Help Dont Know How To Use Gps

[myparadise]

SAW GEOCACHIN ON TV THOUGHT IT WOULD BE GREAT TO DO WITH MY GRANDCHILDREN. I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO READ IT TO FIND THE TREASURE. I CAN;T FIGURE ANY WAY TO ENTER THE CORODINATES TO LEAD TO THE TREASURE. DID I BUY THE WRONG KIND OR DO YOU NOT ENTER THEM AT ALL

[+Team Cotati]

Tempting....isn't it?

[+YuccaPatrol]

No need to bother reading the user manual or reading anything on this website or the www.geocaching.com website.

 

Just write the coordinates of the cache on a piece of paper and walk around until the numbers on the screen match what you wrote down.

Edited April 15, 2006 by YuccaPatrol

[+briansnat]

The 200 isn't the perfect unit for geocaching, but it will do. You can enter coordinates by marking a waypoint, then editing them. I don't have the manual in front of me (and its hard to find on the Magellan website), but find where it tells you how to mark a waypoint. Then find where it tells you how to edit a waypoint. You will change the coordinates to match those of the cache you are looking for.

 

Just write the coordinates of the cache on a piece of paper and walk around until the numbers on the screen match what you wrote down.

 

It can be done this way, but it it can be difficult and frustrating. You are much better off if you learn to enter the coordinates and let the GPS point the way

Edited April 15, 2006 by briansnat

[+Team Cotati]

This http://www.magellangps.com/assets/manuals/...st200Manual.pdf took all of three minutes to locate on magellan's complicated www site. You did state that it was a 200 that you have, didn't you? Let me know if you need further assistance with navigating magellan's www site. You're most welcome. P.S. just in case: http://www.magellangps.com/assets/manuals/...st100Manual.pdf

 

BTW, are you in a position to return the unit and get your money back?

Edited April 15, 2006 by Team Cotati

[+YuccaPatrol]

Sorry to joke around with you. . . definitely don't follow my advice above unless you do want to be frustrated.

 

Best advice would be to read your manual, read some articles here, and then contact your local geocaching club and ask if someone will take you along with them. You'll meet some new friends and learn the tricks from the pros.

 

Once you have learned as much as you can, then come back with specific questions and people here will be more able to help you when they know what help you specifically need.

[+icefall5]

I actually own a 200, so I can help you. You just hit MARK, then when the screen pops up, highlight the coords. Press the rocker keypad straight in (like select) and one individual number will be selected. Put in the coords for the cache pushing the rocker keypad upd and down to select the number and left and right to select the digit to modify. When you're done, modify the name by selecting that and using the on-screen keyboard to type. Keep in mind that you can only have an 8 digit name. Then scroll down and hit Save. When you drive over and get reasonably close to the cache, press GOTO and select that cache off the list that comes up. Follow the line until the GPSr says about 5 feet away, then ignore the GPS and start looking. If you have any questions, you can e-mail me or PM me. Good luck!

 

It's so hard to type while listening to music!

[+SgtSue]

Step 1 - Press key on your computer keyboard marked "Caps Lock". Your post willl now look simular to this.

 

Step 2 - Read the manual

Edited April 16, 2006 by SgtSue

[+HaLiJuSaPa]

No need to bother reading the user manual or reading anything on this website or the www.geocaching.com website.

 

Just write the coordinates of the cache on a piece of paper and walk around until the numbers on the screen match what you wrote down.

 

I know you were being tongue-in-cheek but seriously, I kind of almost did that with my old (now other and most used for the car) GPS, the now-discontinued Whistler Galileo. One major flaw this unit has (that my new Lowrance IFinder GO and most other more conventional handheld GPS's do not have) is that it stopped showing your distance to the waypoint after 0.1 miles, that is, it doesn't convert to feet and show lower and lower numbers. What it made you do instead is go to the map and keep measuring the feet between your point and the waypoint with the cursor. So at that point I'd go to the latitude/longitude watch the numbers change until I got to the waypoint.

 

It actually worked quite well for me, but you have to be extremely skilled in understanding the change in lat/long numbers vs. direction (I work in GIS and have been very into maps and geography since I was six), so I wouldn't recommend it for most people, especially the person asking here for help!

 

As for that person, you may find some 1-day short course at your local community college or somewhere teaching the general basics of a GPS. The GPS does look a little scary to use at first (even I had this problem), but once you get used to it it will be very 2nd nature. This is a great and inexpensive activity to get exercise and fresh air and give your grandkids an appreciation for nature and the outdoors and I wish you very well and good luck with it!

Edited April 16, 2006 by hairymon

[+AuntieWeasel]

Cheez, you guys. This is somebody's GRANDPA! Be nice!

