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Paperless Caching Kit


markandlynn

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I use

 

Registered version of GSAK £8

Microsoft autoroute 1998 £15 (using csv files from GSAK)

A palm Vx £10

A registered version of cachemate £8 (uses pdb files exported from GSAK)

Etrex yellow with two leads one for exporting from GSAK and to export to the palm

Premium membership of GC.com

Home computer

Leads to connect this lot to each other and my PC £22

 

Total cost to go paperless £63 plus the cost of my PC , GPS'r and premium membership.

 

So whats your kit and cost's for other's to do comparisons ?

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I use

 

Registered version of GSAK £8

Memory Map (OS mapping) and TomTom V5 Navigation (Not prepared to say the price of these :ph34r: )

MIO 168 (£180 this is also my backup GPS)

GPX Sonar (uses GPX files exported from GSAK or GC.com)

Garmin GPSMap 60CS (£320 new from Aspidshop)

Premium membership of GC.com

Home computer

Leads to connect this lot to each other and my PC £0

 

Approx cost to go paperless £200 plus the cost of my PC , GPS'r and premium membership.

 

Not bad concidering I have OS maps and a backup GPS

 

Milton (aka Moote)

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So whats your kit and cost's for other's to do comparisons ?

I use

 

A registered version of cachemate: £8

An eTrex Vista with Metroguide Europe: £260

An iQue 3600 with CS7 & Cachemate & Fugawi & & Birdwatch &etc: £470 approx

Premium membership of GC.com: £16

2 PCs and a UNIX server & broadband connection: £ 3200 approx

A Renault Megane II DCi: £15000 approx

Wet weather clothing for Ireland: £120 approx

A divorce: £27000 and counting

 

Total cost to go paperless: £46,074 (incl. VAT) so far... :ph34r:

 

-Wlw.

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I use

 

Registered version of GSAK £8 (to put waypoints onto the gps and to create the html for the spv)

Google earth - free

Orange spv c500 smartphone - Free (£25 per month for contract 120 mins calls 100txt 6mb data)

eTrex Legend $129 (about £70) from Bass Pro in upstate NY

Premium membership of GC.com

Home computer "gift" from work

 

So excluding the monthly phone contract (which I would have anyway) under £100 for the year

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Registered version of GSAK £8

A palm m130 £35 (EBay)

A registered version of cachemate £8

Etrex Vista C plus USB cable

Garmin Mapsource - cheap 2nd hand bargain

Premium membership of GC.com

Memory Map £LOTS!

 

So I have a download of all the UK caches which I update GSAK with once a week.

 

I identify a nice area to go cache hunting (GCUK GIS map) and chose a cache in the middle

 

I filter GSAK records to return caches n miles from the central location

 

I download waypoints to Vista and Caches to Palm

 

I Update maps on the Vista if it's a map area I don't currently have loaded

 

I export caches from GSAK to Memory Map and then print out a map or two for the area.

 

I would like to have a PPC device capable of running Memory Map and Tom Tom so I could have satnav and also paperless footpath level mapping. It's on my wishlist, but I manage to scrape along pretty well :ph34r:

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We use:

 

Home-brewed Access Database which reads .GPX files from GC.com and generates journey-specific .GPX files and HTML pages: £0

Plucker (to turn HTML in to a format the Palm can read): £0

Palm Tungsten: £0 - free from a friend!

EasyGPS (to load the waypoints): £0

Cable to connect PC to the GPSr: £0 - made it myself!

Etrex yellow: £0 - Christmas present last year

Home computer: £??? Nearly four years old so with depreciation, probably £0 by now!

 

Total cost to go paperless £0 (excluding the cost of premium membership)

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Registered version of GSAK £8

A Palm OS Sony Clie SL22 £99 many years ago (about £30 on Ebay now)

A registered version of cachemate £8

Magellan GPS320 (£50 at a jumble sale in 2003)

TomTom Navigation Pack (IPAQ, GPS, car mount and in car SatNav software) £250

Premium membership of GC.com

Fugawi Southern England and Wales £40

Pc-Mobile.com cable with interchangeable ends to connect all the above £35

In car charger and charging cables for the PDAs £10 on Ebay

Hard metal cases for PDAs £15 on Ebay

Aquapac for Magellan £12 on 7dayshop.com

Compass £3.50 from Mountain Warehouse

 

Stndard configuaration - PDA in right pocket, PDA in other pocket, Magellan hung from a lanyard. Palm is used for Cachemate but is a bit too slow to show Fugawi at its best so IPAQ runs TomTom and displays Fugawi maps.

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Registered version of GSAK £8

Mio 168 with 256 MB SD Card & TomTom Nav 3 £320

Garmin GPS60 £105

Premium membership of GC.com

Fugawi Southern England and Wales £35

Compass which I had already.

Waterproof map case (present)

 

Use mio 168 with TomTom to get to parking spot. Then Garmin to get to cahce site. Export HTML files from GSAK and store on mio 168 accessed by explorer when in need of further details hints etc. I also usually print out a map of the cache area from FUGAWI in case of total battery loss.

