mrp

The usefulness of WAAS a matter of some controversy around here. What I can say, is that using an eTrex Legend, in Northern California (SF Bay Area to the Oregon coast), I haven't had much luck with it. The satellites are too low in the sky to reliably receive using the little patch antenna. However, people using units with better antennas and more recenet hardware and software (notably the Magellan Sportrak), have had great luck with it. Even if you have a Legend (or Vista or Venture), it may work better for you in Texas becuase the North American WAAS satellite should be relatively high in the sky, and especially in west texas you have clearer horizons. -- Mitch

What are the chances that anybody will actually notice you're gone? (Is that a good thing or bad?) -- Mitch [This message was edited by Pneumatic on June 27, 2002 at 09:16 PM.]

What are the chances that anybody will actually notice you're gone? (Is that a good thing or bad?) -- Mitch [This message was edited by Pneumatic on June 27, 2002 at 09:16 PM.]

quote:Originally posted by ROADCOW:What do I know? I live under a redwood tree in northern californie. I used to live in Blue Lake and Arcata myself. Beautiful area, but it has very limited internet access. You've got 2 local ISPs and a few national ones, and only 1 or 2 high-speed options, mostly serving Arcata and Eureka only. Although parts of the Ricochet network are being revived, I don't expect the northcoast to be served any time soon. quote:I am thinking about ways of getting myself set up to where I can hit the road and seek cache for sea to shining sea. Any suggestions appreciated. Your best bet is to get an ISP with dialup numbers all over the country, and then dial up whenever you can get a phone line. Other solutions get expensive. You could get a modem capable cell-phone and a cell-capable modem for your laptop, but those typically only give you speeds of 9600 to 19200 baud, and you have to pay a lot for the time and the service. There are a few satellite based net access solutions, but they get really expensive, and are mostly used by cruise ships and the like, and occasionally by people who travel extensively outside normal coverage areas and need to stay in contact via email (e.g. on safari in Africa, or sailing around the world). If you just need simple web access, then like I said before, the Palm VIIx and others can give you limited web-email ability, but usually only around major metropolitan areas. -- Mitch

My understanding was that CitySelect had the routing information necessary to make the GPS V's autoroute function work properly, and was only available with the purchase of a V. Whereas Metraguide has some address information, but not routing information, and those maps won't work with the V's autoroute functionality. Am I wrong about this? -- Mitch

Keep in mind, what they're talking about is breaking into unsecured corporate and personal 802.11 networks, which makes it unsuitable for our purposes for two reasons: Mostly these places are in major metropolitan areas, not in the suburbs or in the parks. The range on these networks is usually less than 500 ft, and so you need to stand right outside the house/office to do this. (or use a directional antenna suitable for 1.9 Ghz freq, and even that only gets you about 1/2 a mile unless the other end is using one too, and still only line-of-sight) It's illegal, and especially if you're going to do something traceable like logging into geocaching.com where they can subpeona geocaching.com's web-logs to find you, it's a bad idea. When I first started geocaching, I was thinking about getting a richocet/metrocom wireless modem for my laptop so I could link-up from the hillsides around my home while geocaching, but about that time they went out of business. Palm and a few others still have wireless internet access available in major metopolitan areas, and if you really need to check cache pages in the field, this is probably a better option. -- Mitch

I voted yes, because I've also had the experience of hiking for an hour or so just to find out that I can't handle the steep scramble for the last 50 ft. I'm not terribly nimble, and what most able bodied adults consider moderately challanging is almost impossible for me (scrambling up through a small cleft in some rocks for instance, or going up a steep incline). However, having said that, coming up with a distance isn't straightforward. I can tell you the approximate hiking distance from where I parked, but often there are multiple entraces to a park, and some are less well known than others. One may involve a 5 mile hike with steep elevation changes, and another only a 1/2 mile hike with almost none. Telling them where to park often ruins half the fun of the research beforehand. It's even more difficult for those that are deep in the forest or desert, since there are LOTS of ways to approach, and each will have it's own challanges. -- Mitch

quote:Originally posted by Clan Ferguson:..... But I disagree, not everyone has a broadband connection. (sorry but I still use dial up, broadband is still too expensive for checking e-mail and caches once or twice a week.)Sounds, excessive graphics, flash annimations are the main reasons I don't do much web surfing. I'm guilty of using a flash animation on one of my cache pages. But I just checked, and it comes in at a few bytes over 4K. I doubt I could have gotten that kind of compression with an animated GIF of similar size. Most flash is a lot larger, but they also do annoying things like sound and complicated bitmaps. I'll admit that it really doesn't add anything to my cache page either, but I did my best to make it wimsical and unobtrusive. I think that part of the reason that the sound on the Happy Cachin' page is so annoying to me, is that they use a WAV file, which I don't think it playing properly on my Mac. I've listened to it several times, and I still can't hear what the little girl (boy) is saying. -- Mitch

