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Pocket Queries: Raising the 500 limit


TheCarterFamily

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I have a question for one of you computer savvy types---at what point does the size of the PQ become a problem for "most" email servers?

 

It seems to me that at some point, the download would either slow down so much that you might as well run two smaller ones, or it would be rejected by the recipient's email program.

 

I'm content with the PQ system the way it is, by the way. I'm just curious.

Not real sure - the biggest PQ with 500 I could find in my archives had a size of 2.8MB. Many email providers limit the size of an email to 5MB but that is quickly changing to allow 10MB or even as much as 25MB per message.

 

You can do the math from there....

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Purchase an additional premium account and you can load 5,000 waypoints.

 

Right?

While I don't see a strong need for more than 2500 a day, I don't think two accounts is a real solution. That would mean I would need to log finds twice and maintain two ignore list, and it would be impossible to filter out my hides, since two cachers can't own the same cache.

 

Right?

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Purchase an additional premium account and you can load 5,000 waypoints.

 

Right?

While I don't see a strong need for more than 2500 a day, I don't think two accounts is a real solution. That would mean I would need to log finds twice and maintain two ignore list, and it would be impossible to filter out my hides, since two cachers can't own the same cache.

 

Right?

I guess I could ignore all my finds and hides on the second account, but that still would be a real pain. :laughing:

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I have a question for one of you computer savvy types---at what point does the size of the PQ become a problem for "most" email servers?

 

It seems to me that at some point, the download would either slow down so much that you might as well run two smaller ones, or it would be rejected by the recipient's email program.

 

I'm content with the PQ system the way it is, by the way. I'm just curious.

For me, with an extremely slow dialup connection (21.6 today), 500 caches is about my limit. If I order more than one PQ at a time, I cannot browse the Internet until the files have downloaded. :laughing:
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Purchase an additional premium account and you can load 5,000 waypoints.

 

Right?

 

While I don't see a strong need for more than 2500 a day, I don't think two accounts is a real solution. That would mean I would need to log finds twice and maintain two ignore list, and it would be impossible to filter out my hides, since two cachers can't own the same cache.

 

Right?

 

Nah. Just keep your "my finds" PQ handy from your main account, and update it with that GPX file. Then you can have all of your other PQs exclude your finds. Merge data and you've got the perfect solution.

 

Same thing with your placed caches - keep a "MY CACHES" GPX file of your placed caches and update it as necessary. Of course in GSAK you can also filter our "caches placed by user X" and just make user X you.

Edited by Markwell
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I have a question for one of you computer savvy types---at what point does the size of the PQ become a problem for "most" email servers?

 

It seems to me that at some point, the download would either slow down so much that you might as well run two smaller ones, or it would be rejected by the recipient's email program.

With the current limit, my typical PQ runs about 400 - 500 KB. That's no problem for my email.

 

Now if your question is "at what point would the size of the attachment become a problem", I routinely send and receive 5 - 7 MB attachments in my email. So, it would take a huge PQ to approach that size.

 

I don't profess to know a lot about Groundspeak's end of it, but I would think that large file sizes would be more of a strain on their end than the receiver's end.

Edited by Motorcycle_Mama
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Purchase an additional premium account and you can load 5,000 waypoints.

 

Right?

 

While I don't see a strong need for more than 2500 a day, I don't think two accounts is a real solution. That would mean I would need to log finds twice and maintain two ignore list, and it would be impossible to filter out my hides, since two cachers can't own the same cache.

 

Right?

Nah. Just keep your "my finds" PQ handy from your main account, and update it with that GPX file. Then you can have all of your other PQs exclude your finds. Merge data and you've got the perfect solution.

 

Same thing with your placed caches - keep a "MY CACHES" GPX file of your placed caches and update it as necessary. Of course in GSAK you can also filter our "caches placed by user X" and just make user X you.

Wow! 2500/day isn't enough? You could also just pull PQs using a date that is greater than or equal to the last date you pulled your last PQ. So GSAK could store all your caches (filtering our your updated finds as Markwell said) and then you could just append new caches to GSAK each week (or whatever).
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There is NO OVERLAP if you get multiple PQs based on placed date, thus you can cover more area with less queries.
Interesting! I've never tried that. You learn something new everyday! :laughing:

Amazing. I say it in post 19, and it takes Starbrand's post 25 for it to kick in.

