Newbie! Dumb questions about Explorist 210

[+EarLady]

I just got a Magellan Explorist 210 for Christmas. I like to think I'm somewhat technologically savvy, but this is very complicated! To download caches from geocaching.com to the 210, do I need to go though the Magellan geocaching software, or just download from the site to my GPSr? For example, my digital camera came with all this software to download pics to the computer, when all I need to do is click and drag from the SD card. I don't use the software anymore.

 

Thanks!

Maureen

[+BCandMsKitty]

Well, I don't have the 210, but I do have the Magellan 500.

First .. you can't download direct from geocaching.com to the magellan. They are only set up for Garmin at present. I use pocket queries and gsak to get any number of caches into my magellan.

I can tell you that to me the magellan geocache manager is very clumsy and hard to use, and after the first week or so I have never tried to use it again.

 

I see that you're a premium member, so you can do pocket queries. I'll just give you a little rundown on how I work things out. There are any number of ways to mange the caches you are searching, but this is best for me.

 

I go through the caches I want to hunt for any particular day and bookmark each one that I am interested in. I then go to "Manage Bookmarks" under the Premium Features part of the menu on the right side of my account page. There I see any bookmark files I have created. Click on "Create Pocket Query". On the window that opens, tick the day of the week, select "Run this query once and then delete it", and then submit. I will get an email with the query as an attachment. I then save this file to my hard drive and use Gsak for the rest GSAK. It is well worth the $25 price! With it, I drag and drop the downloaded pocket query, still zipped, into gsak. It opens all of the data and allows me to select, or de-select any of the caches. I usually select all of the caches, and then export to a magellan file and save this file to my hard drive. When I plug the magellan into the usb port and turn it on, the magellan file structure will open. All I have to do is drag and drop the gsak generated file into the "geocaches" folder and I have all the cache data loaded.

 

When actually using the explorist, and you press GoTo, you will see "Points Of Interest", and "Geocaches". For downloaded files, select "Geocaches" and you will see all the caches you have downloaded. "Points Of Interest" will hold any coordinates that you have manually input, such as you would do if you only have one or two to go after, or waypoints in a multi-cache.

 

I'm not too sure how this will relate to you, because of memory limits on the 210. On the 500 I have the option to load the data onto an sd card. I don't think the 210 has this capability, so you might have to be careful with the number of caches you try to load at any one time.

 

Hope this gets you in the right direction

Edited January 1, 2009 by BC & MsKitty

[+EarLady]

BC & MsKitty,

 

Thanks! I followed your directions exactly and am up and running. Downloaded a bunch of caches and found three of them today -- got a late start and it got dark. Now, do you happen to know the trick to deleting a saved waypoint? The user's manual describes how to delete a "point of interest," and I figured it'd be the same for a "geocache", but I can't seem to delete waypoints that I haved saved under "Geocaches." Any help would be appreciated!! Thanks!