Newbie w/TomTom and LOST

[Butterflyjkg]

Hi everyone. I just purchased a TomTom One 3rd edition. Decided to try to find a neighborhood cache. I have NO idea what I am doing. I punched in the coords under "navigate to". Started from my home. I know the park that this is in. Followed it to the park, via my car. Immediately upon entering the park she says " you have reached your destination". Okay. We get out and start walking. I am thinking that she (TomTom) is going to guide me closer to my spot.

 

Now, do I try to walk to the "checkered" flag on this GPS? Am I following her voice commands? We were actually trying to walk closer to the coords... never happened. I got all the way at the other end of the park and she kept saying TURN AROUND yet I was no where near my coords. I would have had to go 8 miles south or so.

 

We were there for SO long I wanted to scream. My husband said my GPS is wrong. He said in order for us to be at the cache coords, we would have to be ten miles away from this park. I finally did turn around like she said and just started walking to match myself (cursor) with the checkered flag. Is this what I want? Should I be ignoring my lat. and long. and just going for the flag regardless of what she tells me? There is a feature on here to map it out "walking". Do I want THAT?

 

I have NO idea what I am doing. Exactly how far away from these coords can/will I be when she tells me I have reached my destination? Will I be in a half mile radius? 50 Ft. ?Am I trying to match me (cursor) to the checkered flag or what? Would someone please be kind enough to help this lost newbie? I was so fired up about this... I don't wanna be discouraged and lose interest.

 

As far as the compass on this thing goes, what setting is best for this? Always point to N? Always point in the direction of the cache? HELP PLEASE! I feel like I am nutz. This cache is a 1.. very simple.. yet I just about ran out of battery power trying to find it. Finally we just went home.. it got so frustrating . Any other TomTom users out there? I am sure this one may not be the best for doing this sort of thing, but it's what I have. Any advice would be great. I was so excited to do this and now I am so disappointed.

[+WhiteHowler]

The TomTom One was designed for general driving directions, not the kind of off-road accuracy you'll need for Geocaching. However, you can make it work, after a fashion.

 

Once you're on foot, you can pretty much disregard any further instructions toward the waypoint. The TomTom is meant to navigate you to a street address, so once you're off the roads, it doesn't really understand what to do. I think you can put it into Pedestrian Mode (choose "plan walking routes"), but it still tries to direct you toward the nearest street address, not necessarily the exact coordinates of your waypoint.

 

What you can do, however, is touch the panel in the lower-right corner (which brings up a status screen), and then touch the top-right window. This will bring up the satellite reception screen, which also conveniently has your current coordinates. Just start walking, and try to get the numbers to increase/decrease toward the ones of the cache location. It's a clumsy way to do it, and you don't get an easy indicator of direction or distance, but there are people who do it this way.

 

Personally, I use my TomTom to get my car to the general cache area, then hop out and use my old Garmin eTrex Legend once I'm on foot.

Edited April 7, 2008 by WhiteHowler

[Butterflyjkg]

The TomTom One was designed for general driving directions, not the kind of off-road accuracy you'll need for Geocaching. However, you can make it work, after a fashion.

 

Personally, I use my TomTom to get my car to the general cache area, then hop out and use my old Garmin eTrex Legend once I'm on foot.

 

So with the TomTom it's a needle in a haystack deal?

 

Do I need to download any other maps or what? I see everyone using this map and that map. I am just winging it with what it already in there. What is wrong with that.. and when will I need to download a map... prolly when I learn to find something? HA.. I am sure I looked like a total idiot in that park... going in circles ... here , there.. they prolly thought I was some crack head.

Edited April 7, 2008 by Butterflyjkg

[+Trufflehunters]

Hi there and welcome to the fun world of geocaching.

 

I had the same problem with a Tom-Tom, and it was frustrating. It snaps to the nearest road, so you keep circling to try and approximate the area you want to be in. Not cool.

 

However, I had a Dell Axim X50 that I figured could work. so I went off to eBay and got a CompactFlash GPS receiver for it. Add some GPS software on the PDA and it works a treat. Found 4 caches in no time.

