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Paperless Caching


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I have seen a person use a palm pilot or blackberry, and they had the whole cache page, including logs, on the little hand held device. What is the least expensive device to use to go paperless and how easy to download and use? Any suggestions or information about this would be appreciated. Thanks. Bug Seeker

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I have seen a person use a palm pilot or blackberry, and they had the whole cache page, including logs, on the little hand held device. What is the least expensive device to use to go paperless and how easy to download and use? Any suggestions or information about this would be appreciated. Thanks. Bug Seeker

I'm not saying it is necessarily the best way to go but we use GSAK, CacheMate with a Palm T2 and a 60CSx. You don't lose anything with the Palm and GSAK and CacheMate are cheap and really do a great job. I am retired so my cell phone is bare bones and I try to avoid using it so it is not fancy enough to help!

Edited by Konnarock Kid & Marge
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Palm - just about any one will do - as cheaply as $20 at e-bay

Cachemate = $8 (one-time)

GSAK -I think it's $25 (one-time) unless it's upgraded a full version

GPS - any but Garmin seems to be the most widely supported. As long as it has a USB connection. GSAK will download to it quicker than 5 seconds once you have the filter set.

 

I use Palm tungsten E2 w/ Cachemate, Garmin Vista HCX, Garmin Legend C (for friends that go with us) and a Garmin nuvi 660 for AutoNav.

 

Haven't used paper since 2005. At just one page per cache with 3000 finds, that's over 6 reams of paper saved so far (and most caches are at least 2 pages)

Edited by Cache O'Plenty
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DeLorme PN-40 here, full paperless in one device. i tried using my Garmin legend HCx and my Dell Axim PDA, and it was too big a bother for me. Use the GPS to get in the general area, put down the GPS and get out the PDA, look up the cache info, put it down and get the GPS going again so you can narrow down the area between the arrow and the description, try no to break the delicate PDA. Bleh, did it once, didn't like it, too much stuff to deal with.

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I bought at the end of last year a Z22 and use it with GSAK, Cachemate and a Garmin 60CX.

The Z22 isn't the best buy for (complete) paperless caching as you can read in my blog entries:

http://searchjaunt.idizaai.be/channel-rat/

http://searchjaunt.idizaai.be/big-spoiler/

 

Therefore I ordered a iPaq 214 instead, which I'm waiting to arrive. The big screen will be at least better and one says that geoscout is far better than cachemate too. Let's wait and see.

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Doing quite well with the Z22. It lacks an expansion port, so the memory is limited. I have no problem loading the nearest 500 caches. Don't know it it's cachemate or the Z22, but it does cut off som of the longest cache pages. (About 3 of the nearest 500.) Tough to read in bright sunlight. Other than that, we are quite happy with it. (Oh. And we got it for free. Present for 20 years of service to the state for my caching partner.)

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Doing quite well with the Z22. It lacks an expansion port, so the memory is limited. I have no problem loading the nearest 500 caches. Don't know it it's cachemate or the Z22, but it does cut off som of the longest cache pages. (About 3 of the nearest 500.) Tough to read in bright sunlight. Other than that, we are quite happy with it. (Oh. And we got it for free. Present for 20 years of service to the state for my caching partner.)

I have over 1500 loaded on my Palm Vx (8MB non expandable). One thing to watch out for is the number of logs - if you've been updating GSAK from PQs for a while, you may have lots of logs per cache, and they eat up the memory.

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I use a sony clie nx70v that my wife abandoned when she upgraded her phone last year. The thing that makes it nice is the slot for external memory, this has let me load thousands of caches. An added bonus is the camera it has. Not the best in the world, but it works in a pinch.

 

Make sure whatever you get connects with a USB cable. (most pda's made in the last 5 years will) It makes things a lot easier.

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I use an Garmin Oregon 400T, it has the paperless built in also. I was using a pocket PC before with GSAK also and it worked well also. Mine did not have a USB port but came with a "cradle" that did the same thing. I used the GPXview program downloadable from the downloads section of this site.

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I made the move to paperless a few years ago with Cachemate and a Palm Tungsten E2. Worked well but I had problems remembering to charge the PDA and sometimes Cachemate would crash the whole works after I exported caches from GSAK. May have been trying to add to many at once.

 

Then last year we switched our cell carrier to T-mobile and got a couple free Sidekicks. The Sidekick data plan gave me the chance to leave the PDA at home because I could pull up cache info on the fly anywhere I had a cell signal. I normally used the mobile site (wap.geocaching.com - no graphics so any phone with web access can use it depending on your plan).

 

A few months ago I started having issues with my old Garmin eTrex Legend (Version 1, non color, non high accuracy). I started looking into getting a paperless GPS. At the same time we were faced with replacing hubby's Sidekick due to some liquid damage (Soda and Sidekicks don't mix). I started looking around and noticed there were folks using T-Mobile G1 phones for caching. The phone has a built in GPS and magnetic compass which has proven more accurate and faster locking than my old Garmin was.

 

So I gave hubby my Sidekick and he let me buy a used G1. Spent less on it than what we were facing to get a new paperless GPS and phone combined and I have it all in one package.

 

There is a wonderful free app in the Android Market called GeoBeagle. You can load pocket queries into it (either download from email received on the phone or through USB onto the micro SD in the phone) or pull maps and nearby cache listings direct from geocaching.com. Having google maps right on the phone helps with the directions to and from the cache location. Geobeagle is always being updated to add new useful features to make it even easier to use.

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Garmin Nuvi paperless, Heres a good site to get started

 

http://pilotsnipes.googlepages.com/index.html

 

I havent figuered it out yet though....: ( of course, I'm computer illiterate.

Advantages compared to PDA:

 

1. Shows where you are and map of where the caches are relative to you

 

2. Proximity alarm (can also be a disadvantage - massively distracting!)

 

3. Driving directions

 

Disadvantages:

 

1. Battery does not last long

 

2. Slow start-up

 

3. Cannot remove cache from custom POI / edit entry until next computer update

 

4. No logging / note taking ability

 

5. No ability to do incremental update

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Garmin Nuvi paperless, Heres a good site to get started

 

http://pilotsnipes.googlepages.com/index.html

 

I havent figuered it out yet though....: ( of course, I'm computer illiterate.

I have the pilotsnipes GSAK macro on my Nuvi 255 and it works great! I am also "computer technology challenged" so it took me many hours to get the macro working, despite the excellent tutorial. There is a GSAK forum devoted to questions on this macro and pioltsnipes and others were very prompt in providing clear, helpful answers.

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The least expensive would be one of the smart mobile phones that any cell phone providers will give you when you sign a contract. Can't beat free. Most of these phones have a internal GPSr (often not that great, but as good as any other non WAAS GPSr, and if it is realy that much of a problem, you can get a cheep bluetooth GPSr ($50)). And with all the low cost unlimited data planes out there, you can truly cache on the fly. Not only paperless, but cableless as well.

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I have a Colorado that has built in cache descriptions, logs, and hints and love it. I still have the Palm Treo (with cachemate) that I used to use before that, but rarely look at it anymore for caching purposes. I did, however, find a relatively cheap ASUS A696 on ebay with a built in antenna and gpsr receiver and love that unit as well. It gives some flexibility -- and there are a number of interesting pocket pc programs for caching. My favorite is probably geoscout since I can download satellite images which are sometimes handy for finding the right trail.

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