 

I like this - this is the main reason I frequent the forums - information/better ways to do things. Great information I can immediately use to solve the problem I've had with the 500 limit. So simple, I should've come up with this on my own long ago. Thanks TotemLake

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There is clearly a desire from a number of members (certainly not all) to have an easier method of getting GPX files with lots of caches. And as the newer model GPSr's come out and as the cache density increases, that desire will probably increase as well. (My Garmin 60CSx will essentially hold an unlimited number of caches as custom POIs).

 

Many methods have been proposed here and elsewhere. For some, those methods are sufficient. For others, they are insufficient.

 

The PQ-by-date method is fine, until you find that 90% of the caches in the area were placed in the same year and you have to iteratively break down the maxed queries into multiple queries (highly inefficient).

 

The pay-extra-for-multiple-accounts method is fine, except that most peoples needs for such large queries is infrequent at best (vacation/trips), so most people don't feel that is warranted.

 

If you do want more caches than the current system is designed to offer, your choices are:

1. Give up and live with the limitations.

2. Iteratively modify many PQs until you get a bunch of GPXs that are sufficient.

 

Don't get me wrong - I am grateful for the services that *are* provided and I'm glad that there are people who take the time to work on this site - I'm sure they are underpaid :laughing:

 

However, I don't think it's unreasonable for paying members to ask for additional services, including having an easier method of obtaining large GPX files (or many smaller GPX files).

 

Clearly, those requests need to be considered within the framework of existing performance limitations, but the requests should be considered. I haven't read *all* the postings on this issue, but my general feeling has been that the administrators are not interested in having much dialog. I know the one post I made on this issue a long time ago was shut down with no explanation: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...p;p=entry

 

That post is only one suggestion. As I'm sure TheCarterFamily would agree, there are almost certainly a number of ways that the site could at least partially alleviate this problem, and do so without significantly reducing the performance of the more standard queries.

 

I hope that this issue gains enough momentum that it is addressed by the administrators. I don't know how many users want this, and I don't know how the administrators decide what features to prioritize, but I can say that for me personally, this is the feature I would most like to see implemented.

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There is NO OVERLAP if you get multiple PQs based on placed date, thus you can cover more area with less queries.
Interesting! I've never tried that. You learn something new everyday! :laughing:

 

... And if your GSAK database is up to date you can run this macro to generate and optimize the from and to dates for all your PQs that you need.

This is excellent! Thanks for pointing this out - will save me a lot of time! :anicute:
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There is clearly a desire from a number of members (certainly not all) to have an easier method of getting GPX files with lots of caches. And as the newer model GPSr's come out and as the cache density increases, that desire will probably increase as well. (My Garmin 60CSx will essentially hold an unlimited number of caches as custom POIs).

 

<snip>

I don't understand why someone needs more than five PQs in a day (potentially 2500 caches), considering how few caches you can actually look for, and considering what happens when you have stale data. :laughing:

 

Could someone 'splain this to me . . . :anicute:

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There is clearly a desire from a number of members (certainly not all) to have an easier method of getting GPX files with lots of caches. And as the newer model GPSr's come out and as the cache density increases, that desire will probably increase as well. (My Garmin 60CSx will essentially hold an unlimited number of caches as custom POIs).

 

<snip>

I don't understand why someone needs more than five PQs in a day (potentially 2500 caches), considering how few caches you can actually look for, and considering what happens when you have stale data. :laughing:

 

Could someone 'splain this to me . . . :anicute:

I already have once in this thread.

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I travel a lot, and realy never know where I will be going. I keep GSAK full of all the caches within my travel area, so I always have caches where I end up. I do end up with a few stale ones, because it takes 4 PQ a day for 4 days to cover the area.

 

PS: the date filter takes this down to 12 PQ instead of 16!

