maleki

Saw this one in a similiar thread once before: Erta Ale Volcano

Don't miss this one and make sure you park at the north coords for the best approach. Really enjoyed this one. Tigrett Trail

Check out Under Where This idea worked fine.

I'm going to preorder one of these I think for $ 129. Garmin Foretrex 101 It looks like a nice geocaching tool and about $ 500.00 cheaper.

Try CacheNav CacheNav It integrates with cachemate and adds a nav button to direct you to caches.

I have been using a Magellan GPS companion on my recyled(for caching) Visor. Been testing it out for caching and carrying it along with my regular GPSr the last couple weeks. Found our first caches using only it a few days ago. We were carrying the Visor anyway for cache listings so it makes a PERFECT add-on. First satellite 3d-Fix sometimes a bit longer than our Merigreen but once it locks it seems to track sats very well. The Visor uses Cachemate which allows us to store hundreds of cache listings on the old 8mb Visor. The accompanying CacheNav program does the navigation/sat info work. A great cheap combo for us. The Visor I have and the Magellan GPS companion both use AAA's so I use rechargeable NIMHs for those too.

Anybody have there hands on a Garmin Foretrex 201 yet. Garmin Foretrex 201 Looks like a must have geocaching tool. Just wondering how it's doing in real life situations. Also, it uses a rechargeable lithuim battery. Just wondering how easy it is to swap a battery - if possible. The Foretrex 101, due our soon uses AAA's. I think I'll wait to check it out. Garmin Foretrex 101

Having just completed a week road trip that included some caching in at least 8 different states, I too would like to see some way of occasionally doing a greater than 500 query. Any way to possibly let us download complete states occasionally, Maybe allow a premium member to download each complete state once a year. Or give us 10 or 15 complete state downloads during the year. For myself, I think it could result in fewer queries in the end as I would just need to update with new or changed caches since the last complete download if returning to an area. I know in preparing for my trip with a couple weeks of intense queries, I had to do many twice if I made an error in my initial request while trying to piece together state data. I had quite a map full of caches in the end, but still had some holes in the map for areas I somehow missed. Being able to download all of 8 states would have definitly made life easier and complete. And in the future I'd only need to download much smaller new and changed queries.

To somehow help make geocaching a bit more environmentaly and economically friendly I really like to see it REQUIRED that suggested parking coordinates be listed with caches. At least for those that are not clearly drive-ups. I know some don't like them but with the rising gas prices it would be helpful both to the environement as well as the wallet and certainly will not diminish my caching experiences. It can be rather frustrating at times spending more time driving to find a place to park to access the cache area than the time it takes to walk to and find the cache. Encrypt them for those that prefer not use them. I'll be adding suggested parking to my few caches soon if they do not already have them.

Managed to log a few of the suggested one's while in the area last week. Thanks again for all the suggestions.

Thanks again for all the suggestions. Hope to meet a few of you while in the area next week. I'm outta here.

Thanks for your suggestion. I did put message up on the MTGC board a couple weeks ago and got a few replies but the thread sort of died after a couple responses. One person emailed directly mentioned a problem with some of the 'better' caches in your area disappearing recently so I understand the reluctance to suggest them publicly. All in all I'm sure will have a great several days while in the area for our son's baseball games. Checked the weather and it looks great for next week. We're getting several inches of new snow in the Chicago area as I'm writing this. Thanks to all for the suggestions.

That took care of it Clyde. You are a MASTER!!!! Very cool to filter that way. It will help me greatly on an upcoming trip thru at least 8 states. GSAK will definetly get a thorough workout. Sorry to bring up problems raised by Win ME/98. I fear my old laptop would grind to a halt with XP or 2k so I'm stuck with it. maleki Marty

I've had no prob with all the 'normal' filters. Have you tried an arc, line, or polygon filter? That's where I've encounterd my problem - not on the initial 'Set Filter' page.

Clyde, I had a few minutes before I have to leave so I downloaded the program again on a different computer(win98 this time) to eliminate download errors. Installed on a system that has never had GSAK on it b4. Loaded GSAK and your sample database and did several normal filters without problem. Cancelled filters and reset filter window to defaults. Selected arc/line/polygon filters. added two selected caches for a lline filter chose distance hit OK hit Go in main Set Filter page endless hour glass again Do any of the settings in the main Set Filter page have anything to do with the result once you choose 'Arc,Line or Polygon'? I've tried my line filter withour changing anything on the main 'Set Filter' page. Perhaps I'm missing something. I'll be back later today to try some other things. Thanks again and sorry for the problem report. Perhaps it's just my ancient(as computers go) operating systems. maleki/Marty

Clyde, The command prompt babel.bat test worked fine. The tried the arc filter again. Got the endless hourglass. Interestingly(or maybe not), I can run other standard filters at this time, all while the hourglass is my cursor. I can see the cache number change at the bottom of the main GSAK window but the main GSAK page does not update. and I cannot close the filter window easily. I can click on help in the set filter box and my cursor returns to normal until I exit the help box. Hit reset and cancel MANY times Until I could finally click on th GSAK screen again. When I try search again it get an error box saying. Exception Log Cannot make a visible window modal I sent the error dump this AM. I have to restart GSAK at this point and the database rebuilds. I will try to test on some other system today(without ME) but it will be much later. Would be nice to here from other that have tried it. AFter first encountering the problem, I tried it on your sample database, also with the same results Thanks for your great efforts.