I just visited the page for a new cache in my area(Happy Cachin'), and was greated with a loud distorted squeal and a childs voice saying something incoherent. (I think it said "I'm in", but I'm not sure.) In general, I don't like my web pages to make noise, and this noise was so loud and obnoxious that I'm hesitant to look at it again. I'm even a little wary of looking at any other cache pages right now. I tend to think that the cheesy effects like sounds and funky backgrounds tend to detract from the whole experience. Jeremy went to a lot of trouble to make a site with a very clean, consistent interface, and these pages make it look awful. I've never see an instance where all this imparted useful information. At best it sometimes makes for an interesting surprise. So, I think that the use of sounds/backgrounds should at least be strongly discouraged, and maybe banned altogether. What do you all think? -- Mitch (I've already emailed the owner of the first cache mentioned, and asked her/him to remove the sound.)

I agree with Pepper about all of those, but if you get over the Alameda/Berkeley/Richmond area I would also recommend these: Dog Day Afternoon (GC1338) Great views of the bay. Bullsi (GC22D9) A very interesting location.. be careful Volcanic Labyrinths (GC15D2) Another interesting location Turkey Shoot (GC22D1) A good hike, and an interesting hiding technique. See Planes in Alameda (GC5E1F) an excuse to wander around an old navy base. Minsy (GC464D) for the same reason. Hope you have a good time caching... -- Mitch

It's almost certainly the USS Tripoli, since the info on a few different web pages said that after the Tripoli was decommissioned, it was transfered to the army for use in weapons testing, and relocated to Mare Island for refitting to that purpose. In retrospect, I should have known that it wasn'ta WW2 aircraft carrier; it is much too small, and looking at the pictures, there is a flag right in the middle of where the planes would land. (not to mention that it isn't nearly rusty enough for a 60 year old ship.) But a vietnan era helicopter amphibious assault vessel makes sense. Thanks to all of you who helped track this down. -- Mitch

You can skip a couple of steps nscaler talks about. After you hold the enter key to mark a new waypoint, you can use the up and down to move to the coordinates, press enter, and then change them right there, the same goes for the icon and the name. -- Mitch

When the unit it first turned on, it needs to downlaod an "almanac" of information about the satellites and the system. Often on etrex units, if the unit doesn't have good reception, this almanac gets corrupted. You need to force it to re-download teh almanac. The only way to do this is to force a system reset. Check the garmin support pages http://www.garmin.com/support/ . Once you're reset the unit, make sure you have good reception for 30-45 minutes, say by leaving it on the back porch. -- Mitch

When the unit it first turned on, it needs to downlaod an "almanac" of information about the satellites and the system. Often on etrex units, if the unit doesn't have good reception, this almanac gets corrupted. You need to force it to re-download teh almanac. The only way to do this is to force a system reset. Check the garmin support pages http://www.garmin.com/support/ . Once you're reset the unit, make sure you have good reception for 30-45 minutes, say by leaving it on the back porch. -- Mitch

Well over at gpsdrawing.com there are a number of alternate tracking uses, including a couple of dogs: Tyty and Boris. I personally don't think that the GPS is well enough attached to Boris, but the solution for Tyty looks okay, if you dog will put up with it. Look around that site, there is all sorts of interesting stuff. -- Mitch P.S. I wouldn't think you would get very good satellite lock from inside a trunk. The back of a hatchback might work.. Anybody care to tell, one way or the other.

So my friend Paul and I were out geocaching yesterday, but since we were feeling kinda lazy, we were in the market for a low-impact caching experience. On our list was Minsy on the old Mare Island Naval ShipYard (now mostly decommissioned.) We found the cache, but we were in no hurry get there, and while driving around looking at all the old abandoned military buildings and equipment, we saw an aircraft carrier between the buildings. The road down to the dock was open (no signs saying keep out or anything). So we drove down there. It looks like it was being gutted, since it was riding very high in the water, and there was a crane on the flight deck.. I assume to lift heavy pieces off the ship and put them on the dock. I took a picture, but the only identifying mark was a 10 on the island. I did some research, and at first I thought it might be the second Yorktown, but that theory died quickly when I discovered that my mystery carrier was much too small, looked nothing like it, and most of all, that the Yorktown is a flaoting museum in South Carolina. I did a little more research, and found two small escort/light carriers which were loaned to Britian during the war under lend-lease, the HMS Chaser (CVE-10) and the HMS Rajah (D-10), but the photos published of the Chaser look nothing like this (no side-elevator, etc.) While online photographs of the Rajah looks vaguely like the one I photographed, it was returned to the US after the war, used in the mediterrenian under various names, and was sold for scrap in Spain in 1975. So.. I can seem to track down which carrier this is. Does anybody have any ideas. I'm tempted to go out there again soon and see if I can find a name, or more clues. -- Mitch

