Newbie help

[skydoggie]

Hi, We are new to this sport and absolutely love it, we did our first hunt on Saturday and went 4 for 5.

Well, my husband found them all but I brought him to the areas.

I would like to know if anyone can offer any shortcuts like when downloading to our gps how to download just to the area we are traveling to and transferring the name instead of just the number of the cache? (After I downloaded the cache I went and put the name at the top so I could see which one we wanted to go to next, this took me a long time.)

Is there a way to get to see the newest caches near our area without going thru all the pages of caches? We would appreciate any help on downloading and the hunt that we can get so we can save time on the computer and get out searching.

Thank you!

[skydoggie]

Oh ya and what is a muggler?????

[+admo1972]

There is a wonderful program called GSAK. It costs a little bit, but is free for a few weeks. It may be overkill, but is a great way to pick and choose what you send to your GPS.

 

It's best feature in my opinion, is that it can give ever cache you download from geocaching.com a unique smart name that you can send to your GPS. It is usually a shortened version of the actual name.

 

As for caches in your area, you can just dowload the ones you choose from your GSAK database, or send as many as you can, and then simply when you get to your area, have the GPS itself show you only the "nearest" caches.

 

Hope this helps a bit.

[skydoggie]

Thank you it does help and I am going to check it out!

Thanks again!

 

There is a wonderful program called GSAK. It costs a little bit, but is free for a few weeks. It may be overkill, but is a great way to pick and choose what you send to your GPS.

 

It's best feature in my opinion, is that it can give ever cache you download from geocaching.com a unique smart name that you can send to your GPS. It is usually a shortened version of the actual name.

 

As for caches in your area, you can just dowload the ones you choose from your GSAK database, or send as many as you can, and then simply when you get to your area, have the GPS itself show you only the "nearest" caches.

 

Hope this helps a bit.

[+wesleykey]

Oh ya and what is a muggler?????

 

A misspelling of a muggle.

[+michigansnorkelers]

Get GSAK and become a Premium Member.

 

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Premium members can run POCKET QUERIES which are really neat!!! You can search for caches any distance from your home coordinates or other center point of your choice.

 

You can search for all caches, or just multis; any size or just large and regular, etc, etc.

 

You can search for caches that have not been found yet.

 

You can search for caches placed during a certain period of time.

 

And you can display a Google Map with only these caches displayed.

 

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With GSAK, you can store all this information on your PC and transfer it to your GPSr and even your Palm device and go paperless!

 

You can set up GSAK to use any naming convention you want.

 

You can actually customize the cache names. Personally, I have GSAK add a couple letters to each cache name so I can see at a glance what kind of caches are in the area. For example, a cache called KITTY will be renamed SYKITTY where S indicates small cache and Y indicates there is a Travel Bug in the cache. Furthermore, the NOTE section on my GPSr will also indicate the terrain and difficulty numbers as well as a bit of the hint. There's just soooo much you can do once you get familiar with GSAK.

 

Happy Geocaching!!!

[RV'n Iowans]

A Muggle (or Muggler as many call them), is a non-geocaching person who may be in the area you are searching. Taken, I understand, from the Harry Potter books where a Muggle is a "non-magical person".

[skydoggie]

A Muggle (or Muggler as many call them), is a non-geocaching person who may be in the area you are searching. Taken, I understand, from the Harry Potter books where a Muggle is a "non-magical person".

[skydoggie]

A Muggle (or Muggler as many call them), is a non-geocaching person who may be in the area you are searching. Taken, I understand, from the Harry Potter books where a Muggle is a "non-magical person".

 

Thanks for all the info!!!!

[+Mr_Mikey]

Another simple program is EasyGps, you can rename the file before you download it, this program is free and although GSAK is probably better you might want to try EasyGps first since it is free then move up to GSAK.

I use a palm pilot to store all the data in when i am out in the woods, to find caches in a specific area I use the "MAPIT" function on the upper right corner of the page that lists the Caches. this shows a map and all teh caches in the area you want to go to. I download all the hints and directions into my Palm.

[+UncleJimbo]

Oh ya and what is a muggler?????

 

You might want to take a look at this Lexicon of Geocaching: http://geolex.locusprime.net/ .

 

Muggle also has a Wikipedia listing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muggle