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I travel a lot, and realy never know where I will be going. I keep GSAK full of all the caches within my travel area, so I always have caches where I end up. I do end up with a few stale ones, because it takes 4 PQ a day for 4 days to cover the area.

 

PS: the date filter takes this down to 12 PQ instead of 16!

 

I would still venture that you could get it down to fewer that 12 PQs to cover the area by using some of the filters to search for the types of caches you are likely to go find.

 

I'm not saying that this is the way YOU cache, or that anyone else has to follow these criteria, but here's a great example. Your profile says that you're in Kelowna, BC. I used 49.88662, -119.49662 as a center and did a quick experiment.

 

If I choose ALL of the ACTIVE caches (only exclusion is that I'm not gathering the temp disabled ones) and try to get them into one PQ, the furthest I could go out would be 108.7 km before hitting 499 caches in a PQ.

 

However, when I cache on the fly, there are certain criteria I would personally need to apply.

 

Most likely, I wouldn't want to have to read the cache description before going. That means that I'm looking for a cache that is most likely at the coordinates posted on the cache page. That means Traditional, Project APE or Letterbox (although Letterbox can be a stretch). I wouldn't want multi-caches, puzzle caches or events wasting my GPX limitation.

 

Also, I without reading the cache page, I'm not likely to head out on a high-adventure cache without reading more. On-the-fly caching for me usually means something less than a level 3.5 for terrain or difficulty, so I would choose less than or equal to level 3 for both terrain and difficulty.

 

My personal preference is also for caches that I know the container size and I also prefer Small, Large and Regular containers as I like to move TBs when I can.

 

When I limit the caches on the PQ using those criteria instead of only being able to go 108.7 km, I was able to stretch the PQ to 166.5 km.

f8316ab3-1c86-466a-bb3d-d6299b3c492a.jpg

That's a whole lot more coverage - more than double the surface area.

 

As someone else in these forums is fond of saying - search for the caches you KNOW you'll like. When you run out of them, then come back and search again - more will have been placed. I would add, once you run out completely, either place some caches or broaden your horizons.

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That is what I did when I was traveling. I changed the usual criteria for my PQs for the roadtrip to include only caches with a Difficulty of less than '2.5' with a Terrain rating of less than '2.5'. I didn't want to spend time looking for an extremely difficult, well-cammoed cache, nor did I have time for a hike.

 

When I got to Denver and was caching with my cousins, I changed the PQ to only return caches that were Small or larger. I didn't want to be searching for any Micros with people I hoped to convert to become Geocachers. :D

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That is what I did when I was traveling. I changed the usual criteria for my PQs for the roadtrip to include only caches with a Difficulty of less than '2.5' with a Terrain rating of less than '2.5'. I didn't want to spend time looking for an extremely difficult, well-cammoed cache, nor did I have time for a hike.

 

Wow - that will take you out to 189 km before you max out a single PQ. I can only go about 28 km.

 

If you expand to 275 km, which (according to Streets and Trips) is about the driveable range in any direction for 5 hours of driving, and limit the caches to Small, Regular Large, Less than 2.5 terrain and difficulty and "is active" - you can get your results in four pocket queries:

492 caches: Jan 1 2000 - Jan 1 2005

493 caches: Jan 2 2005 - Feb 1 2006

496 caches: Feb 2 2006 - Sep 29 2006

389 caches: Sep 30 2006 - Dec 31 2010

 

That's 1,870 potential caches to find. Woo hooo! ;)

 

OK, what was the problem again?

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I travel a lot, and realy never know where I will be going. I keep GSAK full of all the caches within my travel area, so I always have caches where I end up. I do end up with a few stale ones, because it takes 4 PQ a day for 4 days to cover the area.

 

PS: the date filter takes this down to 12 PQ instead of 16!

 

I would still venture that you could get it down to fewer that 12 PQs to cover the area by using some of the filters to search for the types of caches you are likely to go find.

 

...

