Mtn Summit

If I remember, the only time I ever saw "on road/off road" was after I had bought a loaded the Garmin "National Parks" Topo maps. I mya be wrong, but i do not think the 60CSx comes with any maps to actually auto route you there?

Even with the Loc files, they loaded into my 60CSx as geocache's.

OK, so if I understand right, I can use my Topo Map, say National Geographic's Topo's, and If I can pinpoint where I will be ahead of time on my computer, I can take a reading from that, and when I get in the field, at that point, calibrate the GPS, and it will now have me within a few feet of accurate elevation? I assume each time I went out, if possible, I would have to calibrate the unit to a known elevation? I guess I still do not understand why multiple satelites cannot pinpoint an exact elevation on the GPS?

Very interesting Markwell - thanks for the post. I find myself trying to figure out the best way to plan for my caches. I have the Palm, I have GSAK, things are starting to make more sense. It does bring up another perhaps unrelated question. What happens when you have a ton - lets say a 500-1000 geocache points loaded into the GPS, and have loaded that many into the Palm. I guess the GPS will let you know of the nearby cache's (my garmin 60CSx does). But how does one manage with cachemate in the Palm to find those say 20 caches in the area I am going to out of the 500 pages stored in the palm? I guess I am trying to learn the most efficeint way of PLANNING a cache run

I have the 60CSx - a dumb question - I would think the GPS unit would not need to be calibrated for altitude, because the GPS coordinate with triangulation, etc.., would be able to pinpoint your location, thus knowing the altitude?

Thanks Miragee

With Gsak, if you can sort by the closest, does it end up making you go north, south, etc..? Or will it sort by a straight line? In other words, if cache A is one mile north of my home, cache B is one mile south, and cache C is 1.5 miles north from home, how would the GSAK sort this? I would rather go from cache A to C, then A, back to B, then C?

OK, I am a newb to the Palm - never used one! I installed the GSAK software, palm software, created a file to export to the palm from GSAK. But how do I read the file information in the palm? I bought a used M125. Not sure what program in the Palm I am supposed to use?

I have the 60csx. It has the Sirf III. I had used prior to my purchase a friends E-Trex without the Sirf - A HUGH difference. I do a lot of backpacking and would now not consider having a GPS without the SIRF.

Great info - thanks!

Would the veterans of geocaching, in attempting to find a cheap used PDA just for geocaching, prefer one of these or others over another model, assuming the pricing is about the same? And further assuming the only reason to get it is to help with geocaching/going paperless? Palm IIIxe Palm M500 Palm Zire 21 I see Tigerdirect.com is offering the Palm IIIxe, Refurbished, for $19.99 after $10.00 rebate. 3 month warranty, $11.99 buys a year another year warranty. $7.49 to ship. Its says a hot synch cradel is sold separately, other than that, i do not know what else it comes with or needs. I have never owned a PDA before.

Bought mine from Amazon, quick, easy, no problems. It is a fantastic unit. I bought originally, before I even knew about Geocaching, to work better on backpacking trips - I got tired of always losing a signal in deep canyons and pines with my buddies e-trex vista. So far I only know about a 10th of what it can do!

Would a Palm M100 work?

Thanks for all the great tips and replies. I wish I could figure how to quote some stuff. Regarding the cheap used PDA's on EBAY, if I pick one up, does it need any specail software in order to hold the GPX info? Anything I should stay away from if I try to pick up a used model (avoid brandxxx, etc)? Since you rarely use Mapsource, can I get away just using the GSAK software? To be honest I was not too impressed with Mapsource Waypoint Manager that came with the 60CSx. Thanks again. John

So if I understand this right, the pocket quierie big advantage is the ability to search in a much more defined way? I think I am confused on the GPX issue though as well. My Garmin Mapsource software that came with the 60CSx can open GPX files and export into my 60CSx. And, that location will show up on the software. So as it stands now, without pocket quiery's, I need to load one at a time the gpx files into the Mapsource software, then upload in to the Garmin? It sounds like without a program like GSAK, I cannot load multiple GPX files at one time into the Mapsource software/into the Garmin? Will the GSAK software load more info from the GPX file into the Garmin? As it stands now i see very little diff when I upload a GPX file versus a LOC file from the Mapsource into the Garmin. Maybe I am doing something Also, I unfortunately do not have a PDA/Palm, so I think that means I will still need to print on paper the cache page with info? Sorry for all the questions - just trying to figure all this out and make the most efficient use of the 60CSx, The Premium membership, etc..

Hi Everyone, I am a newb getting more addicted to this stuff. I have a Garmin 60CSx, which I love so far. I had a regular membership for a couple of months, and just signed up for the Premium Membership on a monthly basis to see what else it can provide to me (besides helping the cause). A couple of questions if you can bear with me. I have been downloading the LOC file(s) to my computer, then open up the MapSource software that came with the Garmin. I open up a single LOC file, then upload it to my Garmin. Is there a way to upload more than one LOC file at a time from the MapSource software to the Garmin? Now that I have a premium membership, I have read the GPX files are better. My Mapsource software can read these, so I just downloaded a GPX file from the site, opened it with Mapsource, then uploaded it to my Garmin. The only difference I can tell between the GPX file and the LOC file is the GPX file description (in the Mapsource Software) contains the cache rating (size/difficulty). Am I missing something here? Further, that slight extra information is not showing in the "Notes" section of the Garmin, as the unit has chopped off the full description that was in the gpx file. I do notice it seems that when downloading the GPX file from the site, the default name to save to the computer is the waypoint name, versus the LOC download, that takes the generic name "geocache" each time. That is a nice small benefit. Can someone help me see what I am missing as the benefit of the GPX over the LOC? I will leave the whole pocket query question for another time! Can I download multiple GPX files tagged, at one time, or do they have to be downloaded and saved one at a time. I thought you could download multiple files, but I cannot seem to figure out how to do. OK - I will stop. Thanks for any help! John

Thanks for the help!

New to the Geocache, and picked up our first travel bug. Logged it as found, showing "Discovered It". But, notived not showing up in my inventory. Now realize I should have logged as "Retreived It", but when I go back to edit my first log, will not let me change the type - can anyone let me know what I should do to fix it? Thanks!