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Paperless Geocaching With A Mac


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I have an eXplorist 210 and am new to geocaching. I've searched for a few already and am realizing that without the info on the website-- it's a bit harder! :o

 

I'm looking for recommendations for programs you might use to make geocaching paperless but I use a Macintosh. Any suggestions would be greatly, greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks,

Kristin

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I'm using LoadMyTracks http://www.cluetrust.com/LoadMyTracks.html to send GPX data to a Garmin, but I think it works with Magellan also. I use Palm Desktop for Mac to send the eBook to a old Palm I've got. The eBook has all the data off the Cache page, clues and all. I'm getting this data using Pocket Queries, a feature for paying members to the site, but LoadMyTracks will also transfer the free LOC files to your GPSr. Sure beats printing out clues and hand entering cords.

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I have an eXplorist 210 and am new to geocaching. I've searched for a few already and am realizing that without the info on the website-- it's a bit harder! :lol:

 

I'm looking for recommendations for programs you might use to make geocaching paperless but I use a Macintosh. Any suggestions would be greatly, greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks,

Kristin

 

Good to see that someone else is using a Mac with an Explorist 210!

 

I use a older Mac G4 running Tiger (10.4) and I have no problems having my Explorist mount onto the desktop as an available storage device.

 

I use GPSBabel+ (you can get it here ---> GPSBabel+ ). Scroll the page a bit until you see the GPSBabel+-1.3.0.dmg download.

 

GPSBabel+ 1.3.0 will convert the .loc and .gpx files from GeoCaching.com into "Points of Interest" files that can be copied to your Explorist 210. GPSBabel+ 1.3.0 is great update, it has a much better interface that previous releases. You can use GPSBabel+ to convert the file and sent to your GPS unit, or choose to save it as a file on your Mac. Most of the time I choose to save it as a file and copy to my GPS unit myself, that way I can place it where I want it.

 

Once the .loc or .gpx file is converted into an .upt file it can be copied to the "My POIs" folder on your GPS unit that has been mounted on your desktop.

 

The one drawback I have found is that GPSbabel+ only creates "Points of Interest" files. The Explorist 210 has the ability to have "Geocaching" files, and GPSBabel+ does not convert the .loc or .gpx into the "Geocaching" file format yet. I suppose this will come in a later update. I get around this little problem by editing the converted file by hand, then coping the file to the “Geocaching” folder on the GPS uint. If you are interested in doing this I can help you.

 

If you need any help or have any other questions please let me know. I have no problem using my Explorist 210 with my Macintosh.

 

Blair

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I use GPSBabel+ (you can get it here --->

Please link instead to http://www.gpsbabel.org - folks that get it by deep linking to the download sites (and the various Mac software announcement sites are notorious at this) tend to cause me problems because folks never see the doc that way.

 

The one drawback I have found is that GPSbabel+ only creates "Points of Interest" files.
Funny that we never got a bugreport on that until just Friday. GPSBabel itself does write .gs files just fine; we just hosed up the menu thingy. You can do it with "raw" GPSBabel just fine. Something approximately like:

 

gpsbabel -i gpx -f yourpq.gpx -o maggeo -F /Volumes/Explorist/My Geocaches/blah.wpt

 

will do the trick.

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I've not been geocaching much over the summer and just discovered the new GPSBabel+. I was dissappointed to see the lack of the .gs file, but there is a web interface that does it just fine...that address is http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/gpsbabel/ if you don't wanna do the raw thing.

 

As for paperless caching - I use my iPod - and the new gpsbabel doesn't have vcf on the gui menu either, but the old program does. The iPod works great and can hold something like a thousand caches in it's contacts file. This would probably not be practical if I actually kept contacts on my iPod, but you could probably do both.

 

once you get the files converted to gs and vcf, it's just drag and drop from there. I also usually put my gs files on the iPod too - you can't use them on the iPod, but it makes a handy backup.

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and the new gpsbabel doesn't have vcf on the gui menu either
None of the write-only options made it to the GPSBabel+ menu in 1.3.0 or in the six months of prereleases before it. It's a bummer that nobody reported it during that time, but we'll fix it. Maybe not in 1.3.1, but soon.

 

Affected formats are:

 

Franson GPSGate Simulation gpssim

HTML Output html

Magellan Explorist Geocaching maggeo

PalmDoc Output palmdoc

Textual Output text

Vcard Output (for iPod) vcard

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Funny that we never got a bugreport on that until just Friday. GPSBabel itself does write .gs files just fine; we just hosed up the menu thingy. You can do it with "raw" GPSBabel just fine. Something approximately like:

 

gpsbabel -i gpx -f yourpq.gpx -o maggeo -F /Volumes/Explorist/My Geocaches/blah.wpt

 

will do the trick.

 

Thanks, this works great! Saves me a bit of "TextWrangling". :anicute:

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