Paperless Benchmark Hunting

[Team Morris]

Is there a way to have your benchmarks downloaded in a gpx file rather than a loc. If not how do people download all the pertinent text to a palm or pocket pc?

[+Cyclometh]

Absolutely. I use my Palm III and hunt both caches and benchmarks.

 

Here's what you do. For a Palm, get Cachemate, it's 8 bucks and worth it by a long shot. Next, go to http://www.parkrrrr.com/ and download BMGPX.

 

Get yourself a copy of GSAK, and experiment with how to use it to send data to your Palm. Use the "Export to Cachemate" option on the File->Export menu.

 

After you've set up Cachemate and can sync GPX files you get from Geocaching.com, go to the NGS website and get the ZIP file for your county or the area you're looking for. Extract it and drag it onto the BMGPX program you downloaded, and it generates a GPX. Import that into GSAK, export to your Palm and off you go.

 

I personally keep two GSAK databases- one for caches and one for benchmarks. Prior to going out, I'll clear my GPS of all waypoints and send the contents of both to the GPS. I then use GSAK and export a copy of both databases to my Palm and sync it. Then when I start Cachemate, it pulls in all the waypoints and organizes the data. (My Palm III has limited memory, so I usually delete all the records in it before I try to import from my PC).

 

When I'm out caching, after finding a cache, I'll usually head back to the car, find the cache in Cachemate, and tell it to find nearest using that cache as the centerpoint. Then I look for nearby benchmarks. If any are interesting, I'll go hit them up, otherwise I go after a cache. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

I carry my GPS and my Palm with me when caching. That and my digital camera is all I need.

 

Feel free to ask if you have any specific questions about how to set up your paperless caching experience.

[+McMurdo1]

Absolutely. I use my Palm III and hunt both caches and benchmarks.

 

Here's what you do. For a Palm, get Cachemate, it's 8 bucks and worth it by a long shot. Next, go to http://www.parkrrrr.com/ and download BMGPX.

 

Get yourself a copy of GSAK, and experiment with how to use it to send data to your Palm. Use the "Export to Cachemate" option on the File->Export menu.

 

After you've set up Cachemate and can sync GPX files you get from Geocaching.com, go to the NGS website and get the ZIP file for your county or the area you're looking for. Extract it and drag it onto the BMGPX program you downloaded, and it generates a GPX. Import that into GSAK, export to your Palm and off you go.

 

I personally keep two GSAK databases- one for caches and one for benchmarks. Prior to going out, I'll clear my GPS of all waypoints and send the contents of both to the GPS. I then use GSAK and export a copy of both databases to my Palm and sync it. Then when I start Cachemate, it pulls in all the waypoints and organizes the data. (My Palm III has limited memory, so I usually delete all the records in it before I try to import from my PC).

 

When I'm out caching, after finding a cache, I'll usually head back to the car, find the cache in Cachemate, and tell it to find nearest using that cache as the centerpoint. Then I look for nearby benchmarks. If any are interesting, I'll go hit them up, otherwise I go after a cache. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

I carry my GPS and my Palm with me when caching. That and my digital camera is all I need.

 

Feel free to ask if you have any specific questions about how to set up your paperless caching experience.

 

I use a PPC and just use the export to HTML feature of GSAK. By re-naming the file created before I send it to the iPaq I can use the same function to send my cache pages too.

[+GEO*Trailblazer 1]

I like my Palmone.

Got it loaded with benchmarks and caches.

Got to use it for a short while and have been unable to get back to it.

 

It is awesome though.

I just clip and paste what text I need in word.

Use easy gps to download loc.

On the bm pages.

Use cachemate on caches.

Edited February 17, 2006 by GEO*Trailblazer 1

[+robert]

I use a PPC and just use the export to HTML feature of GSAK. By re-naming the file created before I send it to the iPaq I can use the same function to send my cache pages too.

 

Try GPXSonar, or Cachemate (now for PPC)... both should allow you to take notes for remember what you found or didn't find when you get home.

[+McMurdo1]

I use a PPC and just use the export to HTML feature of GSAK. By re-naming the file created before I send it to the iPaq I can use the same function to send my cache pages too.

 

Try GPXSonar, or Cachemate (now for PPC)... both should allow you to take notes for remember what you found or didn't find when you get home.

The advantage of the iPAQ

 

I just push the button on the side and take audio notes.

My hand writing is so bad the recognition program can't do it's thing and I don't have to hunt and peck the virtual keyboard.

[+whitecrow]

Sorry, double post.

