maleki

I created a new query this AM and set it to run once then delete. It has been sent to me at least 4 times since 7 this morning. My 'normal' Friday queries have not been sent at all yet though.

I wish people would write longer, more informative logs, particularly on interesting or difficult caches, whether they are with a group, or not. I recently left a rather informative and detailed and from my standpoint truthful log at a particularly, dare I say lame, cache. I detailed my thoughts as to why I thought it was and the log was promptly deleted. The cache owner agreed that nothing was untruthful about my log but deleted it anyway. So much for 'detailed' logs for me. If owners can't take the bad with the good just sign me - TNLNSL!

Here's a couple favorites to check out unless of course they too have already disappeared. I39 Underbelly Hell Fish Bonanza There used to be another great cache here at the Gorge but I believe it was already recently archived.

There were lots of great caches, some of our favorites, that apparently are no longer there. We always highly recommended the Rockford area - mostly because of the great caches outside of town in the great FP's. One actually had to get out of there car and walk a bit. We bought gas, patronized restaurants and grocery stores, bought some more gas etc. on every trip there. No more of our dollars to be spent at local businesses for the forseeable future. I'm sure the Chamber of Commerce will highly endorse the new WCFPD geocaching policy. Someone should let them know. Drive some people away instead of draw them to your area. I'm glad we spent a lot of quality days caching, some of our best, out that way before the year ended to log, I believe, just about all of the caches in the WCFPD locations. Too bad many other cachers will not be able to enjoy the same - and leave some dollars behind while in the area. Makes perfect sense to me.... not. Glad that Tishman is accepting the new policy and hiding a few(and paying for our pleasure) but I wonder if the quantity of caches will ever be replaced. Who knows though. I doubt that any $$$ generated from cache placement fees will even come close to the salary $$$ it cost to have a public employee out hunting caches for a few days. At least that person had a few enjoyable days out of the office at the taxpayers expense.

There are just certain times of day in certain areas that the satelites are not as high in the sky as other times. In the Chicago area here I seem to notice a 'window' of rather poor availability from very late AM to early PM. During those couple hours I usually get minimum sats. I usually take that into consideration now when caching around midday. There was an interesting program from Leica I think called Satellite Availability I believe. It was a bit difficult to use at first but if setup correctly and current data you could see in advance what the weaker and better times of day will be for sats. Occasionally if we had a problem with a cache or two back to back I'd run the program and it would usually correlate with a time of minimum sat availabilty for the day. Hi tech excuse making I guess. ************************* Heres the link Satellite Availabilty You need both the program and the current almanac.

I could not bring up my standard start page - all caches not found within 25 miles - all morning. Other basic searches - like by state also timed out. The 'My Account' page worked without prob all morning though. All of a sudden - a switch seems to have been flipped - all is well. This message left as info only and not left as a complaint cause I know things have changed recently. Anyway, thanks for flipping the switch - if that's what it was Things better as of right now. *************************************************************** Oh well, as quickly at things cleared they reverted back to their old ways. Ten minutes later - things seem to be not OK again. FYI again .

I didn't think it effected me(other that having FAR less caches to find) but I forgot about a new cache I placed just last week. I'll archive it if and when I receive notificaion so find it while you can.

Being from the same area I know you do cache a bit - i've signed the logs at caches right after you many times. One of these days I'm sure we'll cross paths. We all have our own way of doing things, software and hardware products we use, and the way we might like to see things done IF it were possible. Once again, perhaps I'm missing something, if anyone can tell me how to do a query for my last 7 days finds that would be simply wonderful for now. I'd love to do my last months finds(or period of my choice) even better but I'd settle for the last seven days for now. I'd just like to be able to use the data thats already there to eliminate extra busy work and have an easy way to update my finds. For now I just try to remember to manually tag caches found in my GSAK database. It works I guess, but some flexibilty in the query system as far as found caches goes will be a welcome addition someday.

I must be missing something. How do you easily maintain and update your new finds? I just d/l the gpx file for each cache after I log them. I then add them to my found gpx file that I keep on my comp. I actually divide my finds by year this way. So I have 1 found gpx file for 2003, 1 for 2004 and 1 for 2005. Yes, that would work but too many extra steps if you cache a lot compared to an occasional query of found caches. With a populated GSAK database I could easily pull out any year or date range that I wanted if I could easily keep the database current. I can go into GSAK and manually tag each cache I found during the day as found but I'd prefer to update it with an occasional(and small) download instead of my huge 5 queries for all of my 2222(almost) Found Caches. 1 step instead of MANY! I'd not spend the time to download a gpx for each individual cache. I actually tried that for a couple caches earlier today before realizing it was too annoying and time consuming. If everyone did them that way, one at a time, it probably would be quite a drain on GC system resources also - maybe not. It might be a possible work around for some though so thanks.

Use the Voice Recognition Data Entry button on the lower left side, or is it the right.

