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Yes, I've seen the same thing with my Meridian and my MAP 410. Any software that uses NMEA mode seems to act this way. One workaround I found was to put the unit into demo or simulate mode (it's in the setup menu towards/at the end of the list, I think) This generates a fake set of NMEA data, which is enough to test the inte rface, etc. I still haven't had any luck getting Topo USA 3.0 to talk to the Meridian, but I haven't really been trying that hard. I use that program mainly for printing maps and less for working with the GPS, now that I've gotten addicted to ExpertGPS. quote:Originally posted by Huaso:One of the things I noticed is that the Meridian doesn't appear to communicate with the PC if it can't achieve sat-lock. I have observed this with both TopoUSA and USAPhotoMaps.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... for me the best thing to find is something hand-made, home-made, or otherwise unique! Dollar Store Stuff is fine (and I've left/taken my fair share of those), but anything that a fellow cacher has put their own time and effort into creating wins hands down for me. (notice, I didn't mention monetary investment?) In my area we have Fergus' now famous handmade chainmail balls and bags, another local cacher has chosen to make home-made quilted pot holders as her signature item (have yet to get one of those)... I've heard of another cacher who makes golden railroad spikes to leave in caches. There's also Moun10Bike's custom-made geo-coins. Another cacher has custom-made ferret pins and yet another cacher has come up with 'cache cards' to commemorate your find. I tried the idea of 'personal cacher trading cards' myself (but that hasn't seemed to go over very well), and others have come up with personalized pens, keychains, and even yo-yos. And let's not forget the cache-u-nuts theme either! I'm sure there are many more examples I've missed, but my point is that I would much rather find something personal, home-made, hand-made, or at least very unique, instead of just another dollar store item or used golf ball. I know... I have lot's of room to talk here 'cause I have yet to come up with a unique idea of my own, but believe me, I'm working on it and have been racking my brain for that PERFECT thing, sooner or later I'll come up with something. I once had the idea of opening an online store to sell all sorts of unique, interesting, or personalized items just for fellow geocachers, but quickly realized just how much fun that would take OUT of the game. It's much beter having each participant find/choose/make something unique and/or personalized from the wide world of available 'trinkets' that are, or may be, unique to a particular area, or something hand/home-made. Just my two cents, but if you want to attract my attention start leaving something that you didn't just go out and buy off the shelf. Oh BTW, sorry to ignore your initial question... the 'Best find' for me was Fergus' chainmail ball. He made one, I found one, I met him at an event cache and he promised me that if I found three of them he would make me a pouch to carry them in. I now have threee of his chainmail balls AND a custom made pouch to carry them in and I'm hoping that at the next picnic he'll teach me how to juggle. To me, that's what it's all about. Ps. I recently retrieved a 'Brunton Classic' compass from a cache too... little did I know that I would meet up with my benefactor later that same day. Appearantly he didn't need it anymore, but for me it was a great find, so practical items like that are also cool to find in a cache! I would like to add that it does distress me somewhat to find that cache quality seems to go DOWN with more finds... I would like to believe that cache quality should actually go UP with more finds but that doesn't seem to be the case. Oh well. Tedoca

quote:Originally posted by Hawk-eye:OFF SEASON!!! What kind of talk is that ... there is no off season ... TURN IN YOUR DOUBLE A'S and GO WATCH THE SHOPPING CHANNEL till you come to your senses! I have to agree there is no off season. All you need are some good boots (or in 3feet of snow snowshoes) and your ready to go. Many caches are in stumps or hollow trees so you can still get to them. You could always hike your area and come up with a good plan for putting out a cache (I do mean a good plan, not just throw it out there) and then put it out once it's a bit nicer. Or heck, hang it from a tree and do it now. ------------------ "...Not all those who wander are lost..."

quote:Originally posted by Hawk-eye:OFF SEASON!!! What kind of talk is that ... there is no off season ... TURN IN YOUR DOUBLE A'S and GO WATCH THE SHOPPING CHANNEL till you come to your senses! I have to agree there is no off season. All you need are some good boots (or in 3feet of snow snowshoes) and your ready to go. Many caches are in stumps or hollow trees so you can still get to them. You could always hike your area and come up with a good plan for putting out a cache (I do mean a good plan, not just throw it out there) and then put it out once it's a bit nicer. Or heck, hang it from a tree and do it now. ------------------ "...Not all those who wander are lost..."

