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quote:Originally posted by Jebediah:I think that requirement isn't based on decomposition rates but rather on the extremely limited amount of dry accessible soil in certain sensitive canyon areas. Imagine what would happen if everybody defecated in the same sand bars and pull-outs hundreds of times a season. It's a combination of visitor volume and the environment's limited ability to absorb the amount of waste being generated. Desert decomposition rates are so slow that some archaeologists have studied 900 year old sun-baked feces to bolster the claim that the ancestoral Pueblos (Anasazi)practiced ritual cannibalism. Back on topic: For most environments, Leave No Trace says: "Deposit solid human waste in catholes dug 6 to 8 inches deep at least 200 feet from water, camp, and trails. Cover and disguise the cathole when finished." (There are different recommendations for western river corridors and desert canyon country.) Since the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service are all federal partners in the LNT programs, it strikes me that Mary Pat's initial post was more anti-geocaching than anti-digging. In no way would I ever condone the burying of geocaches, but the bold assertion, "Digging or disturbing land in National Forests is illegal!" just doesn't make sense. Her further assertion that my observation regarding standard backcountry sanitation was a failure of logic, her continued threats of arrest and fines, along with her failure to address the specifics of the law only confirms my belief that she is the type of lower level government employee that is best avoided; "Yes, Sir", "No, Ma'am" and move along without questioning their authority. I'm sorry I ever jumped into this thread. In the future I'll limit myself to discussions with policy makers and managers. Cephas Hawke Bedford, NH [This message has been edited by CaptHawke (edited 08 August 2001).]

My ancient Garmin GPS 38 is on its death bed and I've got 200 waypoints stored in it. I'd like to move them to my PC, but I don't have a cable for it and I really don't want to spend $35-40 on a cable I'll only use once. Is there anyone in San Diego with a suitable cable that can help me?

read the Aug 5th log here http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=200

"I bought the Mag330x this past week and love it. I wasn't going to drop a load of bills on a Garmin and then still have to buy a $100 cd-rom! " I agree with that 100%. Charging another 100 bucks for the map after charging $200-$300 for the receiver SUCKS! Garmin could, at least, offer a substantial discount on the software if purchased with the unit. I would buy my own for $45 but for $100 I'll look for someone from whom I can borrow or even rent the software. I'll give the Magellan 330 another look.

I live in phoenix AZ and have about 2 bills to spend on a gps don't think i'll spend too much time in heavy cover......pls throw me some ideas on good GPSR's for about 200.00 thanks!

I'm with brokenwing!I've got the top of the line eTrex(Vista) & with all it's bells & whistles, it is terrible in the woods.If you aniicipate being under any tree cover in your cache adventures, my opinion would be to stay away from the eTrex.I know folks who have gotten rid of theirs or unsuccessfully tried to.At least up here in the Northeast.With all the comments regarding this issue, I almost think geographical location has something to do with it.A lot of folks say they have no problem at all but up here in New York, there for sure is a problem.Go for something with a good antenna.I count on the Garmin III Plus.Does the job no matter what conditions I'm in & I've been in some heavy woods looking for caches.I've also got the MAP76,(about $400.00 with the external antenna),and that doesn't perform as well as the III Plus in the woods.The III Plus is about $279.00.I have had no experience with Magellans, but if I were you, and had a $200.00 limit, I would look at the Mags. that others have mentioned.They have the antenna & from what I've read, some nice features.Never been to AZ.,so don't know what the foliage is like down there.If you don't have any nasty overhead stuff where caches are placed, eTrex might work.But don't do like I did & find out after you buy cuz the unit might end up giving you some frustration.Hope this helps & have fun. .--Gimpy-- ------------------ Gary "Gimpy" Strong Rochester,NY

I'm with brokenwing!I've got the top of the line eTrex(Vista) & with all it's bells & whistles, it is terrible in the woods.If you aniicipate being under any tree cover in your cache adventures, my opinion would be to stay away from the eTrex.I know folks who have gotten rid of theirs or unsuccessfully tried to.At least up here in the Northeast.With all the comments regarding this issue, I almost think geographical location has something to do with it.A lot of folks say they have no problem at all but up here in New York, there for sure is a problem.Go for something with a good antenna.I count on the Garmin III Plus.Does the job no matter what conditions I'm in & I've been in some heavy woods looking for caches.I've also got the MAP76,(about $400.00 with the external antenna),and that doesn't perform as well as the III Plus in the woods.The III Plus is about $279.00.I have had no experience with Magellans, but if I were you, and had a $200.00 limit, I would look at the Mags. that others have mentioned.They have the antenna & from what I've read, some nice features.Never been to AZ.,so don't know what the foliage is like down there.If you don't have any nasty overhead stuff where caches are placed, eTrex might work.But don't do like I did & find out after you buy cuz the unit might end up giving you some frustration.Hope this helps & have fun. .--Gimpy-- ------------------ Gary "Gimpy" Strong Rochester,NY

