alanfreed

A little more history... I was on a cruise Christmas week, and had done a number of caches in Florida, Grand Cayman and Mexico. When I returned home, there was no text file. When I'd choose "Show Found," it would show 2 caches we did on the drive home from FL, but not the rest of them. Prior to the trip, I had deleted the .txt file, thinking that the unit would simply regenerate the file the next time I marked a cache as found, etc., through the Log Attempt dialog. Subsequently, I've attempted loading caches through different mechanisms... GSAK, through the "upload" feature on GC.com, and by uploading GPX files directly to the unit. Then I'd mark some as found, etc., and no text file would appear. I spent some time with tech support these last couple days, and they had sent a file that was supposed to restore things, but it would give me an error while using it. The Garmin folks had suggested that I should not have deleted the file, but I should have simply purged the old cache information from the file instead. I don't know for sure if that's what has caused my problems. Long story short, after having no luck with any of the software/suggestions offered, I wound up sending it back in today, and they're sending me a new unit. I had actually considered sending g-o-cashers an e-mail since you have the very helpful Wiki file... but I figured you're probably swamped with dumb questions I do greatly appreciate the information you have researched and provided in the Wiki. It's much more helpful than the instruction manual!

Ok, I'm absolutely going bonkers. I bought my Colorado a few weeks ago and had no trouble with the Field Notes feature, but now I can't get it to record the geocaching_visits.txt file. AAAAAH! Excuse me for that outburst I've had no trouble adding .gpx files of caches, and the Geocaching function works just fine. I've tried it with GSAK, knowing that in order for Field Notes to work I have to have nothing but "%code" as the name of the cache. I've also simply dumped the .gpx file directly into the gpx directory straight from a pocket query. In either instance, it's not writing the .txt file. Why? WHY? WHY? I ask! I was just on a cruise last week, figuring that it would be fun and easy to use the Field Notes feature to log the caches, but when I got home there was NO FILE. So I had to do a forensic search through track files to figure out which caches I had done. Bah. Any help will be greatly appreciated...! PS -- I should mention that I recently updated the unit to version 2.9... has anyone else had trouble with Field Notes since that update...? PSS -- I should also mention that I have also tried creating a blank geocaching_visits.txt file, added it to the Garmin directory, and tried marking caches as found... but it didn't append to the file, either.

Thanks -- I'll have to experiment with that. What I'd like to see is something other than white as the default background color of the map. I'm not sure if what you're describing will accomplish that or not, but I'm willing to tinker with it Thanks also for the information about .typ files. I did some searching and found some information about them, but it seems like those instructions went over my head pretty quickly, unfortunately.

Hmph... I really thought there would be a way to change it to something more pleasing. Thanks for letting me know, though!

Perhaps a dumb question... can I customize the color scheme of City Navigator as it displays on the Garmin Colorado 400t? I just bought the unit this weekend, and I have been feeling my way around to get used to how things work with it. I have figured out most things, but I can't seem to change the color scheme from the very white background it's giving me now. Many thanks!

Thanks everyone! Per your recommendations, I went out and grabbed some G2 pens at Staples today, and I am a proud owner of one of the Fisher Space Pens. This will come in handy if I find myself aboard a space shuttle someday, too!

Thank you!

Oh, crap... you're definitely right! I stumbled into the wrong area...

Ok, here's one out of left field for you! Do you have a favorite pen you use for Geocaching? I had a favorite pen that I accidentally grabbed from a cache in Cozumel earlier this year. It was a Royal Caribbean cruise line pen, and it was great for caching because it always wrote nicely and it was one of those pens that you click open (as opposed to ones that have a cap). This was nice because if I have my GPS in one hand, I can click the pen with the other hand and not need a third hand to carry the pen cap. I mentioned that I had a "favorite caching pen" to a fellow cacher who mentioned that his favorite caching pen has a nice, thin tip to it, making it easier to sign logs on micros. So I accidentally (and ironically, considering how I obtained it) left my favorite pen behind in another cache recently. I miss it. If you have a favorite caching pen, let's hear about it! Don't forget to mention where it's sold

*deleting duplicate post*

You can even take it one step more geeky... I have a Nikon D300, and I hook my Garmin 60CSx directly to it. It automatically records the data into the image's EXIF.

Like I said, she's from Punxsy, not Big Run

I camped there around 1980, and remember it as being nice It's definitely a good location, since you're right at the base of Presque Isle, with lots of fun stuff to do nearby. I pass it somewhat frequently, and would think it is still a nice place to camp.

I'm originally from Punxsy (my wife is from St. Marys)... I know that PeachyPA is a pretty active cacher, or at least has been (she's from Big Run). The PAWingers are from Kersey, and are nice folks, too. Maybe you could go hide a few more in Punxsy -- there's a town that's seriously lacking in caches!