Until I become a member a few weeks back, I was still getting the latest new caches in my area just like I always had been. I don't remember getting it this week, so maybe there's a problem with the system right now. Usually they come out each Thursday. Though a few time the system has been so bogged down that I don't get the email til much later. Things to check... is home zip (or co-ordiates) in your profile? Do you have the notification box checked? -- Mitch

There is sometimes a problem when you first download the almanac, and the date offset gets corrupted. Do a system reset (check the garmin website for instructions), and then put it someplace with a good view of the sky for 1/2 hour so that it can get a good copy of the almanac. -- Mitch

quote:Originally posted by Alphawolf: quote:Go into your MyPop and then profile. The signature box is the very bottom one. The signature box is empty! Now what? Changes made don't take effect until you "log out" of the forums and log back in. I am not sure why. -- Mitch

I think the USB support in Mapsource is for a USB device to upload data to one the memory cards used by the StreetPilot, eMap, nautical and aviation devices. I feel your pain. My legend only has 8mb, and to fill it takes over 20 minutes. I really don't understand why they didn't add USB support to the GPS V, since that has 19mb (or why they didn't swtich to SD cards the way Magellan did.) Hopefully they'll wise up soon... but probably not in time for the Rhino. -- Mitch

I think the USB support in Mapsource is for a USB device to upload data to one the memory cards used by the StreetPilot, eMap, nautical and aviation devices. I feel your pain. My legend only has 8mb, and to fill it takes over 20 minutes. I really don't understand why they didn't add USB support to the GPS V, since that has 19mb (or why they didn't swtich to SD cards the way Magellan did.) Hopefully they'll wise up soon... but probably not in time for the Rhino. -- Mitch

I have a legend with it's little patch antenna, and I can get a lock inside my house (1 story, tar&gravel roof), but not at my parents house (2 story, asphalt shingle roof). I also can't get a lock in any building with a metal roof (e.g. CostCo, HomeDepot, etc.) So.. I can get in some door, but not others. But this wasn't a poll option. -- Mitch

I have a legend with it's little patch antenna, and I can get a lock inside my house (1 story, tar&gravel roof), but not at my parents house (2 story, asphalt shingle roof). I also can't get a lock in any building with a metal roof (e.g. CostCo, HomeDepot, etc.) So.. I can get in some door, but not others. But this wasn't a poll option. -- Mitch

quote:Originally posted by cachew nut: You only need a lock on four satellites to get a position. True, but knowing which 4 is the trick. Picking any random 4 out of the visible constelation won't necessarily give you good answers. Some may be blocked by buildings, trees, the geocacher leaning over the device, etc. Signals from one satellite may have passed through a particularly bad part of the ionosphere and become garbled or refracted. Also some configurations give better answers than others. The more angular separation between the satellites the less the DOP (dilution of position). After all.. if 4 sats were enough, then we'd all have 4 channel receivers. :-) If you decrease the number of satellites at your disposal, then you decrease the odds of getting a good configuration from those you can receive. If WAAS is working properly, this will offset the loss of a couple of other satellites, but like I have said before.. I've only once gotten WAAS corrections to work in over a year of trying. And that was after standing still for 20 minutes to allow it to download the WAAS data (need 10 minutes uninteruptted, and regular updates thereafter). quote:If you are receiving a WAAS signal, your accuracy will improve. Not necessarily, according to the document I read, if you're not receiving distance of one of the ground stations (for instance, most of Europe), then using WAAS may cause a decrease in accuracy. Also, be somewhat skeptical of claims made by the marketing depts. Usually these statements are "defensible", but overly optimistic. -- Mitch

I think you may be misinterpreting the display. When WAAS is on, the last one or two slots are dedicated to WAAS satellites (numbers greater than 32, usually 35 and 42 in the western US). However, how many satellites appear on that page with WAAS on or off depends on how many are above the horizon for your location at that time. This can change relatively quickly. It could be that there were just 8 "normal" gps sats visible when you tried your WAAS test, but 12 when you turned WAAS off. Either way, I've never seen the causal relationship you describe. There is a cool faq over at Joe Mehaffey's site. -- Mitch [This message was edited by Pneumatic on June 20, 2002 at 11:21 AM.]