Thanks for your replies. I was actually making sure that I was holding it vertically. The walk from where I parked to the woods was about 200 yards across an open field where I had at least 10 sats. "pinging" away. I have spent at least an hour on hold with Garmin and have yet to speak to a real person. May just take it back to the store. This is really beginning to rot.

The one cache I placed is about a 5 minute drive from where I live. It is in a busy park and I try and check it once a week and leave a log report so hunters know it is still there. The other cache I placed I have checked it twice as it is about 200 km away. But I will check it this weekend.

Ductile iron pipe or clay pipe would be an other option. It comes in many sizes. I am working on a project now where we are excavating old water pipes in a sea side city. The clay pipes look as good as the day they were buried(1800's). The cast iron pipes are rusty but intact (early 1900's) These pipes are in wet areas and the temp above ground goes from -40 to +100, not in 1 day mind you but we are still talking 100 and 200 years not bad.

Looks like your working the 'Over The River..' cache id=1177 If the difference is 20-30 miles, it can't be a datum error. The co-ordinates you posted appear to be in decimal minutes format (dd mm.mmm), but neither topozone nor jeeep accept that format. Both topozone and jeeep will accept coords in either degree/minute/second or in decimal degrees, but decimal minutes are not an acceptable input. So: >N33 2.306 W096 39.855 converts to decimal degrees: 2.306/60=.03843 so N33.03843 39.855/60=0.66425 so W-096.66425 (remember West = negative) Entering these co-ordinates into topozone gives the same location as the cache map. One final note: The spot displayed on topozone in this manner can be off by as much as 200 feet. Even clicking on the link to topozone from the cache page, which will use the same coordinates as calculated above, will be slightly off. The reason is that the coordinates displayed on the geocaching.com cache page are using WGS84 datum, and topozone uses the USGS standard of NAD27. There are a number of utilities, including your GPSR itself, that will convert between WGS84 and NAD27. My favorite is to use easygps (free). [This message has been edited by arffer (edited 29 July 2001).]

I have updated my little graph, and unfortunately, I still can't figure out how to paste it here for all to view. Just some "gee whiz" things for all of you to ponder: 1. The last time we had a single-digit cache placement week was the week of May 20th. 2. We have placed 20 or more caches in a week FIVE times. 3. Since the last time there were NO caches placed in a week, (the first week of February) we have averaged 11.16 caches per week. 4. The week of July 8 - 15 (Rendezvous Week) there were 30 caches placed. No small thanks to Junkyard Dog, who I know placed at least 4 nice ones that week. 5. It took us 8 months to break the 100 barrier, then 6 weeks to get to 200. If we stay on pace, we will hit 300 by next weekend, and that will have taken 5 weeks. 6. There are 286 caches in Utah as of this writing on 7/28/01. 7. We are SMOKING everyone with one cache per every 7,808 people in our state. The next closest is Oregon with one cache per 16,292 people. 8. We have a 15% average weekly growth rate since the first cache was placed in Utah by Leaper64 last September. 9. The curve is looking strikingly similar to a bacteria population chart, that is, it appears to be exponential, kind of. Let's hope it tapers off somewhere along the way, or we'll be tripping over each other's caches. 10. If I had to pick a number, 20 seems to be the typical week for us. I think that on my BEST week hunting, I only managed to bag 18, so I don't think I will try to find all the Utah caches. Anyway, there is the data, FWIW.