I see your point Markwell, But I do like to do 1/1 and 4/2 and 2/4. I may get a call (like I did today) to travel to Vancouver right now! While I am there for a couple of days, I will be working 8 to 4, and caching 4-8 (lol). I will have time for a hike, and I might have time for a quick LPC too (during lunch). And if you want to try your experiment using Vancouver or Victoria as the center, your results will be very different. By the way, while on the coast this week, I may get a call to travel to Cranbrook, same rules. And then I will be out there on the weekend, and can choose how long it takes to get home, and what route I will take. I load my Palm from GSAK, so I have the cache pages with me, and besideds traditional's love multi's, question to answer, etc...

 

By the way, I was only posting an answer to Miragee as to WHY I used more than one PQ, not as to why they should be larger.

 

IMO PQ's and therefore GC.com would be a lot faster if I could get MY PQ list in a single file, rather than a bunch of them. One should also consider the amount of time it takes GC.COM to feed me pages to confirm archive status too. That being said, I have no compalint with the existing size of the PQ's, it works for me the way it is.

 

Edit to add: I use a weekly PQ group, not a daily one. I almost never run the same PQ twice in a week.

Edited by Mach2003
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I must admit I think I just discovered a feature that had eluded me.

 

When I mentioned iteratively changing PQs based on which ones are maxed out, I didn't realize that if you select the "Preview Pocket Query" icon, the resultant page seems to contain a cache count. If this count is accurate, it would speed up the iterative process considerably, since in the past I scheduled the query and waited for the results (usually the next day) before I knew if it was maxed out.

 

It would still be an iterative process, but not nearly as painful as it was.

 

I've never really used the preview function much and didn't think about it until now, but if there is a count, then that means there is a database query done every time I run the preview. My initial thought was: isn't this compounding the query overload problem? However - and I only have moderate database experience - I would suspect that getting the count may be a much simpler/quicker query than pulling all the information necessary for the GPX file. Especially since the logs are probably part of a different table, and multiple queries may be needed to generate each <wpt> for the GPX file. And that's probably an overly simplistic view.

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Yes, the preview button does work. That's how I got that list of "492 caches: Jan 1 2000 - Jan 1 2005 - 493 caches: Jan 2 2005 - Feb 1 2006", etc.

 

But (as Jeremy once said in an analogy) the preview and LOC files are the Table of Contents, the GPX and the resulting PQ being run and emailed is the book.

 

I could be wrong, I don't think running the selection is the difficult part on the servers, but rather compiling the entire code and XML of the cache page into a GPX file. And if that's true doesn't it make sense that the compilation of the contents of the GPX need to be stopped at a reasonable amount (like 500) before they're sent via e-mail?

 

I would venture a guess that - all things being equal - it might not bother Jeremy to allow users to have a 1000 cache PQ if it was only downloadable as LOC files instead of GPX.

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I have a wireless PDA and a wireless laptop that travel with me on trips. When I travel I usually stay at motels - all of which have interenet. Many rest stops have internet. Coffee houses and restraunts have internet. Libraries have internet. I plot caches along a route but I depend upon local internet connections for where-ever I spend the day/night. I even got a FTF 2000 miles from home using that method since all info is fresh. I don't need nor desire 1000's of caches in my GPSr. At least, that's how it works out for me.

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I have a wireless PDA and a wireless laptop that travel with me on trips. When I travel I usually stay at motels - all of which have interenet. Many rest stops have internet. Coffee houses and restraunts have internet. Libraries have internet. I plot caches along a route but I depend upon local internet connections for where-ever I spend the day/night. I even got a FTF 2000 miles from home using that method since all info is fresh. I don't need nor desire 1000's of caches in my GPSr. At least, that's how it works out for me.

 

You must be in a big city in the USA... 5 minutes north of me is nothing but forest and farms... nearest civilation from there is about 50 km away population 2,000 (I think) From there the next I thing is about 70 km. population 5. Haven't found a tree with internet yet... :anicute::(

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I have a wireless PDA and a wireless laptop that travel with me on trips. When I travel I usually stay at motels - all of which have interenet. Many rest stops have internet. Coffee houses and restraunts have internet. Libraries have internet. I plot caches along a route but I depend upon local internet connections for where-ever I spend the day/night. I even got a FTF 2000 miles from home using that method since all info is fresh. I don't need nor desire 1000's of caches in my GPSr. At least, that's how it works out for me.