 

 

(The first person to point out that I'm old enough to be somebody's grandma is getting a load of rocksalt in the nethers).

[+Team Red Oak]

Welcome to geocaching and good luck learning to use your GPSr. I don't know anything about the Magellan, but I would also say you should contact your local group some one could help you and show you the ropes. If you don't know how to contact your local group, just scroll down in the forums page until you see the regions broken out. Go to your region and post a note that you're new and need help. If you click on the state you're from it will bring up a page of caches, perhaps there is an upcoming event you could go to locally. Bring you GPSr, and the manual I'm sure someone will help you get it figured out.

 

Caching is fun and grandkids will love it.

[jamieb520]

I own a Magellan Explosist 400, very easy to download waypoints or enter them manually. But that seemed to easy for me. What I did as write down the co-ordinates, find the location on Mapsend (software that works with my GPS) write down the closest road or landmark. Go to that road or landmark, then follow my compass and location reading till the numbers match up. So far I've found 7, only looked for 8, and out of the 7 that I've found I didn't spend more then a hour looking for. I would have to enter waypoints if the cache location is far off road, but seeing as a grandfather started this post, the chances that he would be going more then a hour off road is doubtful (not that he couldn't I'm sure) So to the person who started this post, doing it that way is okay, but as I seen people have posted on how to enter waypoints.

[+Team JSAM]

The eXplorist is a great first unit for caching to input the coords you simply hit the "mark" button then you will be able to edit the coords. Make sure that you have a 3D position before you try to put in the coords. After you have but the coords in the unit hit the "goto" button and it will ask you if you want to create a goto and select yes then you will select a point from your points of intrest (thats where the coords are saved to when you enter them) next you select the point of interest that you just entered and it will take you to a map, then you can push the "nav" button and it will switch between the map and a compass that points you in the right direction.

[+icefall5]

 

I know you were being tongue-in-cheek but seriously, I kind of almost did that with my old (now other and most used for the car) GPS, the now-discontinued Whistler Galileo. One major flaw this unit has (that my new Lowrance IFinder GO and most other more conventional handheld GPS's do not have) is that it stopped showing your distance to the waypoint after 0.1 miles, that is, it doesn't convert to feet and show lower and lower numbers. ...

 

I sure as heck hope you're not talking about the 200 doing this. This is totally not true. It goes all the way down to 2 feet!

 

EDIT- Forgot to add emotes.

Edited April 22, 2006 by icefall5

[+soonerdg]

SAW GEOCACHIN ON TV THOUGHT IT WOULD BE GREAT TO DO WITH MY GRANDCHILDREN. I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO READ IT TO FIND THE TREASURE. I CAN;T FIGURE ANY WAY TO ENTER THE CORODINATES TO LEAD TO THE TREASURE. DID I BUY THE WRONG KIND OR DO YOU NOT ENTER THEM AT ALL

 

The 200 doesn't have the ability to download coordinates so you have to enter them manually. There's a button that says "mark", just press that button and then edit the coordinates to those of the cache. I usually name the cache with the "GCXXXX" number from the web site.

 

Once you have the coordinates entered press the goto button, select "my points of interes" and then select the cache that you want to hunt. The unit will lead you to the location.

 

These instructions are for the explorist 300 that I use so may be slightly different on the 200. They should be pretty close though.

[+HaLiJuSaPa]

 

I know you were being tongue-in-cheek but seriously, I kind of almost did that with my old (now other and most used for the car) GPS, the now-discontinued Whistler Galileo. One major flaw this unit has (that my new Lowrance IFinder GO and most other more conventional handheld GPS's do not have) is that it stopped showing your distance to the waypoint after 0.1 miles, that is, it doesn't convert to feet and show lower and lower numbers. ...

 

I sure as heck hope you're not talking about the 200 doing this. This is totally not true. It goes all the way down to 2 feet!

 

EDIT- Forgot to add emotes.

 

I do not know of any other handheld unit that every did this. I don't think even those Cobras with the awful satellite lock do this. I was just reminiscing how I really did use to watch that lat/long numbers move until they matched the cache. I would think if Magellan did this with any unit they'd be out of business.

Edited April 30, 2006 by HaLiJuSaPa

[Raney1]

 

I know you were being tongue-in-cheek but seriously, I kind of almost did that with my old (now other and most used for the car) GPS, the now-discontinued Whistler Galileo. One major flaw this unit has (that my new Lowrance IFinder GO and most other more conventional handheld GPS's do not have) is that it stopped showing your distance to the waypoint after 0.1 miles, that is, it doesn't convert to feet and show lower and lower numbers. ...

 

I sure as heck hope you're not talking about the 200 doing this. This is totally not true. It goes all the way down to 2 feet!