I have updated my little graph, and unfortunately, I still can't figure out how to paste it here for all to view. Just some "gee whiz" things for all of you to ponder: 1. The last time we had a single-digit cache placement week was the week of May 20th. 2. We have placed 20 or more caches in a week FIVE times. 3. Since the last time there were NO caches placed in a week, (the first week of February) we have averaged 11.16 caches per week. 4. The week of July 8 - 15 (Rendezvous Week) there were 30 caches placed. No small thanks to Junkyard Dog, who I know placed at least 4 nice ones that week. 5. It took us 8 months to break the 100 barrier, then 6 weeks to get to 200. If we stay on pace, we will hit 300 by next weekend, and that will have taken 5 weeks. 6. There are 286 caches in Utah as of this writing on 7/28/01. 7. We are SMOKING everyone with one cache per every 7,808 people in our state. The next closest is Oregon with one cache per 16,292 people. 8. We have a 15% average weekly growth rate since the first cache was placed in Utah by Leaper64 last September. 9. The curve is looking strikingly similar to a bacteria population chart, that is, it appears to be exponential, kind of. Let's hope it tapers off somewhere along the way, or we'll be tripping over each other's caches. 10. If I had to pick a number, 20 seems to be the typical week for us. I think that on my BEST week hunting, I only managed to bag 18, so I don't think I will try to find all the Utah caches. Anyway, there is the data, FWIW.

put your cache where you want and them shoot compass bearings back to a spot where your reception is good. Then mark your good spot as the cache with a compass bearing offset; I.E. 270 feet at 200 degrees or something along that line. TTFN

-line cache logs for more than a few caches, you'll understand that everything is not always perfect. One thing that you will see is finders posting revised coordinates, saying that the original poster was off by several, or evcen quite a few, thousandths. That might make the 20 foot circle into a 200 foot circle. All this is to say that your GPS *should* get you very near the cache, but your mileage may vary. A pretty common recommendation is that you carry a decent compass as well as the GPS. When you get close, use the GPS to get bearing and distance, use the compass to know which way to walk, and count paces.

My ancient Garmin GPS 38 is on its death bed and I've got 200 waypoints stored in it. I'd like to move them to my PC, but I don't have a cable for it and I really don't want to spend $35-40 on a cable I'll only use once. Is there anyone in San Diego with a suitable cable that can help me?

Our costs thus far... GPS (Lowrance GlobalNav 12) $30 (bought it off a co-worker) Batteries (unit eats 4 batts a trip (at least)) $3 a trip (rayovac maximum) 1/2 case of Water (6 bottles) per trip $1.25 (Wal-mart 2 cases for $5) Signature Items (10) $1.49 each Gas for the 200+ mile round trip (each trip) $15 a trip assorted band-aids and first aid creme $0 (stole them from work!!) assorted replacment supplies (per trip) $5 total cost per trip approx $25.00 number of trips so far 3 caches found 13 caches tried 16 total cost to date $75 approx. total cost per cache $ 4.69 time spent with wife $ priceless

Our costs thus far... GPS (Lowrance GlobalNav 12) $30 (bought it off a co-worker) Batteries (unit eats 4 batts a trip (at least)) $3 a trip (rayovac maximum) 1/2 case of Water (6 bottles) per trip $1.25 (Wal-mart 2 cases for $5) Signature Items (10) $1.49 each Gas for the 200+ mile round trip (each trip) $15 a trip assorted band-aids and first aid creme $0 (stole them from work!!) assorted replacment supplies (per trip) $5 total cost per trip approx $25.00 number of trips so far 3 caches found 13 caches tried 16 total cost to date $75 approx. total cost per cache $ 4.69 time spent with wife $ priceless

Jeremy said: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Mild winters, late summer sunsets, and small population make it a great place to live. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ARE YOU NUTS?..... I kept looking for the smiley face, the wink, the "my brain is scrambled" icon..... If Seattle (Belleview, Issaquah, Somamish, etc. is SMALL POPULATION, then I'm a lightweight (all 330 lbs). When I visit J&M it takes me 35 min to get to I-90 (all 2.1 miles of it). Take a trip to North Dakota or New Mexico, now that's "small population". Sugar and I drove 200+ miles across the Plain of St. Agustine in southern NM and we passed one car and met two. aaaahhhh blissful solitude! [This message has been edited by Sluggo (edited 25 July 2001).]

Jeremy said: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Mild winters, late summer sunsets, and small population make it a great place to live. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ARE YOU NUTS?..... I kept looking for the smiley face, the wink, the "my brain is scrambled" icon..... If Seattle (Belleview, Issaquah, Somamish, etc. is SMALL POPULATION, then I'm a lightweight (all 330 lbs). When I visit J&M it takes me 35 min to get to I-90 (all 2.1 miles of it). Take a trip to North Dakota or New Mexico, now that's "small population". Sugar and I drove 200+ miles across the Plain of St. Agustine in southern NM and we passed one car and met two. aaaahhhh blissful solitude! [This message has been edited by Sluggo (edited 25 July 2001).]

