Dsorgnzd

Yes, you can download waypoints to your Venture Cx with GSAK. And if you have installed the Garmin Communicator plug-in for your web browser, you can download a cache directly from its listing by clicking the "Send To GPS" button. Garmin Communicator plug-in

Sold.

Gently used, no scratches or marks. Never dropped; I've only used it in the car and on easy hikes. $100 including the GPSr, user's manual (on disk), car power cord, data cable (serial interface), and a serial/USB cable (including driver disk) that allows you to connect it to a USB port. I've used the serial/USB cable with both a desktop and a laptop computer (Windows XP) and it works flawlessly. If $100 seems outrageous, make me an offer. (BTW, you can check my feedback on ebay: dsorgnzd. I haven't sold anything there, but I have bought a few things.)

Urban legend or not, thanks for the caution. I'll let "The Myth Busters" risk their GPSr to test it, not mine. It hasn't hurt my blue ETrex Legend (so far).

I bought an ETrex Venture CX (but haven't received it). When this model is connected to a computer via the USB port, does it also draw power from the connection (which seems logical to me)? I have an auto adapter left over from an old PDA, which has a USB output connector, similar to this one: . I'm hoping this will let me power the ETrex in the car, using the USB data cable.

Just my luck... I just bought the 1 gig version, which didn't have free shipping and only has a $3 rebate, so my final cost was $13.97 For $4 more I could have had twice the capacity. You can also sign up for Google Checkout and get another $10 off the price. 2 gigs for $8 shipped - a really good deal.

I'm not a geek, but I do plead guilty to being a "gadget freak" (someone who loves technological toys for their own sake). For example, I just ordered a wireless bridge so I can connect a high-tech control on my barbecue cooker to my home network, allowing me to control the cooker from any computer that has access to the internet. Now that I read the above, maybe I am a geek. After all, the contraction for "gadget freak" would probably be "geak" and how would you pronounce that??

I bought this http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-to-RS-232-DB-9-Ser...1QQcmdZViewItem usb/serial adaptor, and it works to connect my Legend to our Compaq Presario laptop. It also works with my desktop computer via its USB port (I tried it to be sure; I don't have to use it because the desktop computer has a serial port). For roughly $8 I think it's a reasonable solution. It came with a mini-CD with drivers for a number of different cables and adaptors, and I did have to figure out which one had to be installed for this particular cable, but that wasn't hard.

Interesting - I saw a link to your Instructable on Paddling.net this morning, and now I've stumbled across the... author? producer? Anyway, I wondered what effect running a 6-volt bulb on 9 volts would have on bulb life. I guess if you want more light, the trade-off would be acceptable. Have you tested this modification to determine battery life? Another decent, small light source (not quite as small as the flashlight) is the River Rock led lantern sold in Target stores. The original was very popular with kayak fishermen; it was discontinued and replaced by a smaller, brighter version: http://kfs.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9...1753#5921051753 Target seems to put them, not in the sporting goods dept., but in housewares or hardware or someplace you wouldn't expect.

Or, you have the option of choosing "Use with GPS off" instead of waiting for the Legend to acquire the satellites. I don't expect that would make any difference in this case, but since I'm always inside when transferring data between the computer and the Legend, I do this just to save a little time.

This may not add anything new, but I have the same Etrex Legend, and it works fine on my Windows XP computer. My suggestions: 1. Go into Device Manager, and make sure the port COM1 is enabled and working properly. In my case, the settings for COM1 are: Bits per Second: 9600 Data Bits: 8 Parity: None Stop bits: 1 Flow control: None 2. In the Etrex Legend: Setup – Serial Data Format: GARMIN 3. In GSAK: In GPS setup: GPS brand: GARMIN Uncheck the box for USB. Communications Port: COM1 And, as others have suggested, make sure you don't have other software that is using COM1. I also downloaded EasyGPS (which I don't use, but wanted to be sure it would work), and it finds the Legend and sends/receives waypoints without my having to do any particular setup in the EasyGPS program. Don't give up.

This is kind of a late reply, but I built a backup power supply for my PPC, using a small battery holder from Radio Shack (Catalog #: 270-409, holds 4 AA NiMHs) and the appropriate plug to fit the PPC (also from Radio Shack). I've used it several times to run the PPC when the internal battery was getting low; it will even charge the internal battery. This is a possible alternative for buying a Palm.