 

You'll have a lot of fun, enjoy it

[Butterflyjkg]

Oh Scooby Doo! I had a feeling I had gotten the wrong GPS. It was on sale and I couldn't resist it. My father wants one just like mine , so maybe he would like this one and I could get a Garmin like yours.

 

Yes, I did do that trick. I tapped on "where am I" and looked at the coords. We then started walking to lower them to match the cache coords and it just didn't work. We ran out of park, and we were nowhere (according to this GPS) near the coords.

 

To make matters worse, we didn't have any compass at all... didn't realize I had a choice of one on this GPS. Like I said, I didn't do much research and just went at it.

 

My Lat. and Long. coords have 3 choice setting too, like I am sure they all do. My was on "degrees" setting when we left. I got home and looked this thing over good and thought perhaps it should have been set on "minutes" (d'm.m') ??? which resembled the numbers I put in for the coords. As you can see, I was sleeping on that day in class when we learned about latitude and longitude. I guess I never thought I would need it!

 

I am just wondering still with this, if I could get closer if I knew what exactly I am trying to follow on this TomTom. Her speaking directions or my coords or the checkered flag or what... they are leading me in 3 different spots. What are you following on your Garmin? Are you walking to match up your coords or what is on yours that you visually follow??

 

Perhaps I will let my dad have this one... and get a Garmin? What do you think. This TomTom was 200$ and I got it on sale for 120. I couldn't resist.

 

Perhaps I will try to go again today. With the compass ON this time HA! and the coords display set to minutes? I know it's a simple find, I just feel like an idiot.

 

I am so anxious to find one, I actually dreamt about it last night! Perhaps I will get the hang of it before I get too discouraged. ????

 

I appreciate you taking the time to reply to my posting. I know it sounds very Newbie, but that is just what it is! Everyone starts somewhere! Thank you.

[Butterflyjkg]

One more thing I forgot to ask. I thought that with this TomTom.. if you typed in the address, it took you t here, which it did as I set it to go to my dad's house. It didn't say I had reached my destination until I was literally directly in front of it.

 

You can also put a general street or your latitude and longitude. Why wouldn't it take me directly to that latitude and longitude like it did the house number? Or is it that it does, but the general area of that lat. and long. is a wide area? Surely it must get closer, or what would you be able to go by the lat. and long.? I am thinking that if I am in PA, I should be able to put in coords for someone in Ohio and be directed pretty darn close to their area or am I dreaming?

 

Does that make sense. If I were standing in the middle of the woods on exactly a specific lat. and long.... what sort of circumference would surround me until my coords changed? How specific is it ? 50 feet until my coords would change?? Like I said, I was sleeping that day in school. Anyone know the general way that works?? Perhaps she is taking me there, but the area is so wide I can't find my spot or smaller area to search.

 

How close can you get with YOURS? Does it mark it with an X , a flag, a voice? What do other GPS units do??

[+WhiteHowler]

You can also put a general street or your latitude and longitude. Why wouldn't it take me directly to that latitude and longitude like it did the house number? Or is it that it does, but the general area of that lat. and long. is a wide area? Surely it must get closer, or what would you be able to go by the lat. and long.? I am thinking that if I am in PA, I should be able to put in coords for someone in Ohio and be directed pretty darn close to their area or am I dreaming?

It's not that the TomTom isn't as accurate as other GPS receivers, it's that it was designed for driving directions (much as the Garmin Nuvi series, the Magellan Maestro series, etc.). It's very good at getting you to a street address, so when you give it a latitude and longitude, it thinks you want to go to the nearest address. It's not so good at getting you to a specific off-road point, just because they didn't write the software to work that way.

 

The coordinate system will still work accurately; you just have to be sure that you're using the right Longitude/Latitude format. By default, the Geocaching website will give you degrees and minutes (ie. N33 22.139 W86 42.382), while the TomTom display uses decimal degrees (ie. N33.47376 W86.48327). Click on the "Other Conversions" link on a cache's page to see all coordinate types for it.

