CacheMule

I spoke to the reviewer about placing a cache near an active railroad line and he said the following... Hi, Thanks much for the e-mail and questions. The guidelines require a distance of 150' from any active railroad. I don't know who you were talking to, but NJ has no difference. That being said, if there is an "adequate physical barrier", which prevents geocachers from getting to the tracks, the cache may be considered. Each is examined on a case-by-case basis. An example of this would be an 8 foot tall cyclone type fence. A four foot, 3 horizontal rail wooden fence would not be acceptable. The best suggestion would be to submit photographs of the tracks, showing the barrier. This makes it much easier for reviewers to understand the location and complete review. Thanks. Hope this was helpful, -CM Volunteer Reviewer

Hi, I'm writing this message because I need to know how close a geocache can be placed to an active railroad line... Thanks, -CacheMule

What are some websites that include free basemaps for a Garmin 64s? Thanks! -CacheMule

I'm pretty sure you need to connect your Garmin 20 to the computer using the USB cable and downloading the .GPX files directly to your GPS under a cache description page. Then you can even use Pocket Queries to download large amounts of geocache waypoints to your GPS. Maybe someone can point you to a reference, I don't have that ability... thanks

I had a Dakota 10 which I used for geocaching for 1 1/2 years. They are extremely reliable although they do not connect to the GLONASS system, so they are not as accurate as some of the more expensive models. The touch screen is good, and it also includes waypoint averaging. The Dakota 20 also has built in Chirp detector. The compass indicator is a 2 axis compass which I found out quite recently is not as good as a 3 axis compass. But however the model works great, make sure you buy a screen protector to avoid scratches on the touch screen. I learned the hard way... It's too bad Garmin no longer makes the Dakota but you can probably get a good deal on them for this reason... -CacheMule

Hi, has anyone here experienced a problem with d/l'ing Birdseye image basemaps using the BaseCamp program? I've been trying for a few days and it keeps responding "Server is down..."! Thanks! -CacheMule

Hey thanks so much for your help. After a brief period of my GPS locking up it now is fully operational, and I am adding GPX files now, thanks!

Ok that sounds good. But where can I find a new .GGZ file, or do I just need to load new a new .GPX file with GSAK?

No, I'm on a Dell... Now that I deleted the .GGZ files if I look at the description for any of the preloaded geocaches or the "hint" page, the screen just goes blank. So by deleting the .ggz files it did delete some of the data, but not any of the preloaded geocache entries.

They are "GGZ" files in /GARMIN/GGZ. See if this helps: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=323430&view=findpost&p=5394402 I deleted the .GGZ files but it still lists the preloaded geocaches... I wonder why?

sorry for the double post...

I tried deleting the GPX files from the GPS from /garmin/gpx to no avail. It still lists all of the preloaded caches that came with the device. Does anyone have an experience with this or have tried to delete preloaded caches. Thanks for any help you can give me.

I tried deleting the GPX files from the GPS from /garmin/gpx to no avail. It still lists all of the preloaded caches that came with the device. Does anyone have an experience with this or have tried to delete preloaded caches. Thanks for any help you can give me.

To counter Roman!'s snarky comment : Here's why it is worth the effort of getting the best possible coordinates you can. Let's assume the coordinates you end up with has an error of ≤ 3 ft. Finder comes along. If his device has an error of ≤ 15 ft, worst case he'll be 18 ft away. Now, if your coordinates has an error of ≤ 15 ft, and his is similar, worst case he'll be 30 ft away. That Is so true. I'm thinking about getting better coordinates for all my hides now. lol. We've found five of your caches. The coords were acceptable on all of them (Well, the alley was a few feet off, but there was only one place to hide that...) Great thanks for the heads up ?

To counter Roman!'s snarky comment : Here's why it is worth the effort of getting the best possible coordinates you can. Let's assume the coordinates you end up with has an error of ≤ 3 ft. Finder comes along. If his device has an error of ≤ 15 ft, worst case he'll be 18 ft away. Now, if your coordinates has an error of ≤ 15 ft, and his is similar, worst case he'll be 30 ft away. That Is so true. I'm thinking about getting better coordinates for all my hides now. lol.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- It was not waste of time, I learned a lot from this thread. So thank you for the input. I also believe that there were lots of people who have received good information here as well. While I may know a fair bit of knowledge when it comes to finding a geocache I really was unsure as to how to obtain the most accurate coordinates, and as well did not know who in this thread I was correcting (big mistake). I was just trying to put in my two cents. Sorry. And thank you for the waypoint averaging information. cachemule - SORRY ABOUT THE QUOTATION I WAS ON MY MOBILE

big mistake on who I was correcting.

Which is precisely why it's important to make the effort to get the best coordinates we can I think what he mean is all GPS receivers or cellphones have a certain range of inaccuracy. So even if you have perfect coordinates a geocacher might not be able to find them right off the bat. I (with my garmin) seem to make most of my finds when I'm 14-20 feet away from the GZ, whether it's their inaccuracy or mine I'll never know, go figure :) . cachemule

Can you provide a picture of the glitter bomb and please explain what it's made of and how it works?

Hi, I've recently started getting into puzzles and so I would like to hear from everyone on what their all time favorite mystery was and why. CacheMule

Try downloading GSAK, it's a great program that makes putting a .GPX file on your GPS a breeze. You can open a .GPX file and then upload them to your GPS. The only drawback to the program is it is shareware but I think it's worth it.

When I was in Mexico (Riveria Maya), There was little to no GPS reception on my Garmin Dakota 10. I'm assuming this is because there is no WAAS there. I was lucky if I got 3 or 4 satellites. Also many of the GCs I located on a map where located in the center of these urban dwellings where you'd see groups of about 20 people standing around looking dangerous. I'd hate to do a urban geocache there, you must use ultra stealth! Good Luck. -CacheMule

[A waypoint is just that a point. Yes, the GPS remains in one place and takes repeated readings, which are then averaged. I'm not sure what you mean by measuring a straight line. If you want the distance, mark a waypoint and set the GPS to navigate to the waypoint. It will give you the distance to the waypoing which will increase or decrease depending on your direction of travel. The only reason I said a straight line is because a reviewer once showed me how to find a coordinate in an alleyway by taking 2 measurements at the beginning and the end of the alley. Then he explained to me how to mathematically average the two points on paper. Sorry if I confused you. Yeah, I think I'm going to use the averaging feature for this geocache.

I use a stamp only because I have terrible penmanship. You can get a self inking stamp at staples for like $20 and design it there on the spot. -CacheMule