To quote George Carlin (in a routine about what is, and what is not a sport): "Hitting a ball with a crooked stick... then, walking after it... then, hitting it AGAIN! I say, you're lucky you found it, put it in your pocket and go the @#!**#@ home!" Lots of people take part in that pastime. When you put it the way Carlin did, it sounds stupid, too.

Do you have Google Earth? If so, you can locate your trailhead and find the coordinates there. Click on 'Roads' in the Layers area, so that roads will be visible. Then zoom in to the approximate location. You should be able to then find the road leading to the trailhead, and follow it to your destination. Place the mouse pointer at the trailhead and copy the coordinates.

To make things easier let me suggest you to save the geocaching.loc file to your computer and open it directly with mapsource, that way you don't have to enter coordinates manually, you have a bunch of waypoints you can transfer at once to your unit. True. I have to remember not to give advice when I'm doing three other things at once.

Edit: poor advice removed.

I believe you're right. I have GSAK set up as the default program to open .loc files, and if I download a cache file, and choose to "open" the file with GSAK, then GSAK opens and adds the location to its list of locations. I can then use GSAK to load all of the waypoints into my Legend. So presumably I could create a list of locations by downloading all the ones I was interested in, then move all the waypoints to my GPSr in one fell swoop.

Lots of the black-and-white Legends have sold on Ebay in the last couple of months for anywhere between $65 and $90. Most of them were used, but there were a couple of new ones at those prices. I bought one myself back in January.

If you have an address at (or near) your destination, you can go to Mapquest (www.mapquest.com) and enter your starting and ending addresses to get driving directions. I'm not aware of a source for driving directions if you only have the coordinates of the destination. If that's the case, you could use Google Earth to locate an intersection close to the cache's location, then use that to get your driving directions from Mapquest or a similar source.

Where did you get an adapter for 99 cents that works? Thanx, Ray You can find one here: ebay listing for 99 cents, but add the $5.99 shipping (for an item that would probably cost <$1 to send via first class mail) and it isn't quite as good a bargain. Still beats $60 though.

If the back corners happen to be marked with iron stakes, use a GPS to get you as close as possible, then use a metal detector to find the stakes. Otherwise, if you want the corners marked accurately, I think you'll need a surveyor.

The string you got from multimap has both latitude and longitude expressed two ways. Your latitude coordinate is listed as 54:38:52N which means 54 degrees, 38 minutes, 52 seconds North. The (54.6479) is simply the degrees-minutes-seconds value converted to decimal degrees. The same with the longitude coordinate, with the negative value simply indicating that it is a West longitude. If you need either value in degrees and decimal minutes, the simplest way to convert is to divide the seconds value by 60, and add that to the minutes value. So, 54:38:52 would convert to 54degrees, 38.867 minutes. The seconds value, divided by 60, will give you the decimal part of the minutes value that you need. It appears that, when you entered the string the way you did, your conversion program took the second latitude value (54.6479) as the longitude. So it returned a longitude coordinate that was roughly 49 degrees too far west. Try it again, but delete the values in parentheses leaving 54:38:52N 5:40:06W and I think you'll get the correct values. (Edit) I see you found the answer while I was typing away at the above longwinded explanation!

GPS Visualizer Here's one way to do it. It returns the coordinates both in decimal degrees, and degrees/decimal minutes.

I have an old IPaq pda (IPaq 3135, which is identical to the 3150) that I replaced with a newer, smaller model a few years ago, and I'd like to use it for paperless caching. The problem is that it has an older software version, Pocket PC 2000. Every software program I've found requires Pocket PC 2002 or later. Is there a program that will work with this older unit? I don't believe there is a way to update the pda to Pocket PC2002.

Here's a link to a source: http://www.pfranc.com/usb/usb.shtml I have not tried this converter, so I can't speak from personal experience. However, I did buy two Etrex plugs from this company, to make my own data cable, and I was very pleased with the quality of the plugs, and the service I got from the manufacturer. Their website says the converter works with Vista. You can find the short (4 inch) version of the converter on ebay for about $20 shipped (the seller may also have the longer version with a 6' cable): http://cgi.ebay.com/PFRANC-COM-USB-COM-POR...1QQcmdZViewItem Again, I have no personal experience with this seller. In any case, the converter will plug into your USB port, then your serial cable plugs into the converter, and you should be set to go.