Bismuth

I just found this thread in the forum. I guess I'm not the only one then! One of my Travel Bugs' tracking codes has apparently been posted on a German Geocaching web page. The online log (and my inbox) are filling up with 100's of discovered claims from Germany. Meanwhile the actual trackable is somewhere in the U.S. currently. I have translated some of the German logs these people are writing and they often come out something like "I found your travel bug on a list somewhere. Thanks for sharing. Delete this if you don't like it" Looking at their profiles, these geocachers typically have found a small number of caches but have logged many thousand Travel Bugs. So maybe they enjoy "armchair" geocaching but, 1) Is there any way to block a TB from being "discovered". 2) It there a way to bulk delete a bunch of discover logs or do I have to work through them one-by-one? Still enjoying the sport immensely and finding that my travel bugs don't disappear nearly as frequently now that I try to send out only boring ugly ones.

One of my Travel Bugs' tracking codes has apparently been posted on a German Geocaching web page. The online log (and my inbox) are filling up with 100's of discovered claims from Germany. The actual trackable is somewhere in the U.S. currently. I have translated some of the German logs these people are writing and they often come out something like "I found your travel bug on a list somewhere. Thanks for sharing. Delete this if you don't like it" Looking at their profiles, these geocachers typically have found a small number of caches but have logged many thousand Travel Bugs. So maybe they enjoy "armchair" geocaching but, if there was some way to do it, I would like to block this TB from being "discovered".

I am not sure what this means. Sounds like "MobilMapper Pro" has released a fix for the WAAS problem with Magellan GPSrs. Is that it? I have a WAAS-less eXplorist 500 that I would like to fix. I have not been able to get it to "take" firmware upgrades so I am not sure the instructions given earlier in this thread will help me.

Magellan sent me a free Triton 400 as a "consolation prize" for my eXplorist 500 which had lost WAAS capability. I was extremely unimpressed with the Triton for many reasons and mostly I have continued to use the eXplorist. However with the most recent firmware upgrade they really seem to have improved the stability and performance of this GPSr. 1. It has not locked up since the upgrade (previously this was a regular problem) 2. It seems to acquire satellites quickly now and the receiver is quite sensitive. 3. The accuracy is impressive. I tested the Triton recently at some surveyed points along a hiking trail. I'll try to embed a photo. 4. Still has all the physical problems - screen is difficult to read, especially in direct sunlight, buttons are hard to push and virtually impossible to use if you are wearing even thin gloves. 5. Navigating from screen to screen is tedious. 5. Turning the Triton "off" seems to only put it in some sort of standby mode. It still uses power and will drain the batteries in a week or two. So whenever I stop for the day I've got to remove the back and take the batteries out. I have heard there is special combination of buttons to push that really does turn it off. Verdict? It was free, it's working pretty well now. I'll keep it. I'll probably never by another Magellan though.

I have a WAAS-less eXplorist 500 and I have a Triton 400 which Magellan sent me free as a consolation prize. The Triton has the latest firmware. Still, it locks up often, requiring me to remove the batteries to re-set it. One time even removing the batteries did not work and ultimately I had to send it back to Magellan to be fixed. (of course I had to pay shipping). When it is working properly it can be quite accurate and sensitive but often it is not. With good signal strength I have marked waypoints, walked 100 feet away, and then used goto to try to return to that spot - the Triton missed the mark by more than 20 feet. The screens are difficult to maneuver through. The Vantage point soft ware is very slow and non-intuitive - it can take several hours to upload 500 geocaches and prompts you about overwriting every geocache in the unit that you have opened - so you can't just walk away and come back when it is finished. Perhaps my unit is faulty - it amazes me to hear that some people like this GPSr. Mostly I am still using the eXplorist.