What happend to the Beer talk back at the first? I am confused now after reading all these posts all I want to know when and where the traveling mug is going to start so I can break it in!!! Lets get this going. Jim/WM5L

quote:Originally posted by fractal:As far as my brain tells me, I am the creator of the puzzle. I created it earlier this month, and created the graphic as well. I am flattered that people like my puzzles, and I don't mind if you use them, but please give credit where credit is due, and be kind enough to ask first. I have tried to contact the owner of the cache in question, but have not heard anything back from him as of yet. -fractal Discovered new word today: Copy-Cache Getting in touch with this person if very difficult. I had to do some things to get them to talk to me. Check out my thread would it be tacky if....? to see what happened in the saga of the lame and corrupt cache. MPB2 [This message has been edited by madphatboy2 (edited 30 January 2002).]

quote:Originally posted by fractal:As far as my brain tells me, I am the creator of the puzzle. I created it earlier this month, and created the graphic as well. I am flattered that people like my puzzles, and I don't mind if you use them, but please give credit where credit is due, and be kind enough to ask first. I have tried to contact the owner of the cache in question, but have not heard anything back from him as of yet. -fractal Discovered new word today: Copy-Cache Getting in touch with this person if very difficult. I had to do some things to get them to talk to me. Check out my thread would it be tacky if....? to see what happened in the saga of the lame and corrupt cache. MPB2 [This message has been edited by madphatboy2 (edited 30 January 2002).]

quote:Originally posted by Hawk-eye:OFF SEASON!!! What kind of talk is that ... there is no off season ... TURN IN YOUR DOUBLE A'S and GO WATCH THE SHOPPING CHANNEL till you come to your senses! amen

quote:Originally posted by Hawk-eye:OFF SEASON!!! What kind of talk is that ... there is no off season ... TURN IN YOUR DOUBLE A'S and GO WATCH THE SHOPPING CHANNEL till you come to your senses! amen

OFF SEASON!!! What kind of talk is that ... there is no off season ... TURN IN YOUR DOUBLE A'S and GO WATCH THE SHOPPING CHANNEL till you come to your senses!

OFF SEASON!!! What kind of talk is that ... there is no off season ... TURN IN YOUR DOUBLE A'S and GO WATCH THE SHOPPING CHANNEL till you come to your senses!

At least you admit your insane, now I dont feel like the only nut in this time zone. What you can do is several things: 1. Set up some virtual caches. 2. Go to the local park or a place like that, mark waypoints, talk a walk, make a fake route. Then try and do some trac logs . 3. Get used to UTM'S AND MAPS, practice for the summer. 4. Here are a few links to help alleviate cabin fever. http://www.maptools.com/UsingUTM/index.html http://www.cnde.iastate.edu/staff/swormley/maps/utm.html http://www.astro.uio.no/~kjetikj/compass/ http://www.equipped.org/devices26.htm http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/topo/ http://www.brunton.com/ http://www.princeton.edu/~oa/manual/mapcompass.shtml Its almost February only about 4 months of winter yet. ------------------ JoseCanUSea

quote:Originally posted by 300mag:HELLO DON We where getting worried lol.Talk about bad luck tick and Nammie got stuck for a while.It seems everyone had a great time SUPER. I also liked it a lot. Looking forward to another one like this. PS: By the way CLIFFY found another one of your caches lol. yeah, well I've found 80% of his five caches, and he's found 15.4% of my 13 caches (not including event caches). Not eactly bragging rights on either count, if you ask me. And go down to the states again. You guys in Ottawa have more caches that we do in Montreal.

HELLO DON We where getting worried lol.Talk about bad luck tick and Nammie got stuck for a while.It seems everyone had a great time SUPER. I also liked it a lot. Looking forward to another one like this. PS: By the way CLIFFY found another one of your caches lol.

GeoBuddy does not have a complete import/export file format. There is so little documentation that I never could get the text DGS format to work. Its main virtue is as a way to convert a Grouldspeak XML LOC file directly to Garmin's Mapsource and maintain the data. Would very much like to see better inport/export support of CSV's with formatting and default values. Since GeoBuddy does not talk to the GPSR, or Import Mapsource data and Mapsource does not export waypoints, it is not the best way to manage waypoint sets. EasyGPS only supports TopoGraphix format LOC files and reads the Groundspeak XML LOC files. Its main virtue is a way to transmit Groundspeak XML LOC files to the GPSR. It unfortunantly discards the description field when importing to my Vista. Waypoint+ is another tool that reads the GPS and had some import/export functionality. It doesn't support Mapsource or LOC files and has poor text format support. G7TO WIN is the best that I've found so far. http://home.attbi.com/~g7towin/ It has the best CSV support that I can use to make global changes to icons or other data. It also has the most complete import/export file type library with the major exceptions of PCX5 importing and LOC import/export. Waypoints can be exported as PCX5 WAYPOINTS and then imported into Mapsource without having to go through the GPSR. This is an interesting waypoint manager although it needs the ability to deal with simultanous waypoint lists and to delete selections of waypoints. I've sucessfully used this software to create a waypoint list of local NGS Survey markers. GPS Tracker is an intereting program that exports and imports in PCS5 format. It supports merging and selecting waypoints better then any of the above programs. Global replacements of text within descriptions are possible. It doesn't list but plots waypoints, tracks, and routes over a bitmap image of a map to get some sence of where you are. I favor this program for waypoint batch selection to create smaller waypoint files that I can import into my GPSR as needed. There is a real "Black Hole Effect" of data in all of these programs where they import one format but don't export it back the same way. I've been keeping my waypoint files in CSV format so that I can edit and import them wherever and however needed. Mapsource only exports in TAB DELIMITED which it doesn't even read back ! For now, I keep my waypoint library in CSV format and convert them to PCX5 format for importing into Mapsource.

