pq's for the south of england

[+smstext]

Im trying to build up a pq of all available traditional caches in the south of england, ive managed to do the sw but am finding it to be time consuming. is there a way of getting pq's for counties? this way when im out on the road (im a professional driver) i can see (on my tomtom) if its worth stopping somewhere and pulling the details off with the iphone app?

 

i know someone will say why not do a pq for your route, but i never know my route till im out there and its too late to run off a pq.

 

many thanks in advance.

[+Jonovich]

Im trying to build up a pq of all available traditional caches in the south of england, ive managed to do the sw but am finding it to be time consuming. is there a way of getting pq's for counties? this way when im out on the road (im a professional driver) i can see (on my tomtom) if its worth stopping somewhere and pulling the details off with the iphone app?

 

i know someone will say why not do a pq for your route, but i never know my route till im out there and its too late to run off a pq.

 

many thanks in advance.

 

That was one thing you used to be able to do with the Uk Geocaching site when it was about... Maybe it's something the iCache folks can do if it's allowed under their T&C's???

 

Alternatively, buy a GeoMate Jnr!

 

J

Edited January 6, 2010 by Dakar4x4

[+uk89camaro]

Im trying to build up a pq of all available traditional caches in the south of england, ive managed to do the sw but am finding it to be time consuming. is there a way of getting pq's for counties? this way when im out on the road (im a professional driver) i can see (on my tomtom) if its worth stopping somewhere and pulling the details off with the iphone app?

 

i know someone will say why not do a pq for your route, but i never know my route till im out there and its too late to run off a pq.

 

many thanks in advance.

 

www.icache.co.uk hope to feature a pq download in the not too distant future. At the moment you can view the caching maps by county, and various other stats. You can also link through to www.emcache.com to add a feature request.

 

[+Jonovich]

Im trying to build up a pq of all available traditional caches in the south of england, ive managed to do the sw but am finding it to be time consuming. is there a way of getting pq's for counties? this way when im out on the road (im a professional driver) i can see (on my tomtom) if its worth stopping somewhere and pulling the details off with the iphone app?

 

i know someone will say why not do a pq for your route, but i never know my route till im out there and its too late to run off a pq.

 

many thanks in advance.

 

www.icache.co.uk hope to feature a pq download in the not too distant future. At the moment you can view the caching maps by county, and various other stats. You can also link through to www.emcache.com to add a feature request.

 

 

It's more a POI (TOM TOM etc) than a PQ that is needed for the OP's described application. Which was something the Uk Geocaching site used to provide.

 

J

[+uk89camaro]

 

It's more a POI (TOM TOM etc) than a PQ that is needed for the OP's described application. Which was something the Uk Geocaching site used to provide.

 

J

 

I can't remember if GUK used to actually export the TT OV2 file, but a pq export from GSAK only takes a few minutes to run a pq file. I've done it myself on a 30k pq that takes about 5 minutes to run in GSAK.

 

However, I'm being a bit previous.

[team tisri]

Im trying to build up a pq of all available traditional caches in the south of england, ive managed to do the sw but am finding it to be time consuming. is there a way of getting pq's for counties? this way when im out on the road (im a professional driver) i can see (on my tomtom) if its worth stopping somewhere and pulling the details off with the iphone app?

 

i know someone will say why not do a pq for your route, but i never know my route till im out there and its too late to run off a pq.

 

many thanks in advance.

 

It shouldn't be too hard to use a few PQs to cover a wide area, especially if you're looking for traditionals only that you haven't found (and presumably don't need special gear, don't require long hikes, etc). One PQ of 500 caches can cover quite a large area, so you should only need three or four PQs to cover a large area. Then load them all into something like Garmin's Mapsource and merge them all.

 

It would be nice to be able to download a single PQ for a huge area, it's a shame Groundspeak's T&Cs for downloading PQs seems to prohibit collaborative efforts (i.e. you send me your query and I send you mine).

Edited January 6, 2010 by team tisri

[+uk89camaro]

 

It would be nice to be able to download a single PQ for a huge area, it's a shame Groundspeak's T&Cs for downloading PQs seems to prohibit collaborative efforts (i.e. you send me your query and I send you mine).

 

That's similar to what we're www.icache.co.uk working on with Groundspeak at the moment. Not swapping or donating PQ's, but allowing downloads of gpx files from our official GC licenced site, to premium GC members.

[team tisri]

 

It would be nice to be able to download a single PQ for a huge area, it's a shame Groundspeak's T&Cs for downloading PQs seems to prohibit collaborative efforts (i.e. you send me your query and I send you mine).

 

That's similar to what we're www.icache.co.uk working on with Groundspeak at the moment. Not swapping or donating PQ's, but allowing downloads of gpx files from our official GC licenced site, to premium GC members.

 

That would be brilliant if you can do it. I edited my post because I re-read the licensing and found it's prohibited unless you've made your own arrangements with Groundspeak.