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Registered version of GSAK £8

Registered version of GPX Spinner (to generate html files for Plucker) £8 ish

eTrex Legend £80 eBay with Mapsource

Memory Map £50 from a mate (old version)

Sony Clie PDA (which I had before I started caching) £0

Plucker £0

Premium membership of GC.com

Silva-style Compass £3 ebay

Waterproof map case £3

 

So, about £150

 

I am not completely paperless as I still use a map - or Memory Map printout :D

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Simply put, we as geocachers should all send emails to Garmin, Magellen, and other manufactures and request that they be able to process or load GPX files into their units and store some basic geocache information such as full Cache description, Cache Type, Last 5 logs, TB information, difficulty and terrain.

 

This is not too much to ask. They claim that their units are geocaching enabled. Not! Data for 500 caches normally takes less than 3 MB which is an insignificant amount of space with today's units.

 

We all need to ask for this or they will not do it.

 

Who wants to carry a PDA and a GPS?

Who wants to waste more time printing out sheets?

Who wants to spend more money on additional equipment when storing and displaying this information in your current GPS is nothing more than a software update and available memory?

 

Contact your manufacture now and let's put an end to this non-sense.

 

Zinnware

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Registered version of GSAK

Registered version of Cachemate

TomTom Go 300 with all UK caches loaded as POI's (already had this before we started caching)

Garmin 60CSx with 1Gb Micro SD card and virtually all of UK Topo Maps loaded

Garmin eTrex Yellow (backup GPS)

BT338 bluetooth GPS (for use with Fugawi on Palm - moving map)

Palm Tungsten E2 handheld with 500Mb SD card to hold large maps and all UK caches

Fugawi mapping software

Intel Core Duo Apple iMac running Windows (for GSAK and Mapsource) as well as OS X

Google Earth (for planning days out caching)

Premium membership of GC.com

In-car charging for virtually all of the above

 

Total cost? Haven't a clue other than it's not cheap. Suits us perfectly though and gives us solid performance with enough backup options not to spoil a day out caching a long way from home :sad:

Edited by The Bolas Heathens
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Garmin Etrex Vista (bought a while back, now it's available at a rather friendly price)

Garmin bike mount for Etrex GPSRs (around 31 USD)

Palm Tungsten E2 (was around 300 USD equivalent those days)+ 512M SD card (given away lately, text and pictures are synchronised to the card)

EasyGPS (direct waypoint downloading to the Vista from Web and managing wps and routes, free)

OpenOffice.org (free office software, text conversion/compression to the palm doc format, very space friendly- text can be viewed on palm with any Doc Reader, many of them free or free to try)

Palm Media (bundled with Palm, for viewing pictures on palm)

Google Earth (excellent tool, but I use it very rarely)

Edited by astacus
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Much the same as most....

 

Etrex Camo (£60 from ebay)

GSAK (£8)

Cachemate (£8)

Premium Membership of GC.com

Palm Tungsten E2 (about £150) with 1Gb SD Card (Loaded with the UK database on card and locals databses on handheld, for faster access)

Google Earth (Free)

Microsoft Autoroute (Free with PC)

Garmin SatNav (about £150) with UK Trad Cache list

 

And two things I would never be without,

Big stick (free from woods)

Baseball cap, which keeps rain of my glasses and has a small GC.com lapel badge on it!

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Simply put, we as geocachers should all send emails to Garmin, Magellen, and other manufactures and request that they be able to process or load GPX files into their units and store some basic geocache information such as full Cache description, Cache Type, Last 5 logs, TB information, difficulty and terrain.

 

 

I use custom waypoints on my Garmin 60csx, it reads the GPX and displays Cache difficulty/terain and hints.

not perfect but its a start.

Edited by stora
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b2c_m_q1.jpg

 

Just purchased one of these for the ultimate in paperless caching, It will connect to my Garmin GPS, run GSAK, Memory Map, route planning, and bluetooth GPS. Looks like the PPC is no more and the palm can't even approach the power of this.

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I am just getting organised for paperless caching so far :-

 

Acer N50 premium pda £220

Safecom sugps-r720 (CF gps ) £50

Easy gps

Beeline gps (not yet registered)

autoroute 2002 free with computer (pocket streets)

As soon as i get sorted premium membership <_<

 

I think Beeline is excellent, I would not have known about it if Moote hadn't mentioned it.

I just need some time to go caching now.

Edited by dpoet
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Garmin Legend £90 (inc postage, duty paid/refunded)

SMC Contour map of uk - free

Palm VIIx £25 (had it before I started so no really a direct cost)

modification to Palm to increase battery life to 2mths £1.50 (good old Maplin)

Cachemate - not a clue how much I paid for this $/£ ?

 

Home brew database of cache stats, my finds/cache, current uk caches

Home brew program to map all details from my database on a local Google Map to help me plan and select caches for my next bit of software

Home brew program to get the cache details of my planned cache hunts and append the details to cachemate on the Palm

Edited by lakeuk
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