Edited February 18, 2006 by whitecrow

[+whitecrow]

I copy & paste to memo in Palm desktop, edit the info & send to my Palm 515.

[+Billy Twigger]

Feel free to ask if you have any specific questions about how to set up your paperless caching experience.

 

I'm pretty much ok with paperless caching. I use PQs to GSAK for identifying caches, my GPSmap60cs for finding them, and I have a Dell Axim51 using GPXSonar for my field notes. -And digital camera of course!

(Which, when you stop to think, means that I'm setting off on a lonesome trail with kit worth about 1500 of Her Majesty's Scottish pounds in my pocket!! But thats another thread!)

 

What I'm struggling with is identifying, downloading, GSAKing, and field-noting NGS Benchmarks.

 

Any suggestions?

[+Billy Twigger]

What I'm struggling with is identifying, downloading, GSAKing, and field-noting NGS Benchmarks.

 

Here's what I reckon I need to do.

 

1. Find a cache or caches that I want to go out and hunt using my tried and trusted PQs

2. On the cache page on GC.com, select Find all nearby benchmarks

3. Select all

4. Download .loc file

5 Open in EasyGPS and save as .gpx file

6. Open GSAK

7. Load gpx file

8. Have a coffee

 

All I need now is to find a way of getting the benchmark pages on to my Dell Axim

Edited February 26, 2006 by Billy Twigger

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

Welcome to benchmarking.

 

Most of us use the NGS site to pull a county worth of info. There is a link in the 'Me First' pinned thread. Then do all that you have done and then we load our GPSr card with a reader. And we use an HP Laptop...so I cannot answer the 'how to' with you Dell Axim...anyone else here know anything about that?

 

The one thing you might do...is to go to the 'GPS Units and Software' forum and ask your question there. If you do so, would you please post the answer here for future reference?

 

Hope you find your answer...

 

Shirley~

[+Billy Twigger]

Welcome to benchmarking.

 

The one thing you might do...is to go to the 'GPS Units and Software' forum and ask your question there. If you do so, would you please post the answer here for future reference?

 

Hope you find your answer...

 

Shirley~

 

Thanks Shirley, I've posted it here

[CallawayMT]

Feel free to ask if you have any specific questions about how to set up your paperless caching experience.

 

I'm pretty much ok with paperless caching. I use PQs to GSAK for identifying caches, my GPSmap60cs for finding them, and I have a Dell Axim51 using GPXSonar for my field notes. -And digital camera of course!

(Which, when you stop to think, means that I'm setting off on a lonesome trail with kit worth about 1500 of Her Majesty's Scottish pounds in my pocket!! But thats another thread!)

 

What I'm struggling with is identifying, downloading, GSAKing, and field-noting NGS Benchmarks.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Billy,

 

You have all of the same components as myself. I use a Garmin GPSMap 60CS and a Dell Axim. I bought a 512Mb CF card for my Axim and I have most of the counties' bench mark data around me loaded as well as any planned trips' counties.

 

Three things that I use, 2 are free, one would cost you $60, but is well worth it.

 

You can find more in depth answers to these items in the past. You can download "BMGPX", "GPX2HTML", and "Expert GPS".

 

Then you go to the NGS website, Datasheets, Archived County Data Files and download by State and County and area that you would like to visit. Save this file in a folder as well as a copy of your BMGPX.EXE file and your GPX2HTML.EXE files.

 

First you will have to unzip the county file, which will be something like MT069.dat; now take this file and drop it on the BMGPX.EXE icon and you will instantly have a MT069.GPX file.

 

Second double click your GPX2HTML.exe icon and it will run a routine which will create a new folder called HTML; I usually rename this to the state-County so that I can keep track of multiple states and counties.

 

You can now load all of the bench marks from that county through Expert GPS, as well as instantly view them on quads and orthophotos.

 

You can also copy the html folder to your axim through Active Sync. The nice thing about this HTML file is that you can search by name or PID and then once you are in a mark description you can scroll to the bottom of the file and there are hyperlinks to the closest 5 or so bench marks to this mark.

 

Once you get this down, you can download a whole county and run these two routines and have your axim and garmin loaded in under 15 minutes. This also gives you the latest and greatest data available. You do not want to download from geocaching.com; this data is about 6 years old.

 

Good Luck,

CallawayMT

[mloser]

If you have a web enabled device in the field with you, go to www.pacyber.com/bm.cgi and enter the BM's PID in the box. You will get the current NGS datasheet for that PID. I use this all the time on my Blackberry.