Garmin Quest

[+piglet & grumpy]

New to geocaching and have a quest. set up with Swiss Army Knife and download GPS exchange files (*.gsak). After I lownload files to Quest can't find file. Also need help on how to use Quest to make it work geocaching?

 

Thank you

 

Piglet & Grumpy

[+lamas]

You can route by road to a place near the cache, and when you are close to the place, recalculate your route, but set it to off road, in this case you have a page that shows you a compass ring with a little triangule in the top side ( this is the direction you must follow) just adjust your heading by trying to make the arrow to match the triangule.

Just in case, change one of the fields on the right side of the screen to accuracy of the signal in that way you can restrain the search area to find the "right spot".

[Mustcache]

New to geocaching and have a quest. set up with Swiss Army Knife and download GPS exchange files (*.gsak). After I lownload files to Quest can't find file. Also need help on how to use Quest to make it work geocaching?

 

Thank you

 

Piglet & Grumpy

My first GPSr was a Quest (which worked well in geocaching). What I did was:

 

1. load the gpx file in the GSAK.

2. convert the gpx file to mps (Mapsource). This is under the file menu, export.

3. once the mps file is generated, send to GPSr.

[+Sputnik 57]

The Elsinga family has a great FAQ for the Quest (and Quest 2). It includes tips on Geocaching.

[Spinny]

I just got a Garmin Quest as an Xmas gift, and plan to do some geocaching with it when the weather co-operates. In reading these forums over the past couple of days I've seen several references to people using 3rd party software to import downloaded waypoints. I'm wondering, what's the benefit? Since downloading the patch that updated my MapSource software from 6.02 to 6.9.1 it already imports .LOC and .GPX files, and I've tested that with no problems. Is the reliance on other software a hold-over from early versions of MapSource that didn't have such import features built in, or are there other benefits to adding more programs to the existing mix?

 

Thanks in advance!

[+lamas]

In part is true the comment that Spinny makes, the latest version of MapSource have all theses features but with GSAK and other software you can treat data in some ways that MapSource can´t. Some usefull aditional information can only be seen on these 3th party software.

[+G2K2]

sorry for the hyjack but is anyone else with a quest1 been able to update their audio version. Heres my deal, download the file, unzip, the instuctions say to drag the "rgn" file to the updater, dragging the file to the updater DOES NOT WORK. Running the updater does not work, says theres not update data. Its only 2 files, I would think it should be simple, as updating firmware was painless, am I missing something, again srroy for the hyjack!

[+embra]

sorry for the hyjack but is anyone else with a quest1 been able to update their audio version. Heres my deal, download the file, unzip, the instuctions say to drag the "rgn" file to the updater, dragging the file to the updater DOES NOT WORK. Running the updater does not work, says theres not update data. Its only 2 files, I would think it should be simple, as updating firmware was painless, am I missing something, again srroy for the hyjack!

I regret that I can't remember *how* I did it (I presume I just followed the instructions...it was at least 6 months ago), but I was able to successfully load the British English. Perhaps the download was corrupted? Sometimes worth a second try from scratch.

[+G2K2]

O K update, thanks to my wifes laptop I was able get it done, and yes it was as painless as could be, I also now have british/english, bloody right! On the other computer running win98se when triing to drag I would get a circleslash sign and nothing would happen when dropping to the updater. The laptop running winxp had no such problem... oh well just the way it is???

[Spinny]

To be completely off-topic, now, WinXP has numerous utilities (including those for software installation) that Win98SE either has to have installed manually, or doesn't support at all. I'm kind of surprised you even have a Win98 machine running the software, I got the impression it was already XP-only. That'll certainly be the case next year when version 8 comes out.

 

Back to Garmin Quests and geocaching: Can I assume the option to route directly only comes up when you have satellites acquired? The weather has been ugly/rainy ever since Xmas and I've only had my Quest outside once, and that briefly. I've been trying to practice things using the indoor mode, but when I set a waypoint and then tell it to re-route, it only asks me whether I want to simulate driving there, I don't get any menu allowing me to select route type so I can pick direct and see the compass page.

[+embra]

Back to Garmin Quests and geocaching: Can I assume the option to route directly only comes up when you have satellites acquired? The weather has been ugly/rainy ever since Xmas and I've only had my Quest outside once, and that briefly. I've been trying to practice things using the indoor mode, but when I set a waypoint and then tell it to re-route, it only asks me whether I want to simulate driving there, I don't get any menu allowing me to select route type so I can pick direct and see the compass page.

Menu/settings/route setup/route preferences: prompted.

 

That should bring up the needed dialog whenever you create a route. I don't believe the satellite fix is a factor in this one.

[Spinny]

Ach, so. Thank you for that! I do RTFM, honest, but a lot of little set-up tweaks like that are going to get past me until I get more hands-on time with the unit.

[+Sputnik 57]

Is the reliance on other software a hold-over from early versions of MapSource that didn't have such import features built in, or are there other benefits to adding more programs to the existing mix?

I would say only slightly. Users couldn't import .gpx files into Mapsource prior to version 6.5, IIRC, which was released this spring, so the ability of MapSouce to handle these files is new.

 

Prior to that, many users started using GSAK. GSAK not only allows you to open .gpx files, but also allows you to filter and sort your data, and output it to your GPSr, a PDA, MapSource, and virtually anywhere else (thanks in large part to it having GPSBabel "under the hood." It does a lot of things that you just can't do in MapSource.

 

For example, in GSAK, the program will examine a .gpx file which, by design, will only contain the last 5 logs. It will find the waypoints already in its database, and append the new logs to the waypoint information. That way, when you print or transfer the cache info to your PDA, you have all of the logs back to the time you first loaded the cache into GSAK. This can be a really handy tool in the field.

 

Also in GSAK, you can plop down two (or ten or fifty) waypoints, tell GSAK to build a route along those points, and then show you every cache within 2 miles (or 5km or whatever) of that line--a terrific tool for caching along a route. You just can't get that sort of filtering capability in MapSource.

 

Just my $.02 (or £.02, in your case )

[Spinny]

Also in GSAK, you can plop down two (or ten or fifty) waypoints, tell GSAK to build a route along those points, and then show you every cache within 2 miles (or 5km or whatever) of that line

That does sound useful! I was just reviewing the GSAK web pages, and wonder how does one "plop down" the waypoints for such a route without imbedded mapping/auto-routing features? I'm envisioning building the route in MapSource and then transferring it to GSAK for doing the cache search?

 

Next question (and I'm taking this as on-topic and not an actual hijacking since the original question seems to have been addressed and my situation is so closely related starting a new thread seems a waste): When I import .LOC files into MapSource (which have to be so imported and then sent to the Quest one at a time, it seems), the default waypoint name is the GCXXXX tag. I end up editing the name in the properties menu so they show up in my Quest named something related to the actual cache name. It looks like GSAK would handle that "smart naming" automagically for me?

 

£.02, in your case 

Actually, I'm a Yank--literally so, being an upstate New Yorker and a fan of Steinbrenner's Evil Empire.

 

Thanks very much for all the top-notch help and advice! I'm already thinking of these boards as an essential resource.