 

EDIT- Forgot to add emotes.

 

I do not know of any other handheld unit that every did this. I don't think even those Cobras with the awful satellite lock do this. I was just reminiscing how I really did use to watch that lat/long numbers move until they matched the cache. I would think if Magellan did this with any unit they'd be out of business.

 

Ok... this might sound a bit stupid but how do i translate the geocaching.com coordinates (N 30° 30.998 W 091° 09.437 for example) to the format that works with the explorist 200? To my knowledge the coordinate format is ##.##### and i dont know exactly how to translate this i'm assuming it would be 30.3998 w and 091.09437? is this correct? or maybe that 0 is supposed to be a negative... either way i dont know how to put that in. please help <3

[+embra]

Ok... this might sound a bit stupid but how do i translate the geocaching.com coordinates (N 30° 30.998 W 091° 09.437 for example) to the format that works with the explorist 200? To my knowledge the coordinate format is ##.##### and i dont know exactly how to translate this i'm assuming it would be 30.3998 w and 091.09437? is this correct? or maybe that 0 is supposed to be a negative... either way i dont know how to put that in. please help <3

Unless you have some reason to not have these settings, go to menu/preferences/map units and set WGS84 for map datum, and lat/lon for Coord system. When you set lat/lon, you will have a choice of degree formats: choose deg/min.mmm

 

Now you should be able to enter the gc.com format directly. If you really want to translate to another format you can, but I'm presuming that you're just assuming you have to feed the GPS in a format it wants, rather than realizing that you can change the GPS to accept a format that you prefer.

[+Renegade Knight]

My advice is to take back the 200 and get a 210. It will let you connect to the computer and download coordinates directly. The 200 doesn't do that and that can be a problem for geocaching.

 

Other than that all the advice here is good and should work on the 210 as well as the 200 you have now.

[+fjo324]

No need to bother reading the user manual or reading anything on this website or the www.geocaching.com website.

 

Just write the coordinates of the cache on a piece of paper and walk around until the numbers on the screen match what you wrote down.

Hey, don't laugh, but that's how a found a cache in downtown Chicago after the GPS would not settle down. I took the numbers and walked slowly north and south and then east and west until they matched, and it worked. FYI--it was GCJTHJ. Edited May 14, 2006 by fjo324

[Ric&Lindee]

Got a 200 and love it. More bells and whistles isn't always better. Go buy Geocaching for Dummies. It's elementary for the experienced but great for us D.......s, ah, inexperienced geocachers. Besides it's an easy, funny read. And practice around your neighborhood. Get really familiar with the machine and don't forget to mark your vehicle after your park and before your start on a trek. You might need that location to find your way back.

 

r

[+ejnewman]

Just let the grandkids play with it for a few minutes. Then they can show you how it works.

[+HaLiJuSaPa]

No need to bother reading the user manual or reading anything on this website or the www.geocaching.com website.

 

Just write the coordinates of the cache on a piece of paper and walk around until the numbers on the screen match what you wrote down.

Hey, don't laugh, but that's how a found a cache in downtown Chicago after the GPS would not settle down. I took the numbers and walked slowly north and south and then east and west until they matched, and it worked. FYI--it was GCJTHJ.

 

As I said earlier, I used to do that all the time with my Whistler GPS. But it's easy to go awry if you're not very geo-savvy.

[multcomedic]

Got a 200 and love it. More bells and whistles isn't always better. Go buy Geocaching for Dummies. It's elementary for the experienced but great for us D.......s, ah, inexperienced geocachers. Besides it's an easy, funny read. And practice around your neighborhood. Get really familiar with the machine and don't forget to mark your vehicle after your park and before your start on a trek. You might need that location to find your way back.

 

r

 

I'd also suggest GPS for Dummies as well. Both are good books for all levels although I'm a little biased as the author is a friend of mine.

Edited May 20, 2006 by multcomedic

[+HaLiJuSaPa]

Got a 200 and love it. More bells and whistles isn't always better. Go buy Geocaching for Dummies. It's elementary for the experienced but great for us D.......s, ah, inexperienced geocachers. Besides it's an easy, funny read. And practice around your neighborhood. Get really familiar with the machine and don't forget to mark your vehicle after your park and before your start on a trek. You might need that location to find your way back.

 

r

 

I'd also suggest GPS for Dummies as well. Both are good books for all levels although I'm a little biased as the author is a friend of mine.

 

I used to have both books. It is good to have both, the former is more oriented towards caching with a chapter on GPS usage, while the other is more oriented towards GPS use with a nice chapter on caching. They compliment each other quite well And when you have the hang of it, you will likely get most of your money back selling both books on eBay, I did, they are quite in demand.