 

You must be in a big city in the USA... 5 minutes north of me is nothing but forest and farms... nearest civilation from there is about 50 km away population 2,000 (I think) From there the next I thing is about 70 km. population 5. Haven't found a tree with internet yet... :anicute::(

Funny - my area is even more rural than yours and I have managed to find ways to cache my way around within the current limits - and find Internet in some towns with pop of 150. How odd....

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Since PQ's and GSAK go hand in hand, here is my 2 cents.

 

DO NOT search by radius.

DO search a state by placed date, and skip all found by you (that's what My Finds is for).

DO keep separate databases in GSAK,

one for My finds,

one for Connecticut+Rhode Island,

one for Massachusetts,

one for NH+parts of Maine,

one for VT+parts of NY (well here and the last one I didn't do both states since the far end of the states are so very far away, so I have some judiciously placed location based searches).

 

Of course you have to fill in the blanks with what's appropriate for you. And be sure to check the last find before going to look for a cache that might be long gone. I never remove archived caches from my databases as some other cachers I know do.

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That was one reason . . . But, why do these other people need so much data every day . . . ? :( Just curious . . .

I'm cacher of opportunity. Having 9 offices to drive to through the state at any given day gives me an opportunity to do a quick cache if I'm by myself. Using the GSAK database loaded on my laptop, I can quickly export to a gpx file for my PPC and a wpt file for my Magellan.

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So, do you refresh the entire area with five fresh PQs everyday? Or do you just get a PQ, or PQs, for the area you are heading towards? Or do you not know which way you are heading in enough time to get fresh PQs for the specific area and it's easier to keep everything fresh, all the time, every day?

 

Just curious . . . :(

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So, do you refresh the entire area with five fresh PQs everyday? Or do you just get a PQ, or PQs, for the area you are heading towards? Or do you not know which way you are heading in enough time to get fresh PQs for the specific area and it's easier to keep everything fresh, all the time, every day?

Just curious . . . :(

From day to day, the direction I go in is determined by the need. Fortunately, the networks I set up are typically rock solid so they only require remote maintenance. That being said, when there is a need to be on site, I don't have the luxury to spend 15 minutes to set up fresh PQs. I'm usually talking on the phone to the broker on the way out to the car with my laptop in the briefcase. That's why GSAK is on my laptop.

 

The 21 I run through the week provide me with fresh enough data for the state. I run another one each week for inactive caches to try to keep current with those. (I'll put in my plug here for how it would be nice to capture archived caches this way and yah I know the position on this...) I run one more for fresh updates for the past week for a total of 23 PQs.

 

Now before anybody says the last PQ I run for weekly updates should capture everything, I found that isn't entirely true. All of the PQs tend to return something that needed to be updated in the database. I have yet to have the weekly update PQ capture "all of it".

Edited by TotemLake
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DO NOT search by radius

Well - not entirely true. If I didn't search by radius, I'd have difficulty. I live 37 miles from one state line and about 60 miles from another. If I did it by state and date ranges only, I'd probably want to include those caches. As a result, I'd get caches that are about 280 miles SSE of me and some that are 400 miles NNW of me. ;)

 

You just have to be more careful with radius. First decide on your driving area and figure out just how far you MIGHT go. Set a radius and center point, and then divide the PQs by date range to gather all of the caches in that radius.

 

===========================

 

Ah - I think I found the terminology I was looking for all of the time with this topic:

The 21 I run through the week provide me with fresh enough data

 

There's the key words - Fresh Enough. You can get 2500 caches per day with one premium account. But do you need to grab the 2500 caches daily? In most instances, no. If you planned it right, with one premium account, you could get up to 17,500 caches in an offline database by using PQs that will gather unique data into five PQs per day (5x7=35, 35x500=17,500).

 

Will some of that data be stale? Yes. But you have to ask yourself: Is it "fresh enough"?

 

I may try an experiment next week - I'll set up my PQs to run to get the most caches possible in a 7 day week. Let's see, there's currently 17,361 caches within a 152 mile radius of N 37° 41.717 W 121° 15.648. I should be able to use just one account to be able to get the data for that area.

