount of caches to choose from. As far as down loading them, you can get them downloaded into a .LOC file by following the "Download" options from the result screen of your search. Hope this helps. The other place you might want to try is Geocache U. and the FAQ thread in this forum.

There is more to becoming a premium member than just downloading caches. Check out http://www.geocaching.com/subscribe/ Besides being able to automate your searches and have them delivered to your Email, you are supporting this website (please correct me if I am wrong). Being new to this whole thing as well, I wanted to support this site, because they have been very helpfull(patient) with my questions. I'm sure there are lots of people who can talk about the membership, I'm just discovering some of them myself. I figure $30 means in one year, I have to drink 10 less Hot Chocolates. Downloading: I use the pocket querries to load information into GSAK. GSAK=Geocaching Swiss Army Knife. From there I load the caches into my 500 and load them as waypoints into Mapsend. You could data enter that information into GSAK. I don't have that sort of patience, and would go crazy.

Eagle Scout 1971. Scouting helped me get my wife. Her parents wouldn't let her date anyone who didn't earn their Eagle Scout.

Hrmmm... I will have to look at the file system and see if it is stored as a file. If so, I don't see how backing it up to my hard drive will void any warrantees.

I am using a 512Mb card. Most of my files ae around 30-40Mb and load fairly fast on my 500. Whenever I am away from home, my lap top is with me, so now I guess I will load regions and waypoints (cache sites) and hunt for caches as well as good pics!

SA-WEEET!!! Grats on getting everything working! WOW! two GPSr's nice. Anyway, glad I could help.

You might want to play with smaller maps. and see how long they will take to load. Larger map = longer load times.

I am probably going to go over some real stupid things first, so please don't get upset. I am not trying to insult your intelligence, meerly displaying my own ignorance. Here comes some dumb questions: What size is your SD card? I am using a 512Mb. Keep the file sizes fairly small and the 500 will still load quickly. Is your SD card's write protect switch off? Did you securely seat the SD card? I was having nothing but problems with Magellan software until I installed it on my "C" drive. (I have two internal drive arrays and an external backup). Bless Magellan for hard coding paths in their programs... but I digress. When you install, take the defaults after making absolutly sure everything has been removed from your last install. It is possible to connect the USB cord upside down. It doesn't go together nicely and you have to really try to do it, but it can be done. First I started with my 500 face down with the 6 brass connector thingies pointing away from me (yes. "Thingie" is a technical term). Then secured the connection with the cable pointing in my direction. I never did see a diagram of this in any of the literature, but then I get really impatient with documentation. Then I plugged in the USB connector to my computer and switched on the X-500. I think it defaults to "Data send" or something like that. My computer recognized the 500 as another external drive or flash card. You should be good to go. I hope this helps.

Unfortunatly, we all are paying for it. It's kind of how insurance works. I'm just glad those rockets are unmaned. Did anyone notice one of the rocket motors didnt fire?

I just went through this. If you could see me, you would see the missing patches of hair where I was pulling it out. OK from Mapsend, Create and name the region. Select it. Go to your tool bar and click on regions Take the "Upload to GPS" option The dialog screen gives you several options. Select the one that says "Store on Hard Drive" Hit next and provide the serial number of your GPS unit, twice (very annoying) It will store the map on the hard drive of your computer. FROM YOUR PC Now open up the translator package that you installed from the disk that was shipped with the GPS unit. Plug in your GPS to the USB port on your computer Point the program to the new map file created above and start up the translator. THe file should appear on your 400, and you can view it either from the file explorer on your PC or activate it from your preferances on the GPS. For some strange reason, that nobody has been able to explain, the map files sometimes won't show up on the directory when viewed from the GPS. I hope this helps. If I have totaly confused you, not to worry... I was totaly confused myself last night until I figured it out. I am heading home right now, and I should be on in a couple hours (Seattle flooded roads and crazy drivers permitting)

I reinstalled it onto my "C" drive not the external hard drive array most of my software goes. After the installation, the program worked as advertised! Looks like when I get the time, I need to look at my system.ini file. The topo maps were "hiding" because the path was not defined (thanks Bill!). Problem solved. Thank you everyone!

I have had an Explorist for about a year now. It has always performed flawlessly. I just got into Geocaching, and I am trying to bend the 500 to my will and get it to cough up some info for me. Again, it performs. If I can get the wether to cooperate, I'm going to use my lunch time to bag a couple caches. My only complaint so far, is a reciently purchased Mapsend Topo map set for the USA. Getting it to display a topo map for me, is really hacking me off. So I get to try out their help desk and Customer Service, unless someone here knows the secret ( please reply to my post in GPS Hardware forum). More to say on that subject later.

I will try that again. (reinstalling) Then looking for the INI file and see what is in there. Unfortunatly I am at work right now and I would much rather work on this problem.

Yep. The tool bar is visible. but there is no option to activate the 3D function. I don't even have a topo map on the PC. On the status window on the right, where it lists the cut out regions you have selected, I see a check box for POI's but no check box for topographic views. What's really frustrating, is I am a manager for development and Tier 3 support in my company, and I have this stupid problem I cant solve :/

I'm thinking about hiding one in Seattle as well, but just to be on the safe side I called the city to find out. As stated before, Seattle is hugely dense with caches. I was joking with my wife about how Groundspeak should allow anyone with a Seattle area zip code, have at least a 3000 max cache report limit so we can list caches 5 miles from our home.

I was hoping someone out there has encountered this problem. I installed the program according to the instructions, and when I started it up, there isn't even a hint that it is a 3D map. I just get the flat map. The help files talk about some 3D button, but I don't even have that on the tool bar. I want to put the data into a Explorist 500, but I haven't been able to produce a map worth loading onto my GPSr, so I don't know if that function works. I am hoping that it is a simple "operator malfunction" and not something wrong with the program. Any help would be appreciated.

Trying to change the avatar.

Just to throw a monkey in the wrench, did you estimate 2174 from a linear projection of cache placements? Or did you asume an exponential curve of placements?

Hrm... I should ask my wife to add that in our criteria for house shopping... "Must have at least 6 caches within 1mi. The call of those near by caches would be too strong.... must.... find..... Seattle is offering up some of the most dangerous weather it can right now. Damp, light rain at 40 deg, slight breeze. Warm enough to make you think you are safe, and cold enough to get you into real trouble. In this weather, I plan to bag the urban caches close by and try to find a couple USGS markers. We already have a little snow in the passes, so i'm limiting myself to the lower elevations.