Help for a newbie!

[+Stubob76]

Hello all,

After reading many posts and investigating several GPS units, I have made a somewhat educated decision. I have decided to purchase the Garmin 60csx with Mapsource Topo and City Navigator North America. Will this be enough for me to get going until I gain some experience. I am new to GPS and Geocaching but I have a lot of outdoor experience(mapreading, orienteering, compass use etc.) Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[+sbell111]

Hello all,

After reading many posts and investigating several GPS units, I have made a somewhat educated decision. I have decided to purchase the Garmin 60csx with Mapsource Topo and City Navigator North America. Will this be enough for me to get going until I gain some experience. I am new to GPS and Geocaching but I have a lot of outdoor experience(mapreading, orienteering, compass use etc.) Thanks in advance for any assistance.

You will likely never need another GPSr. After you get started, you might consider becoming a premium member. This will allow you to get pocket queries and upload your local caches to your GPSr, rather than entering it one at a time. You can also go 'paperless' by uploading cache data for your area directly to a pda, rather than printing out and keeping track of paper cache pages.

Edited January 16, 2007 by sbell111

[+StarBrand]

Even a $60 garmin geko unit will find caches easily in the hands of a newbie cacher. You have a lot of great tools to get you going.

 

As above - I recommend becoming a premium subscriber ($3 per month) - if for nothing else - the ability to download and filter caches that suit your tastes. Get a program like Geocaching Swiss Army Knife for easy intelligent transfers of data to your GPSr.

 

Most of all - get out there and have some fun!!

[The_Brownies]

After you get started, you might consider becoming a premium member

 

Yes and No.. Pocket queries are cool, but the luster of geocaching just isn't what is used to be for me, so I have let my premium membership lapse after 12 months. However, if you get bit by the bug, and really like doing it, and you get a PDA, then maybe a premium membership is for you. You don't have to lock in for a full year. You can do it on a month by month basis if you desire. This is kind of handy when you don't do a lot of caching but you are planning a vacation or trip where there are tons of them to be found.

 

Hold on all of you premium members. I know pocket queries are not the only perk, and there are other things that come along with it. Personally I held a one year memership to pay back the crew at Groundspeak for coming up with this excellant past time game. But lately I simply do not cache enough to justify the cost. Due to where I live, availability of caches, and the overall cost of gas, caching has become a thing I do when I get a chance. My end goal is to grab a cache in every state and so far I think need 38 more states.

 

Good luck and happy caching..

Edited January 16, 2007 by The_Brownies

[+briansnat]

Will this be enough for me to get going until I gain some experience.

 

It will be more than enough. You will be hard pressed to find a better combination of unit and software.

[+Stubob76]

Thanks for the quick response. I am sure I am going to have more questions. This is a new thing for the family. We camp, backpack, etc. but this will be more entertaining for my young boys. I will probably upgrade to the premium membership, but honestly I am not completely sure I understand all the benefits as of yet.

[Neos2]

Some of the benefits of premium membership:

 

You can run a PQ--It will have up to 500 caches on it, and you can pick the ones you want to be there. Love puzzles and dont up to any multis this week? Put puzzles on and leave off the multis. Want only caches that have less than a 3 star terrain? Just pick that.

 

The regular maps of all nearby caches maps behave differently for premium members--they pan around, allowing you to preview caches more easily. (That feature alone sold me on PM). The google maps tie right to the bookmarks, making it easy to create a customized bookmark list of caches.

 

You can make bookmarks of almost anything---caches you want to do, ones you DNF'd and want to make sure you find soon, your favorites, ones that are good for kids, etc. You can share them with others, or just view them yourself. They are a good way to set up a caching day with another person. Send them a list of caches in that area you haven't done yet and let them mark off the ones they haven't done either, then focis on those first.

 

You can set up notifications--New caches in your area? You'll get an email. Caches being archive? Ditto.

 

You can find caches along a route---I am using this now to plan out next vacation trip. I pick the route, tell the computer how far off route I want to look for caches, and it send back PQs of caches that meet my criteria along that route. Then I can look at only those caches and see which one I really want to do and can the rest.

 

Whe new ideas are being tried, you get to be among the first to test drive them. I already knew how waymarkig worked when it was announced because I'd already been looking at some of the categories and in on some of the discussions.

 

You can change your forums profile to say cool things.

 

You can make premium member only caches, and they have an audit log on them that lets you know who some of the people are that are looking at the caches pages.

 

I've probably forgotten some things, but those were the ones that sold me (Well, not premium member caches, I've never had made one of those).

 

Just the mapping and PQ difference was what sold me. I was tire dof entering htings by hand or one by one, and still not having all the info I wanted. I use PQs, GSAK, Cachemate, my GPS and a PDA...Now I can run a PQ of 500 caches, load it into my GPS & PDA and be out the door in five minutes. I can go to one part of town to cache, and if I find out there is a festival going on there or lots of road construction, I can change my mind and go somewhere else without having to swing back home, knowing I have lots of other caches in my GPS & PDA. Or if I find myself on the far side of town unexpectedly, I can pull up the GPS to see what is nearby "just because: there might be something cool.

[+Stubob76]

Neos2 Thanks for taking the time to spell that out. I appeciate your response.