 

The point of the experiment? To show just how much data one can acquire within the current system...

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I have a wireless PDA and a wireless laptop that travel with me on trips. When I travel I usually stay at motels - all of which have interenet. Many rest stops have internet. Coffee houses and restraunts have internet. Libraries have internet. I plot caches along a route but I depend upon local internet connections for where-ever I spend the day/night. I even got a FTF 2000 miles from home using that method since all info is fresh. I don't need nor desire 1000's of caches in my GPSr. At least, that's how it works out for me.

 

You must be in a big city in the USA... 5 minutes north of me is nothing but forest and farms... nearest civilation from there is about 50 km away population 2,000 (I think) From there the next I thing is about 70 km. population 5. Haven't found a tree with internet yet... ;);)

 

It's at least an hours drive in any direction from my house to take my wife shopping. But that wasn't the point. When ON THE ROAD I mostly have easy access to the Internet. I really like the way Iowa (or was it MO) have internet in all their freeway reststops.

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I was also surprised at how many places I could get WiFi when I was on the road. I "borrowed" the signal from Day's Inn and other motel chains, sitting in my car in the parking lot. ;) Also, most independent coffee shops had free WiFi. There were three of those within a few blocks of one another in Prescott, AZ. ;)

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Will some of that data be stale? Yes. But you have to ask yourself: Is it "fresh enough"?

Yep. Also, the data on any single cache is only as fresh as the last log. There could be a problem with a cache for months and until someone mentions it, as far as Groundspeak is concerned, it's still ready to go.

 

I'm less concerned with one or two week old data than I am with the last 5 log limit.

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I was also surprised at how many places I could get WiFi when I was on the road. I "borrowed" the signal from Day's Inn and other motel chains, sitting in my car in the parking lot. ;) Also, most independent coffee shops had free WiFi. There were three of those within a few blocks of one another in Prescott, AZ. ;)

 

Talking about suicide notes.... I don't know about the USA but in Canada sitting in Day's Inn parking lot is considered stealing.

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I think the definitive post on the "more than 500" issue was back in post #30

 

More importantly, this question has come up many times and the answer from Jeremy has always been no. Do not expeecct this to change any time soon if at all.

 

Right from one of the Groundspeak lackeys....

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I was also surprised at how many places I could get WiFi when I was on the road. I "borrowed" the signal from Day's Inn and other motel chains, sitting in my car in the parking lot. :anibad: Also, most independent coffee shops had free WiFi. There were three of those within a few blocks of one another in Prescott, AZ. :anibad:

 

Talking about suicide notes.... I don't know about the USA but in Canada sitting in Day's Inn parking lot is considered stealing.

 

Don't do it in Michigan

 

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39824

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Guess who told me I could do that . . . ? A police officer in Salida, CO.

 

I asked him where the nearest library was so I could use my laptop and he said, "Most people just go out there on Highway 50 and get a signal at one of the motels."

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The original request was so I could grab lots of data in one query.... not find ways to work around it. It's amazing how much these forms diverge.

 

I think the definitive post on the "more than 500" issue was back in post #30
More importantly, this question has come up many times and the answer from Jeremy has always been no. Do not expeecct this to change any time soon if at all.
Right from one of the Groundspeak lackeys....

 

Read here

There's no plans to adjust the way Pocket Queries are handled at this time...As TotemLake has indicated you can get the information you need today by being creative with how your pocket queries are generated.

 

So, since Jeremy has indicated and another lackey has indicated that it ain't gonna happen, so people tried to be helpful and show how it COULD be done with the constraints issued by the current system.

 

I guess we should be flogged for trying to be helpful.

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So, since Jeremy has indicated and another lackey has indicated that it ain't gonna happen, so people tried to be helpful and show how it COULD be done with the constraints issued by the current system.

I guess we should be flogged for trying to be helpful.

 

Has there been any posting as to *why* this "ain't gonna happen"? All I have seen from the administrators is "nope, sorry". If this were a completely free service, then people would just have to use what's available.