 

I've been looking at writing myself a software engine to automatically download the PQs from my mailbox, merge them into a single big file, update coordinates for multis and puzzles that I've solved and turn everything into a format I can just dump straight into my GPS and smartphone. But it sounds like you might have something that will save me the effort.

 

Is it something you're planning on offering to premium members at no extra cost, or will there be an additional charge to get data directly from you?

[+lodgebarn]

I've been looking at writing myself a software engine to automatically download the PQs from my mailbox, merge them into a single big file, update coordinates for multis and puzzles that I've solved and turn everything into a format I can just dump straight into my GPS and smartphone. But it sounds like you might have something that will save me the effort.

 

Seems like GSAK and Macros to me

Edited January 7, 2010 by lodgebarn

[team tisri]

I've been looking at writing myself a software engine to automatically download the PQs from my mailbox, merge them into a single big file, update coordinates for multis and puzzles that I've solved and turn everything into a format I can just dump straight into my GPS and smartphone. But it sounds like you might have something that will save me the effort.

 

Seems like GSAK and Macros to me

 

Could be, maybe it's time to take another look at GSAK. Last time I looked at it there were things it wouldn't do, and if I'm going to write GSAK macros I might as well write the code directly.

[+lodgebarn]

I've been looking at writing myself a software engine to automatically download the PQs from my mailbox, merge them into a single big file, update coordinates for multis and puzzles that I've solved and turn everything into a format I can just dump straight into my GPS and smartphone. But it sounds like you might have something that will save me the effort.

 

Seems like GSAK and Macros to me

 

Could be, maybe it's time to take another look at GSAK. Last time I looked at it there were things it wouldn't do, and if I'm going to write GSAK macros I might as well write the code directly.

 

What I do is have a fairly simple macro that I have written which calls other macros from the GSAK Macro library to allow me to automatically load PQs from an email address and output to various formats e.g. Garmin POI, GPX, Tom Tom ov2, Mem Map etc. I have sometimes made small mods to other peoples macros but the core is as released by them which gives me the maximum benefit.

There are other one step possibilities that I haven't tried, for instance PUP-Port that can do a lot of this for you.

Edited January 7, 2010 by lodgebarn

[+Amberel]

Could be, maybe it's time to take another look at GSAK. Last time I looked at it there were things it wouldn't do, and if I'm going to write GSAK macros I might as well write the code directly.

I'm a programmer too, and have written lots of caching and mapping related s/w, but I still use GSAK. It does so much that I wouldn't want to bother "re-inventing". I just write stuff to do the bits it doesn't.

 

Rgds, Andy

[+smstext]

thanks all for the responses, ive managed to cover an area 20 mile radius of me and the whole of the south west plus part of somerset, but its too consuming to do the whole country and the first mistake i made was having puzzle and multi caches in the list when all i wanted was traditionals.

 

i will check out the sites mentioned above and a big thanks again!!

[+martlakes]

Im trying to build up a pq of all available traditional caches in the south of england, ive managed to do the sw but am finding it to be time consuming. is there a way of getting pq's for counties? this way when im out on the road (im a professional driver) i can see (on my tomtom) if its worth stopping somewhere and pulling the details off with the iphone app?

 

Just had a thought or two about this. I imagine it would desirable to have ALL trads in an area but maybe this isn't an easily achievable objective. Perhaps change what you're aiming for.

 

Option 1: Just stop anywhere, fire up the iPhone and see what's around. Given how many caches are out and about the chances are high that there will be some caches near wherever you stop.

No PQs needed, no angst, just stop and go!

 

Option 2: With a PQ you get 500 caches - how many do you actually need to provide you with options of where to stop? You don't in fact need ALL trads? Careful editing of your search criteria and several PQs centred on strategic locations should allow you to cover a huge area. You might not have ALL the caches available but you'd have several thousand - surely enough to keep you entertained for many trips. As you find them, others would show up thus keeping your stopping options similar for years.

 

Focus on what you are trying to achieve rather than worrying about technical perfection to capture ALL caches. You won't have time to do them all anyway!!

 

HTH

[team tisri]

Im trying to build up a pq of all available traditional caches in the south of england, ive managed to do the sw but am finding it to be time consuming. is there a way of getting pq's for counties? this way when im out on the road (im a professional driver) i can see (on my tomtom) if its worth stopping somewhere and pulling the details off with the iphone app?

 

Option 2: With a PQ you get 500 caches - how many do you actually need to provide you with options of where to stop? You don't in fact need ALL trads? Careful editing of your search criteria and several PQs centred on strategic locations should allow you to cover a huge area.

 

HTH

 

You can cover a much wider area when you're excluding some cache types and attributes. But none of that is much help if you end up in a different area entirely.

 

I've found myself at the edges of my 500-cache PQ when I've been out caching, and it's frustrating to get home only to realise I'd been within a few hundred yards of another cache that was just beyond the limits of my PQ.

 

For myself since my "home" PQ offers a donut-shape of caches I run three of them so I can cover myself whichever direction I go from home, which is something I often won't decide until the day.