With my limited testing, yes they are working. If you can reproduce this problem describing the steps I would certainly like to know about it. Any one else using these filters? Working? Having problems? Clyde, Here's what I've done to try the Arc/Line filter: I've selected 2 waypoints about 30 miles apart in my database. Clicked the search/filter button. Clicked the Arc,Line,Polygon button (left all other Set Filter page options at default) Clicked the 'Add User Flagged Wayoints'. Selected a distance of 10 miles. Filter type = Arc/Line and hit OK then GO on the Set Filter page I get an hourglass on screen but it never returns results. This particular filter has been 'running?' at least 10 minutes now - I don't expect it to return. It is very hard to clear this condition after it happens. I expected the filter to return all caches within 10 miles of the line between the two selected caches. Is this assumption correct? I'm testing this on and old P233 laptop w/ 98 mb of RAM and the dreaded Win Me (cringe). There are about 500 records in my test database. Previous versions of GSAK filtered fine an quickly on this system. Thanks for any assistance. maleki/Marty

Thanks Clyde for all the cool additions. I turned on the lat/long columns. Anyway to change thme fo the DegMM.MMM format used by GC.com. I've looked but probably missed it. This feature already helped me - thanks for adding it. Also, are the arc/line/polygon filters working. I've hung GSAK a few times now trying to experiment with them. Once again, probably just me. Going on a 5 or six state road trip next week and I have all the caches for several states I'll be travelling thru. I hope to test the new filters to try to pare down the 4000 + caches I now have in GSAK. Looking forward to using the CacheMate export also. Really set for my trip now. Thanks for the great program. maleki

A similar idea to this one: Ven Diagrams This one has to be one of my favorite caches ever because of all the work that went into completing it. Really learned a lot about coordinates, distances and other geo principles trying to solve this one. It's been around for well over a year in the Chicago area and only logged 8 times.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. We'll be passing thru the area following our sons college baseball team on their spring trip south. Caching time will depend on game times and lengths and weather, etc. A lot of caches we'll stop at will just be those along the route whatever type they might be. I have all the caches in Tennessee(N. AL, W. KY, IL, etc) as of today in MS S&T and GSAK ready to go. Chattanooga will probably be as far east as we get . We might spend a late afternoon/early am in the area. We might not get that far at all. No definite plans other than to try to make the games. Get to do enough urban drive up micros in the Chicago area. Just don't get the point of a cache in a busy city park or in view of someones house. We find 'em if they're nearby - why not. Some are better than others but given a choice, we'd rather take a wallk in a woodsy area, maybe with a bit of vertical change. The Chicago area sure is flat - a bit of change will be appreciated. I'm sure we'll do a day in Nashville and try for a 'best' day number, so we will do a bunch of in town caches, but would rather do a couple challenging terrain caches than a dozen drive ups in town. Just a personal preference for us - we'll find(at least try) anything we come close to as time permits. Just looking for suggestions for caches that just might be worth taking a detour for, The 2 or 3 Must-do's in your area. Thanks again for all your suggestions. maleki & C

Will be in this area in a week or so. Please nominate your favorite caches in the Memphis/Birmingham/Chattanooga/Nashville area and points in between. Prefer the non-urban variety but I'm sure we'll spend a solid day in the Nashville city limits also. We'll most likely have a canoe and/or bikes along so caches agreeable with those also helpful. We look forward to caching in the area so any helpful recommendations most appreciated. maleki & C

Never buy the first version of anything....

So happy to see that the Garmin c/cs button layout looks suspiciously like my Magellan Meridian. Glad they came around.

I know what you mean. Just amused at the staggering number of 60c /cs threads. I imagine it might be a nice product but I'm always happy to let others 'guinea pig' the first few runs of ANY product. Actually, printing has been discussed in the main GSAK thread. It's(the thread) getting so huge though that things are getting tough to find in it. The printscreen program seems to be quick and easy and priced right. Sort of self contained and eliminates a couple steps I can never remember - but that's just me I'm sure cause I seldom use a printscreen.

Sure, that would make room for yet another 60c /cs thread. Back to the topic... I also wanted to print a screen. I tried: Gadwin Printscreen It is freeware and seemed to do the job quite nicely. If I needed more that a screen I'd dump it to a spreadsheet ot something as previously suggested. Have fun.