 

The problem is, once you start taking peoples money for a service, then those people are going to want a say in how the service is provided.

 

As I've said in a previous post, I don't think it's unreasonable for people to expect a little better discussion than "No we won't do it."

 

If the reasons have been explained in other postings, please provide a link.

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I thought I did. The linked post says in it's entirity...

There's no plans to adjust the way Pocket Queries are handled at this time. Instead we have been concentrating on applications that get you access in real time data via a mobile phone. As TotemLake has indicated you can get the information you need today by being creative with how your pocket queries are generated.

 

The reasons are 1) GC is concentrating on getting live access from the field, and 2) you can already get the information needed by creative use.

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In the post from a year ago, Jeremy was alluding to the Trimble Geocache Navigator application. I've been using this as an adjunct "tool" that complements the traditional "GPS and pocket queries" solution. It's saved my butt on numerous occasions, like when I've unexpectedly traveled past the boundaries of my blanket pocket query coverage, or when I've found myself visiting an area for Waymarking and saying "oh, I found a cache here years ago... let me look it up so that my daughter can log it on her account while we're here."

 

People often say they'd pay more money in exchange for getting more data. For something like $7 per month, Geocache Navigator gives you every cache in the world, ALL of the prior logs, plus high-quality aerial photos, topo maps and street maps. Oh, and it turns my cellphone into a backup GPS, too.

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So, since Jeremy has indicated and another lackey has indicated that it ain't gonna happen, so people tried to be helpful and show how it COULD be done with the constraints issued by the current system.

I guess we should be flogged for trying to be helpful.

 

Has there been any posting as to *why* this "ain't gonna happen"? All I have seen from the administrators is "nope, sorry". If this were a completely free service, then people would just have to use what's available.

 

The problem is, once you start taking peoples money for a service, then those people are going to want a say in how the service is provided.

 

As I've said in a previous post, I don't think it's unreasonable for people to expect a little better discussion than "No we won't do it."

 

If the reasons have been explained in other postings, please provide a link.

I said it in another thread. Sometimes you just have to accept the answer to the request is No. No explanation needed beyond that. They don't have to answer to you or me and they don't have any stockholders to answer to as well. So why the problem with the answer?

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So, since Jeremy has indicated and another lackey has indicated that it ain't gonna happen, so people tried to be helpful and show how it COULD be done with the constraints issued by the current system.

I guess we should be flogged for trying to be helpful.

 

Has there been any posting as to *why* this "ain't gonna happen"? All I have seen from the administrators is "nope, sorry". If this were a completely free service, then people would just have to use what's available.

 

The problem is, once you start taking peoples money for a service, then those people are going to want a say in how the service is provided.

 

As I've said in a previous post, I don't think it's unreasonable for people to expect a little better discussion than "No we won't do it."

 

If the reasons have been explained in other postings, please provide a link.

 

If the reasons have been explained in other postings, please provide a link.

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So, since Jeremy has indicated and another lackey has indicated that it ain't gonna happen, so people tried to be helpful and show how it COULD be done with the constraints issued by the current system.

I guess we should be flogged for trying to be helpful.

 

Has there been any posting as to *why* this "ain't gonna happen"? All I have seen from the administrators is "nope, sorry". If this were a completely free service, then people would just have to use what's available.

 

The problem is, once you start taking peoples money for a service, then those people are going to want a say in how the service is provided.

 

As I've said in a previous post, I don't think it's unreasonable for people to expect a little better discussion than "No we won't do it."

 

If the reasons have been explained in other postings, please provide a link.

 

If the reasons have been explained in other postings, please provide a link.

That's funny considering he quoted from the post that provided the same link. :laughing::anicute:

Sometimes they should just stay in bed. :unsure:

Edited by TotemLake
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Bottom line is that no matter HOW many waypoints your GPS has, Groundspeak has already made it possible for you to load up to 2,500 per day into your GPS. Purchase an additional premium account and you can load 5,000 waypoints.

 

Right?

The point isn't to increase the daily limit on how many caches are in your PQ's. The point is that 500 waypoints in one PQ isn't necessarily convenient. Why can't we have 1000 waypoints in one query? We could download two of those a day and another with 500 to keep within the 2500 per day limit. Why not allow someone to download all 2500 in one file?