Magellan offered to replace my eXplorist 500LE with a new Triton 400 - this was on Monday. They mailed the new unit immediately and it arrived here on Friday. I still have my eXplorist. First day's impressions: Buttons are little tiny bumps on a slanted surface at the bottom of the front of the GPSr, They take quite a bit of force to activate. Not a big problem here in Florida but I would guess this unit would be impossible to operate while wearing even very thin gloves. Also not easy to maintain a good grip on the unit and operate the buttons with one hand. There are many more screens to cycle through than with the eXplorist. Some of these might be useful, some not. I do the one with the extra big font size. I thought I had heard that you could not cycle "backwards" through the screens using "esc" but only move forwards using "page go to". Friday this seemed to be the case but the next day I found that "esc" does indeed work to move backwards through the screens. The whole interface is extremely confusing compared with the straightforward one I was used to in the eXplorist. I am still trying to figure it out. I did manage, finally, to change the mode from DEG.DDDDD to DEG/MIN.MMM. I tried to use VANTAGE POINT software to load geocaches onto the unit. This software is also extremely confusing. After digging through the manual and many attempts, I did manage to load my Pocket Queries onto the GPSr. However I have yet to sort out how to REMOVE them from the GPSr except by CLEARING the memory. I hope there is some less drastic method than this. There has to be - right? With the eXplorist I was used to being able to access the GPSr memory from the PC as I would any attached removable drive. But the Triton does not seem to work in this manner. Second Day's impressions. (took the Triton and the eXplorist out caching) I did eventually upload data from three separate pocket queries onto the Triton. A real plus for this new GPSr is the is no longer a 200 caches per file limit to worry about. I loaded over 700 caches - they are all in the unit and I don't have to switch geocache files to see them all. (used nearly all the internal memory to do this.) Now maybe I could make one pocket query, center it on Orlando, set it to maybe 1500 caches max, and have every cache in the county. (provide I could store them on an SD card) Drawback - this full cache info loads onto the Triton v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. You'll want to go make yourself a cup of coffee and come back later. Paperless caching - The eXplorist would show only brief info about each cache but the Triton will display ALL the description and hink text, even shows all the html code. This is very nice as I would often get out to find a cache somewhere and realize I needed some clues or information that wasn't loaded on the eXplorist. Regarding the "Accuracy" that the GPSrs report. Both the new Triton and my old "WAAS-less" eXplorer reported almost identical accuracies. Best accuracy reported was around 16 feet, typical was closer to 20 or 25. Before my eXplorer lost WAAS it would often report 7 or 10 foot accuracy. I would guess that this means that the Triton is NOT WAAS enabled. There was no indication of any "W" satellites on the sat screen. But isn't the Triton supposed to be WAAS enabled?? Setting a "GOTO" for a new geocache is more complicated (more keystrokes) that with the eXplorist - unless there is a shortcut I have not found yet. Also I cannot sort out how to CLEAR a GOTO and haven't sorted out how to set the TIME (These things must be somewhere in the menus - but functions and settings are extremely hard to find) Summary Is the Triton 400 better than the eXplorist 500? Not sure really. If the Triton has WAAS I'd probably say YES. If my eXplorist still had WAAS I think I'd KEEP it and send back the Triton. I need to play with the Triton some more, maybe it will grow on me. Anyone know if there is a way to enable WAAS on the Triton or even check to see what SATs it is looking for?

This has all been quite interesting. I made the mistake of trying to update the firmware in my 500le a couple weeks ago and in the process lost my WAAS. (lost my MIND!) Reading all this convinced me that restoring my GPSr was extremely unlikely and also encouraged me to see what I could get from Magellan. After three calls to their "technical" help they agreed to send me a new Triton 400. But the tech guy, Alfred, said that none of their GPSrs are WAAS capable now. He said the Triton they send me won't work with WAAS. He said NONE of the GPS manufacturers make WAAS enabled units now. I hate to criticize this guy because he was very friendly and seemed like he sincerely wanted to help me - but he didn't know what he was talking about.

OK, I have had a Magellan eXplorist 500 LE for about one year. It has been reliable and accurate until about three weeks ago when I attempted to update the firmware and, in the process, lost the WAAS capability. I wish I had checked the forum first. My eXplorist 500 used to commonly report 7-10 feet accuracy and now hovers around 16-26. I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with the Magellan tech guy and he tells me that they no longer make ANY GPSrs that are WAAS enabled and that none of the other manufacturers do either. The guy said that the government had "turned it off". Yesterday I found this thread in the forum which explains what happened to my eXplorist. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=185052 What is the truth about WAAS service availability? Is it really no longer available in new GPSrs? I complained long enough that the Magellan guy offered me a free Triton 400 on trade in. But he said it won't have WAAS capability either.

I was hoping to find an answer to this problem by the time I got to the end of the thread. Has anyone come up with a solution to the problem of upgrading the firmware? Thanks

I've been geocaching for a year or so. I know I must look really geeky tramping around the woods with a cell phone on my belt, my GPSr in one hand, my Axim pocket PC (with GPSSonar) in the other hand, and a camera in the fanny pack. Now I see that ATT (Cingular) has a cell phone called the MOTO Q that is supposed to have integrated GPS and the Windows mobile 6 operating system. (And a built in 2mp camera) My big question - I wonder if the GPS features of the Moto Q will be suited to geocaching? Has anyone tried it? Currently I use a Magellan eXplorist 500 GPSr with which I am extremely pleased.

I just purchased the eXplorist 500LE. I am trying to do this all on a limited budget so I have purchased the Motorola cell phone battery that fits the 500 ($12 including shipping). From what I gather in the string of messages above, I can charge using power from the computer USB connector. I am sure that somewhere in the box full of charging units I have in the garage I can also come up with one that will work to charge the battery. But I need to know the electrical specifications of the Magellan charging unit: output voltage, max current and whether the output plug center post is positive or negative. Can anyone provide this info? Thanks!