PQ & GSAK Coord Issues?

[+infiniteMPG]

This is the second time I've had this happen so I figured it's time to find out whassup! I got shipped up from Florida to Iowa last week and while I was there I figured I'd snag a few finds. While in Iowa I was right across the Missouri River from Omaha, Nebraska so figured I'd sneak across the border and add the state to my find list. The cache Lauritzen Gardens GC6A0E was right off I-80 so off I went. Got to GZ and since this was a full sized ammo can I thought it would be a quick grab. The coords led me to a mowed field about 50-feet from anything other them short cut grass. I thought something was off so I widened my search area and scoured around before scratching my head and giving up.

 

As I started to drive away I remember about a previous "issue" I had so I yanked out My Palm TX and looked up the cache. I pulled it up on my Garmin GPS MAP60CSx and the last two numbers after the decimal place for both north and west were WRONG!!!

 

I quickly made the correction in my GPSr and zoomed off to the cache. Didn't document the coords that were in my GPSr but they were entered there via a PQ, loaded into my GPSr and my Palm TX via GSAK 7.2.3.35. I had this issue happen once before but this was WeIrD!!! All the other coords were right, all the info was right, but just this one cache had a minor error in both north and west, put me off about 150-feet but the info was also transferred to my PDA via GSAK and the coords were right in there.

 

Any clue as to what might of happened these couple of times as I'd hate to be off in the wild somewhere as that 150-feet could be the difference bewteen a smiley and dropping off the face of the earth???

Edited October 13, 2008 by infiniteMPG

[jholly]

If you select the waypoint and switch to map view and then hit enter you can move the waypoint any where you wish to put it. Hit enter and it is changed. I bet you moved the waypoint with out realizing you moved it. I've done it.

 

Jim

[+paleolith]

How are you loading the caches into your GPSr? Garmin software? Any other software doing any filtering in between?

 

One second of latitude is about .017 minutes, or about 100'. Longitude is less unless you are at the equator. Still, rounding both down to the next lower second (not the nearest) could result in an error of about 120' even in temperate latitudes. Thus my question about any other software processing the data. Check the coords actually loaded to see what they are in seconds.

 

Edward

 

Edit: hmm, what jholly said too. I've done it as well. I wish I could turn off that "feature".

Edited October 13, 2008 by paleolith

[+infiniteMPG]

If you select the waypoint and switch to map view and then hit enter you can move the waypoint any where you wish to put it. Hit enter and it is changed. I bet you moved the waypoint with out realizing you moved it. I've done it.Jim

Okay, this is something I need to LEARN how to do so I can be SURE to NEVER do that again. This is on the GPSr itself????

[jholly]

If you select the waypoint and switch to map view and then hit enter you can move the waypoint any where you wish to put it. Hit enter and it is changed. I bet you moved the waypoint with out realizing you moved it. I've done it.Jim

Okay, this is something I need to LEARN how to do so I can be SURE to NEVER do that again. This is on the GPSr itself????

 

Yes.

 

find->select waypoint

while waypoint data is displayed toggle over to map, hit enter to display map

With map displayed, hit enter

toggle rocker, waypoint is moved

hit enter to "select", your moved waypoint is saved to the gps.

 

I've used EasyGPS, GSAK and other software to transfer 1,000's (both geocaching and marine) of waypoints to a couple GPSr. Never have they EVER had an error in transmission.

 

Jim

[jholly]

...

Edited October 13, 2008 by jholly

[cliff_hanger]

Edit: hmm, what jholly said too. I've done it as well. I wish I could turn off that "feature".

 

Load caches as custom POIs instead of waypoints?

 

You can load a lot more that way and it's difficult to move them accidentally. I have over 3500 caches loaded into my Vista HCx as custom POIs. The only time I use waypoints for caches is in the field when I have to add stages of a multi or puzzle results.

 

See these threads for details:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=140808

http://forums.ctcachers.com/viewtopic.php?...ight=custom+poi

[+Quiggle]

Moving to GPS and Technology forum.

[+infiniteMPG]

First, no secondary software used. I get PQ's from GC site, unzip them and put them in a folder. Then open them into GSAK, then using USB cable directly load them into Garmin MAP 60CSx. I did download the PQ in Florida and was using it to find caches in Iowa but all the other caches were dead on for coords including the info for this cache on my PDA. I think the accidental dragging is probably what happened.

 

Load caches as custom POIs instead of waypoints?

MAP 60CSx has geocaching feature where caches found can be automatically changed to found caches and moved from being an unfound geocache to a regular waypoint. That way the geocaches can be searched without all the rest of the loaded waypoints cluttering up the search. To load them as custom POI's wouldn't I loose that feature?

[cliff_hanger]

Load caches as custom POIs instead of waypoints?

MAP 60CSx has geocaching feature where caches found can be automatically changed to found caches and moved from being an unfound geocache to a regular waypoint. That way the geocaches can be searched without all the rest of the loaded waypoints cluttering up the search. To load them as custom POI's wouldn't I loose that feature?

 

Yes.

 

My Vista HCx behaves the same way. But, using the custom POI macro in GSAK, the "found" caches get changed to smilie icons at my next POI load - which I do weekly. Unfound caches have seperate icons for traditional, multi, unknown, hybred, etc. Child waypoints such as parking and trailheads get loaded as custom POIs with just the blue dot and are also searchable.

 

I search POIs by "nearest", by "name" or by "nearest containg ---". As I wrote, I currently have over 3500 loaded, which covers all the available caches in my state. Takes only minutes to update.

 

YMMV, but I thought that losing the "geocaching feature" (which I never used anyway) was a small sacrifice compared to being able to load an unlimited amount of POI's and not deal with accidentally moving a waypoint.

Edited October 13, 2008 by cliff_hanger