 

It takes 9 pocket queries to download all of Colorado right now. I have to set up 9 different queries by date, download them over 2 days, save 9 files from my email, fortunately I can open all 9 at once in GSAK, then I'm good to go. The hard part is when I need to adjust the dates in all 9 PQs. If the PQ size was increased to 1000, I would only have to setup and download 5 files. if we could download the daily limit of 2500 I could do this with only 2 PQs.

 

In other news, I've owned a Garmin Legend for over 3 years and it holds 1000 waypoints. I'm currently using a Magellan eXplorist. It holds a nearly unlimited number of waypoints on a 2GB SD card. Why be tied to a 500 waypoint limit per file? Not everyone's GPSr only holds 500 waypoints. We're allowed to download 2500 caches per day, why not save DB and server resources by doing that in fewer files?

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Your post brings up the question I have had all along.

 

Why do people need so much data?

 

When I traveled through Colorado, I refreshed my GSAK database as I traveled. It is hard to get from Ft. Morgan to Ouray in a day, or Colorado Springs to Meeker in a day, so why does someone need all that data?

 

Just curious . . . :P

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Your post brings up the question I have had all along.

 

Why do people need so much data?

 

When I traveled through Colorado, I refreshed my GSAK database as I traveled. It is hard to get from Ft. Morgan to Ouray in a day, or Colorado Springs to Meeker in a day, so why does someone need all that data?

 

Just curious . . . :P

If I'm driving from Colorado Springs to Meeker, I can do caches along a route. No problem. When I'm caching around home though, I might want to drive up to Denver for the day (2000 or so caches in an around the city). Do I just run one PQ centered on Lakewood? What if I want to stop in Castle Rock or go all the way up to Boulder? A 500 cache PQ just will not be adequate for a day of caching there. Sure, in Colorado Springs the density isn't nearly as high so I can get the whole city in one, but I don't always stay *just* in the city.

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Bottom line is that no matter HOW many waypoints your GPS has, Groundspeak has already made it possible for you to load up to 2,500 per day into your GPS. Purchase an additional premium account and you can load 5,000 waypoints. Right?

The point isn't to increase the daily limit on how many caches are in your PQ's. The point is that 500 waypoints in one PQ isn't necessarily convenient. Why can't we have 1000 waypoints in one query? We could download two of those a day and another with 500 to keep within the 2500 per day limit. Why not allow someone to download all 2500 in one file?
I like the idea of getting up to 2500 caches in 1-5 PQs. There are a lot of times that I guess wrong and have to run another 500 cache PQ. I'm traveling in a couple of weeks, and I've guessed wrong in pulling those PQs. It's actually getting harder to guess correctly in cache dense areas. So this option would let me brute force it and get two 1250 PQs for each of the areas I'm headed to. Then I can use mapsource to trim them down. :P Edited by TrailGators
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To put it another way, when I started caching, a 500 cache PQ would get just about the entire state of New Mexico. When New Mexico hit 1000 caches, a 500 cache PQ would still get me all caches within 100 miles of Albuquerque. I didn't usually travel any further than that on a regular basis, so that was adequate. I could always do another PQ if I was headed to Las Cruces or something.

 

These days, the cache density is so high that 500 caches just doesn't give you a very big circle to cache in. The problem is even worse in Colorado than it is in New Mexico, and much worse in California and other more populated states. Why doesn't the site keep up with the times and allow PQ's to cover a distance radius regardless of how many caches there are? I wouldn't mind having a 20 mile radius, especially for those times I'm driving to Denver and am not sure where I'll end up during a day of caching. 20 miles seems to be a *reasonable* radius. I'm sure someone could argue for 25 or 30, I just chose 20 miles as an arbitrary number, so it may not be the best number. The 500 waypoint limit was thought up when most GPSrs held only that many (most of the eTrex line, not including the Legend) and due to the low number of caches at the time, most people had a large radius as a result. The game has grown, but not the PQ waypoint limit? Doesn't make any sense to me

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