 

How close can you get with YOURS? Does it mark it with an X , a flag, a voice? What do other GPS units do??

My TomTom just gets me to the general area. It's nice because I don't have to look up a road route before setting out.

 

Once I'm on foot, I use my Garmin eTrex Legend. It's designed more for hikers than drivers, and doesn't really care whether you're on a road or not (in fact, mine doesn't show many roads at all, other than a few major highways). It puts a little flag icon on the map right where the cache coordinates are, and it will guide me in with an arrow that constantly updates to point toward the goal.

 

Accuracy-wise, my Garmin can get me within about ten feet of a cache under optimal conditions. However, conditions aren't always optimal. A lot of caches are hidden under tree cover, which can degrade the satellite reception (especially on my old GPSr, which doesn't have a very sensitive antenna). And there's always the possibility that the person who placed the cache was a little bit off with their coordinates for the same reason (though if too many people logged problems with the coordinates, a responsible cache owner will go back and double-check that the numbers are accurate). I've had times where I've literally walked up to (and over) a cache, and sometimes I've had to search for half an hour or more.

 

Realistically, I can expect to get within 25-50 feet of a cache, and then it's mostly a matter of searching, with an occasional check of the GPS to see if I can get a better idea of where I'm supposed to be.

 

Anyway, there's nothing wrong with your TomTom -- it's just not quite built for the job you want to use it for (though, again, it's technically possible to use it for Geocaching). If you want to take this up as a more-than-occasional hobby, you should probably look into a non-vehicular GPS receiver. Even the most basic "hiking" model will work. I'd suggest looking for one that supports a data cable, since being able to import your waypoints directly from the website (or, better yet, from a database program like GSAK) makes things a lot easier.

 

Happy caching!

[+Trufflehunters]

Another option (and it requires some "fiddling" of the TomTom is to try TomTom Offriad Navigator.

 

It's not written or endorsed by TomTom, and although I managed to get it working on my One XL, I couldn't input numbers (as the input screen was scrambled). Also, some of the pages on the website are French.

 

http://www.webazar.org/tomtom/offroad.php?lang=uk

 

Good luck. I don't recommend this, but it might be a cheaper way out.

[+NOV8TR]

Double post,, sorry

Edited April 7, 2008 by 1XL-on-XR650L

[+NOV8TR]

Another option (and it requires some "fiddling" of the TomTom is to try TomTom Offriad Navigator.

 

It's not written or endorsed by TomTom, and although I managed to get it working on my One XL, I couldn't input numbers (as the input screen was scrambled). Also, some of the pages on the website are French.

 

http://www.webazar.org/tomtom/offroad.php?lang=uk

 

Good luck. I don't recommend this, but it might be a cheaper way out.

 

I use my Tomtom ONE XL almost every day (at least several times a week) to play the game. I make map overlays from Google Earth (500' eye elevation) and load them into the "raster" folder on the Tomtom. Then once I get to the cache site, I switch to the "browse Map" feature and select the "where am I" button in the upper right corner of the screen. If I'm at least 50~75 feet from a road, it will "unsnap" and guide me to the cache (if I have made the cache a PIO). Once I'm within 50 feet or so, I switch to the satellite bar screen which displays real time coordinates (The Decimal configuration is the most accurate). Tomtom is not the ideal choice tool for the game, but it does work, and I like having a wide screen map to look at for recerence! By the way, I use "offroad" 3rd party software from time to time, but it runs very slow on the lower end Tomtom models. Also you must make the cache site a "favotite" or an "ITN" way point to get "offroad" to recognise it (POI'S won't work for the 3rd party software). It is a great tool, but it is much more efficent just doing the "drunken bee dance" watching the satellite coordinates change (so far I have had less than 15 feet of error using that method!)