You hear the term "bushwhacking" and don't even for a split second think that this could be a funny sexual innuendo.

That's what I'm wondering... do they actually block reception in certain areas? Would this be something they'd do to try to thwart Cubans from trying to navigate to the US on rafts and so forth...? I had just never heard of anything like this. If that's the case, we were waaaaaay off course

That's what I'm wondering... do they actually block reception in certain areas? Would this be something they'd do to try to thwart Cubans from trying to navigate to the US on rafts and so forth...? I had just never heard of anything like this.

'Tis what I'm saying! I had it on our balcony, and it was working fine. I went out to check on it in the evening, and there was nothing -- nada -- in terms of satellites. I took it around to different areas of the ship, turned it off and on, took the batteries out, took the SD card out, etc., etc., with no luck at all. I eventually gave up on it and turned it off for the night. When I turned it on in the morning, it acquired everything just fine as we were closing in on Cozumel. I have the GPX file from that morning here if you have any interest in looking at it. The last part of the file is interesting in that the date stamps for the last few points were pretty far apart. It went from 8:08 p.m., to 8:47, to 9:44 p.m. when it's usually marking things a matter of seconds apart.

It couldn't see any satellites. It wasn't a matter of it not being able to lock onto them, it couldn't see them, as though I was in a cave or something.

Howdy! Just got off a cruise ship, and I was wondering if anyone had an explanation for what I was experiencing while at sea. I like to keep my GPS out on the balcony to record our route at sea while we cruise. I came back to the room the other night and found that it had stopped recording a little southwest of Key West, FL. I can understand having a weak-ish signal in a stateroom since you're only getting one area of the sky, with the other half of the sky being blocked by the ship (like being on a jet). But I wasn't getting ANY satellites in view, not even a blip. So I headed up to the top deck of the ship with a full view of the sky in the middle of the night, and still NOTHING. I tried using the "New Location" feature of my 60CSx, but still nothing. I was getting a bit concerned, to say the least, since I had never had any problems getting a signal in an open sky, let alone not getting anything at all. So my question is whether anyone has an explanation for this? I was wondering if the ship itself would block GPS signals for some reason? We were sailing relatively close to Cuba at the time, which made me wonder if that had anything to do with it. Are GPS signals blocked in Cuba...? Anyway, I've never seen anything like that before on any cruise we've taken, and I definitely know how to use the GPS... so I'm really curious to see what may have been going on here. The unit was back to normal in the morning, which was a huge relief since I had a few caches I wanted to do in Cozumel!

I took a nice tumble down a hillside a couple weeks ago while hunting a cache. I went one way, the GPS went the other. The face of my unit was pretty scuffed up (with an Invisible Shield on it), and it stayed that way (oftentimes, scratches and things will heal themselves with the Shield). I called the company, and they made good on their warranty of a free replacement. When I got the new one, I peeled the old Shield off, and was amazed at how pristine the face of the GPS was. Not even the slightest scratch on it -- it looked like I had just bought it. So the Invisible Shield did its job -- very impressive little piece of plastic! It's definitely worth the money.

Looking for this?

I don't believe this is possible from what I've read, but wouldn't it be nice to open up the memory card to save regular waypoints? The Custom Point of Interest feature is nice, but there are so many drawbacks to using it. For example, with the 60csx, I can't create a new CPOI without doing it through the computer; I can't just "mark" a CPOI. I can't use the unit's regular Geocaching feature with CPOI, having it switch icons to "found," etc. Plus, CPOI only show up when you're zoomed in at the same level you'd find all of the other icons, like stores, restaurants, etc. I have my unit set so that those locations only show up when zoomed at the 800ft scale... it gets mighty cluttered when you try it at any greater distance. Maybe I'm missing something, but it sure would be nice to be able to save an unlimited number of regular waypoints on the MicroSD card, and treat them as regular waypoints.

Not to pick on tabulator at all... but I kind of find it a little silly to add the "r" all the time in forums, frankly. I mean, when you're speaking about Geocaching, do you actually say the "r" when you're talking about your GPS unit? I've never heard anyone do that, ever. If I'm going caching, I'm going to grab my "GPS" and go. I don't think too many people get confused and think that I'm going to board the space shuttle when I talk about using my GPS. This is coming from someone who has been known to be fairly anal-retentive on a lot of issues, but I can't bring myself to be a GPSr owner.

I'd hate to see what my screen would look like without it! I ordered the shield before I ordered the GPS, actually. I wanted to be sure I had it stuck to the unit before I ever left the house with it. It's definitely worth its weight in gold. It's cool how you can scratch it with a tree limb, or whatever, and it'll basically self-heal over time.