I must be missing something. How do you easily maintain and update your new finds? OK, so after MANY annoying PQs trying to patch together a Found database for GSAK I finally have something that is sort of complete. We have 2200+ finds and I'm still missing 50 or 60. Yes, I know it's probably because of archived, locationless, or whatever reason. I'm happy with what I have even though somewhat incomplete. I'm not gonna sit ther and page thru 2k + finds to fix it any time real soon and apparently an occasional one time query of ALL finds is not coming my way any time soon. My offer to pay a nominal amount for a one-time download still stands. Perhaps at least we can be mildly appeased by giving us some ability to at least PQ our recent finds or finds by date intstead of date placed. The ability to at least query for my last 500 finds, or found since xx/xx/xxxx, or found in the last month would at least allow me to update what I have easily. In lieu of a simple query like mentioned, I need to piece together, with 2200+ finds, 5 queries based on the date the caches were placed just to update anything found in the last month. I just need the 100 from the last month or so but I need to burden the system with 5 queries just to update the last months activity. Somethings wrong here. For awhile I was running th 5 queries weekly to update things but it got too annoying for both me and the GC system. Surely it can be done easier but perhaps I've missed something. If not I'll need to piece together my 5 'found by date placed' queries again which is another hour I could be out caching and a very unecessary drain on already sometimes overloaded system resources. Time to get off the soapbox again. I need time to get my 5 PQ's recreated.

They sold them for the same price in the Chicago area a couple months ago. I was going to buy 2 but they were 1 per customer.

Early releases of the recent Garmin products had there own set of probs and still do from the posts in these forums. Early adopters are just guinea pigs and gluttons for punishment. You get what you beg for. All so a few months down the line everyone else can purchase a polished(fixed) product for a lot less than you paid for it. Our backup GPSr, after our trusty(2k+finds) old Magellan MeriGreen, is a $ 60.00 Explorist 100. It outperforms the Merigreen for caching IMO and we have no connectivity problems at all other than occasional user I/O breakdown -lol.

It is puzzling to me why geocachers should be charged. But no fee for those that take their dogs to the FPs to take a c%&p so they don't have to clean it up.! No fees for the fisherman that LITTER the places up. No fees for those that go out to collect antler sheds No fees for those that use the sometimes maintained trails for running or biking. No fees for the others that use the parks that I've failed to mention. Please take no offense it your are a responsible member of any of the mentioned groups. What makes geocaching any different that it should be 'taxed'? I'd happily fork over some $$$ for a 'parking permit' that ALL users of park or forest preserve facilities would have to purchase. It would have to be a blanket kind of thing though. I'd not be willing to purchase permits for every state, county and local park or FP. It would provide more necessary revenue(while being an accounting nightmare) for the parks and FPs and might help keep out some of the irresponsible users who just go to hang out cause it is free. Oh well, enough soapbox time.

Do these units come with any other utility for just plain good old waypoint transfer to/from the device without using the memory card. I'm a big KISS principle fan. What if I'm out marking fishing or hunting spots, or whatever. Is there a utility to pull these of the unit and later send them back without going thru the memory card?

Yet? Has GSAK been reported to not be able to send to these units? That seems odd. More field testing obviously required. When I go to the GPS selection screen in GSAK it does not yet show support for USB when you choose Magellan. Clyde, the GSAK developer, is always very quick to provide updates so I'm sure it in the works if not already possible.

Sure, if you send waypoints over as "regular" waypoints into the MY POI folder, you can deal with them in the usual manner. They will not have the addtional information that the Geocache Manager affords, but at least you can delete them. Thanks Embra I'm just not seeing where the extra 'Geocache Manager' info would be all that helpful to me. It sure looks pretty though. Perhaps I'm missing something, I'll need to check one out more.

Is there any way to send waypoints to this other than the 'Geocache Manager?. I also would not like the idea of not being able to delete a waypoint as I go. We've been playing with an Explorist 100 and the manually entered waypoints are easily deleted. Anyone know if GSAK can send waypoints to the 400/500/600 yet?

Optional... - Translated - Lets give them what many really would prefer and charge some more $$$ for it. I can imagine what it will cost to get the official branded creation. Why not create a bit of positive 'buzz' and include the couple dollars worth of plastic and wire as a goodwill gesture.

From reading this and other thread(s) it appears the cable can be attached but not correctly instead of making it 'user' proof(the polite term). Seems like it will cause lots of headaches for Magellans support as well as leave a poor impression on thuse who spent several days wondering why it did not work out of the box. What a design flaw.

Wow, thats really nice. Could have used that this morning. Thanks for the tip Clyde.

On an Explorist 100, a field called Accuracy is available but unforunately not on the compass screen. Rather strange that the two fields are customizable but Accuracy or EPE is not one of the choices on the compass screen. Go figure. Accuracy is available on another screen so its a one button click to get back to the screen that shows accuracy and one press to get back to the compass. Its livable if you use it alot. For the $60 I paid for it, it's great.

Thanks - that took care of it. Very cool!

I fixed that (USAPhotoMaps can be opened multiple times if called from GSAK). On my webpage Doug Cox I had just noticed that, otherwise it a VERY nice update. Should we just download the program again or is there a patch? Great work!

Your letting rain stop you. Isn't the 500 waterproof? LOL!