Edited April 7, 2008 by 1XL-on-XR650L

[Butterflyjkg]

I FOUND IT!!! I actually found my first cache! On my second try, I made sure my coords were in minutes and I set it to "walk mode" after I got out of my car at the park. It told me to "make a left" and it showed 120 yards. I walked over there and it told me to turn around. I did and then it showed me to walk left, I did...and then a white flashing arrow appeared on the screen. I walked until I(the cursor) was on top of the white destination arrow and VOILA! I was with in 3 feet of it!!! It actually worked!

 

I was so excited I almost peed! HA! It was a micro and I found it with no problems. I think the first time I inputed the wrong W direction... I missed a 0. Perhaps that is what the problem was? Not sure.. but I offically found my first cache! I am very excited. I hope it works as well the next time I hunt one, which might be this afternoon!

[+Miragee]

Whooooo Hoo! Congratulations!!

[+Trufflehunters]

Congratulations.. welcome to the addiction

[+StarBrand]

That unit is not the most suitable for Geocaching. Just not very tough and has limited battery life and ruggedness.

 

Leave it in the where it was designed to work well and get an inexpensive handheld for geocaching. May i suggest the Garmin eTrex Yellow "H" model for around $90 if you shop around.

[+WhiteHowler]

That unit is not the most suitable for Geocaching. Just not very tough and has limited battery life and ruggedness.

Actually, that is a big concern too. The TomTom One is rated for about 2 hours of battery life, but I've had mine die from a full charge in about an hour. If you stick to low-difficulty, low-terrain caches, you should be fine -- but I don't think I'd trust the TomTom to get me to anything more than a few minutes' hike away.

[+fidjit]

Dunno if this helps you but here's my take on the Tom Tom One 3rd

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=190086

 

Hope it helps !

[+naviguesser74]

do a pocket query to get a bunch of cache locations for a given area. you can use www.gpsvisualizer.com to convert the .gpx file format to .ov2, which is what TomTom uses. I don't know how to get the ov2 file in your model of TomTom, but you should be able to do it. Then, when you are driving down the road, you'll be able to see all the locations (as POI's) and "navigate to" them.

[+MarshMonsters]

That unit is not the most suitable for Geocaching. Just not very tough and has limited battery life and ruggedness.

 

Leave it in the where it was designed to work well and get an inexpensive handheld for geocaching. May i suggest the Garmin eTrex Yellow "H" model for around $90 if you shop around.

 

I agree with Starbrand.

 

You can drop your eTrex Yellow H and it will be fine (did this on a sidewalk). You could also drop it in a puddle or a creek and it will be fine. Mine has held up in rain, snow, and mist. If you drop your TomTom or if it gets damp it will be useless. It wasn't made for hiking or outdoor use.

[+madkiwiman]

you probably ain't even reading this now - but if you do. Like everyone else - Congrats on the find. I just started a week ago and have found three now.

I was so excited to go geocaching - i went without a GPS - just using the mapquest pic of the geocaching site. Pretty close actually. found one with just the map and then got a Garmin Etrex Legend and love it. I also have a Garmin Street pilot C550 and was dissapointed to find it doesn't do lat/long.

 

so stick at it and like one of the last people said - probably a more dedicated GPS will bring you more joy and success - but whatever works for ya.

 

[range rangers]

as many have already said, tomtom is a great unit for turn by turn directions. unfortunately for caching you need something a little more precise. a good WAAS enabled handheld unit is the ticket. i have found several such units for as little as $30 on ebay, it doesn't require a great deal of money to set yourself up well. my wife and i each have a unit, i have a cheap cobra gps100 i got off ebay for $40. no maps on it, but it works. wife has a garmin etrex legend. got that 1 from cabellas for $150. these type units can generally get you to within 10 feet pretty readily. once you get that close just open your eyes.

[+Smokiewolf]

I have been using my Tom Tom ONE LE, and when I get close, I use the "Browse map" screen, and zoom it all the way in. Then walk towards the cursor.

[+DocRo]

I started about 3 weeks ago using Tomtom navigator 6 on my PDA. Seven finds- no bother. Just switch to map view or co-ordinates screen and it will bring you right on to co-ords. I have no intention of buying another.