You might want to take a look at the software that others have put out for the home GPS user. www.expertgps.com www.easygps.com (free-like-beer) As another programmer who has thought about this, here's some of the requirements that have come to mind. You want a cheap (maybe free) product, that will add functionality that isn't practical inside the GPSR itself, such as larger, more detailed maps, automatic navigation, etc. You want the application to be lightweight engough that it will run on older hardware. (A lot of people might pick up an old pentium laptop just to take geocaching with them, but they won't take one that is worth more than $200, since there is a good chance it's not coming back in one piece. So, the code should run on old hardware with only 16 or 32 MB of RAM. I think 500MB, or maybe a CDROM's worth of data should be the most it will take up on disk, and most of that should be map data rather than code. ExpertGPS does a very good job at fetching and caching MAP data from online sources, but currently doesn't fetch shapefiles or allow you to navigate. It might seem like a good idea to use a haldheld like a Palm or an iPaq, but there are several problems I see: 1) There isn't a good interface standard between these units and peripherals, making it a thorny problem. 2) The units typically don't have much more processing power or memory than the GPSR itself, and this means that it can't handle signigicantly larger problems than the GPSR itself can. About the only advantage that I can see is that most handhelds have a slightly higher resolution screen, but given above problems, I don't think it's worth the trouble... and others already have done the work. There is some good GPS software out for the Palm, et. al. Anybody else have some bright ideas? -- Mitch [This message has been edited by PneumaticDeath (edited 25 July 2001).]

quote:Originally posted by AngstMonger:I had this problem recently with my Summit. After putzing around with it, I found I could duplicate the problem. Here was the situation for me. I had created and activated a route comprising 50 waypoints (the maximum)... When on the Map Page, I could make the unit shut off without fail by downsizing the Map Scale to 200 feet (the minimum). I'm not sure what the exact combination of factors is that results in the shutdown, but as I said, I could force it to do so every time. I haven't had the problem at all otherwise. I have emailed Garmin tech support, but have yet to hear from them. Just a warning, Garmin tech support takes forever to get around to answering e-mail. I sent in a question for them (about the problem that I had here with the Venture turning off) and it took them 2.5 weeks to get back to me. ------------------ -Iron Chef _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ agefive.com/geocache/ ~ Fe-26 Lets Drive Fast and Eat Cheese!

A pirate, 200 years too late...

nd 200 and didn't place 1, I don't mind. It takes all types. That being said, I would like to see a stat for total contribution - who placed the most. Probably someone in Utah GEOCACHER # OF CACHES # OF CACHES HIDDEN erik 138 *none found for Erik, 2 found for Eric GLNash 119 *none found wtmrn 115 6 Gumby & Pokey 115 *none found bunkerdave 108 7 denali 105 3 JoA 100 *none found Hasbro 89 4 bent_twigs 87 *none found erik88l-r 85 2 KF Quad Explorer 83 17 Wow! hunt4elk 77 3 AndiM 66 2 stayfloopy 66 1 HFJohn 63 1 kkbean 61 10 smcginnis 60 8 jaw2925 60 10 Bufford 60 13 Hillwilly 60 33 Holy cow! *None found does not necessarily mean that they haven't placed any. The user may have simply used a different "byline". I searched only on the user names as entered here, no variations. Feel free to follow up to set the record straight.

nd 200 and didn't place 1, I don't mind. It takes all types. That being said, I would like to see a stat for total contribution - who placed the most. Probably someone in Utah GEOCACHER # OF CACHES # OF CACHES HIDDEN erik 138 *none found for Erik, 2 found for Eric GLNash 119 *none found wtmrn 115 6 Gumby & Pokey 115 *none found bunkerdave 108 7 denali 105 3 JoA 100 *none found Hasbro 89 4 bent_twigs 87 *none found erik88l-r 85 2 KF Quad Explorer 83 17 Wow! hunt4elk 77 3 AndiM 66 2 stayfloopy 66 1 HFJohn 63 1 kkbean 61 10 smcginnis 60 8 jaw2925 60 10 Bufford 60 13 Hillwilly 60 33 Holy cow! *None found does not necessarily mean that they haven't placed any. The user may have simply used a different "byline". I searched only on the user names as entered here, no variations. Feel free to follow up to set the record straight.