Who cares about the Rino! Give me a GPS in a 2-meter ham radio! With the network of ham repeaters, the distances and audience you can communicate with will run rings around a Rino. You can even talk over the Internet with the new IRLP system. What's IRLP? Pop those letters into any search engine, and find out. Then go get a ham radio license, and get in on all the fun! Anton, N2RUD

s a sighting compass is good, because we have some landmarks that we can use. As to the declination I prefer one that is adjustable, thus when I print out my maps, that have True north lines, I can use the compass to plot triangulations without much difficulty. When it comes to brand, I prefer AMERICAN made and that is why I use Bruntons. But it is owned by the Swedes, who make real good compasses. I like to make my compass and GPS talk to the maps I have, just because I'm real curious as to where I'm at, and when you are involved with SAR it can be quite important. Someone's life depends on it. You would be surprised on how many people I meet in the High Country that can give you the numbers on their GPS's and where there vehicle is, but when you ask them where they are at on the map you just get a weird look. Here is some links for you. http://www.brunton.com/ http://www.princeton.edu/~oa/manual/mapcompass.shtml P.S. Next time you come to CO, check out some of our Caches out here. Here is an added link for you that shows some trails that are not listed on store bought trail guides. Trails that were walked and Plotted all by foot and hand, with GPS"s and Compasses. http://www.fortnet.org/pwv/ ------------------ JoseCanUSea [This message has been edited by JAMCC47 (edited 25 January 2002).]

I've been shopping for a GPS unit for over two months. I was seriously considering the Handspring due to the number of modules available for it, the ability to talk with MS Outlook, and the price. A lot of the newsgroups chatter was unfriendly toward the GPS implemtations on the Handspring but was finally chased away by the following review: http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/depth/gps050301a.htm Too bad since I was entertaining thoughts of using the color handspring with the camera and GPS modules to record my visits.

One of the things I noticed is that the Meridian doesn't appear to communicate with the PC if it can't achieve sat-lock. I have observed this with both TopoUSA and USAPhotoMaps. When I get sat-lock, each program can talk to the Meridian and transfer data. If not, nothing seems to work. Has anyone else noticed this?

Now that's sad. If you can't talk about geocaching in the designated chat room, what do you talk about? And what's worse is this thread should have died a LOOONNNNNGGGG time ago, and I just kicked it up to the top again.

quote:Originally posted by mrgigabyte: I use the following testing technique... and it TASTES like a cow pie... Then I better not step in it! Look I know it can get cold up there in Canada ... but that's just sick ... I think you need to talk to some one professionally about that ... little querk .. "a".

quote:Originally posted by mrgigabyte: I use the following testing technique... and it TASTES like a cow pie... Then I better not step in it! Look I know it can get cold up there in Canada ... but that's just sick ... I think you need to talk to some one professionally about that ... little querk .. "a".

Hope you don't mind an American butting in here but I wanted to suggest you talk to Moun10bike. I seem to recall him recently mentioning that he's not using his coins as travel bugs anymore because they seem to drift off anyways. Another thing to keep in mind for travel bugs is that not everyone knows how to log them and at this point seem to have a high tendancy to go MIA. If I were you I would definitely go for the hole in the coin so that you can attach some sort of laminated instruction card if you are going to use them as travel bugs. Just sharing my thoughts.

This thread might help. Also you can talk about triangulation as well, since the GPS receiver is kind of using "reverse triangulation" to determine it's own location. Here's my take on triangulation. Just a couple of thoughts... ------------------ Markwell My GPS Activity Page Non omnes vagi perditi sunt [This message has been edited by Markwell (edited 23 January 2002).]

I am posting late, but what a blast!!! I thought it was so funny when someone said, "So where is everyone from?" ZIP, ZIP, ZIP goes the scrolling screen. Wheeeee! Excellent job, ClayJar. I know the GGA members would be honored to participate in a future moderated session. Last night was pretty much a fun free for all. It will be too cool to see Jeremy in there if he can check in next week. Everyone will freak out! Last but not least, chat does offer some interactivity that AOL and Yahoo Instant Messanger do not. I am also one that will NOT install either of them on my computer. I have ICQ, and do not want a conflicting client. I use ICQ with BuddyPhone to talk to my dad for free! mIRC is easy to download and configure, and I am sure many people would help if assistance was needed. I also used ClayJar's Java link with great success. Totally AWESOME. Tons of fun. See ya next week... mtn-man from the GGA! [This message has been edited by mtn-man (edited 22 January 2002).]