Netbook GPS

[opossumslayer]

I am looking into buying a Netbook and the Dell mini10 with GPS caught my eye. Many reviews say the turn by turn is good but can't find any info on its Geocaching ability. Does anyone have one and tried it? Do you have a GPS enabled Laptop or Netbook you have tried to geocach with? Any first hand accounts would be helpful.

[+splashy]

Picture yourself, with a netbook in the open in bright sunlight or rain.

The quality of the gpsmouse will determine if you find your cache yes or no.

[+fegan]

Unless you're only going to do Park & Grab caches (e.g. parking available within 10 feet of GZ) it just sounds like a good way to destroy a new netbook.

[tiiiim]

I am looking into buying a Netbook and the Dell mini10 with GPS caught my eye. Many reviews say the turn by turn is good but can't find any info on its Geocaching ability. Does anyone have one and tried it? Do you have a GPS enabled Laptop or Netbook you have tried to geocach with? Any first hand accounts would be helpful.

 

I do, I do, I do!!

 

The first thing I will say though is: don't buy a netbook for the sole purpose of geocaching - your money will be better spent on a GPSr. I'm assuming from your post that this isn't the case - the GPS is just an added bonus!

 

Now, I have an Acer One which has no in-built GPS receiver, so I use a USB GPS dongle (or mouse, as everyone calls it). And in the beginning, yes, I looked like a pleb with an open netbook walking forwards and backwards and watching the compass or map update. Also, you cannot use a netbook in the rain. Period.

 

(Un)Fortunately, I'm a bit of a geek, so installed Linux onto the netbook. Last summer we went on a roadtrip around NW Canada and Alaska, and found many caches with the use of bog-standard sat-nav software (I was using Navit, which I think you can install on Windows too). All you need to do is enter the cache coordinates as a point of interest (POI) and it'll appear on the map. However, this still involved walking around with the netbook whenever we got close to GZ (initially, we'd determine the bearing we needed and fixed on a location in the distance with a compass, so wouldn't need the netbook to begin with). Most of the caches we found here though were near to the road, or next to paths in the woods. Oh, and it was summer, so the weather was fine.

 

Now though, I've created a small script which takes the cache coordinates and determines the distance and bearing to the cache. It then speaks these numbers out through the speakers - well, headphones which I have plugged into my netbook. This way, the netbook can remain in my rucksack, protected from the elements, and the only thing I carry in my hand is a compass to determine the correct bearing. (The script is a bit smarter, in that it will detect when the cache has been found and move onto the next cache in your list [you can load a list of caches into the script] - this way, you won't have to pull the netbook out at all during the trip, if the route has been properly planned beforehand).

 

However, that's just my solution, and it's pretty reliant on knowing some stuff about computers and linux in general. My initial idea was to use the turn by turn spoken directions from the sat-nav software to guide me to the cache, but this obviously doesn't work off road. If the laptop is Windows (I guess it is), it's probably possible to re-create what I've done, but I haven't tried yet.

 

In conclusion: if you're willing to spend time and effort, or know your way around software and generally like tinkering with computers, caching with a netbook is perfectly possible. If not, then you'll be limited - as mentioned - to the park & grab caches and those with easy access and lack of other people around: you look wierd walking around with an open netbook!!

 

Just my two pennies.

[Andronicus]

Sounds like fun. Bright sunlight or rain could be delt with using an umbrella. It will look funny, but it just might work.

 

tiiiim: could you post pics of yourself using the open netbook to geocache. We all would love a lagh.

[tiiiim]

Sounds like fun. Bright sunlight or rain could be delt with using an umbrella. It will look funny, but it just might work.

 

tiiiim: could you post pics of yourself using the open netbook to geocache. We all would love a lagh.

 

Ha! It's even funnier than that - my GPS dongle is a SiRFIII, which had some sort of automotive mode set to ON by default. As a result, it wouldn't update unless it detected movement at over about 5km/h. This meant that just walking with the netbook provided only sporadic updates, and I'd have to make sporadic lurches forward to increase the instantaneous speed of the GPS dongle!! So, trekking around with an open netbook and making random and sporadic lurches in all directions - I looked like a total idiot: luckily there's not many people in northern BC and NWT!!

[Andronicus]

Sounds like fun. Bright sunlight or rain could be delt with using an umbrella. It will look funny, but it just might work.

 

tiiiim: could you post pics of yourself using the open netbook to geocache. We all would love a lagh.

 

Ha! It's even funnier than that - my GPS dongle is a SiRFIII, which had some sort of automotive mode set to ON by default. As a result, it wouldn't update unless it detected movement at over about 5km/h. This meant that just walking with the netbook provided only sporadic updates, and I'd have to make sporadic lurches forward to increase the instantaneous speed of the GPS dongle!! So, trekking around with an open netbook and making random and sporadic lurches in all directions - I looked like a total idiot: luckily there's not many people in northern BC and NWT!!

 

You know that you can turn that off on the SiRFIII chips right? I have a simmilar problem with my HTC Touch (which I use for Geocaching). Unfortunatly, the QualCOMM GPSOne chip that is in my touch can not have the static navigation turned off. It generaly works OK, but when I get frusterated, I pull out my bluetooth dongle.

[tiiiim]

You know that you can turn that off on the SiRFIII chips right? I have a simmilar problem with my HTC Touch (which I use for Geocaching). Unfortunatly, the QualCOMM GPSOne chip that is in my touch can not have the static navigation turned off. It generaly works OK, but when I get frusterated, I pull out my bluetooth dongle.

 

Yeah, I found that out after I got back and asked somewhere on these forums - but whilst we were away we didn't have much internet and I didn't really know that it was a feature which could be turned on or off: we were pretty new to GPS in general back then. Now the static navigation is just permanently switched off!

[+Entropy512]

Having a GPS with an internal compass helps a LOT when geocaching... That'll hurt the netbook approach quite a bit.

[+maggi101]

 

Ha! It's even funnier than that - my GPS dongle is a SiRFIII, which had some sort of automotive mode set to ON by default. As a result, it wouldn't update unless it detected movement at over about 5km/h. This meant that just walking with the netbook provided only sporadic updates, and I'd have to make sporadic lurches forward to increase the instantaneous speed of the GPS dongle!! So, trekking around with an open netbook and making random and sporadic lurches in all directions - I looked like a total idiot: luckily there's not many people in northern BC and NWT!!

 

This is quite possibly one of the most inducing images i have had in my head so far this week.

[tiiiim]

Glad to be of service!

[+teamhillside]

Having a GPS with an internal compass helps a LOT when geocaching... That'll hurt the netbook approach quite a bit.

 

Can you explain this? I've seen others say the same, and I can't for the life of me work out why! Surely the GPSr points you in the right direction with a nice friendly arrow - why would you need a compass to help?

 

Matt

[tiiiim]

Having a GPS with an internal compass helps a LOT when geocaching... That'll hurt the netbook approach quite a bit.

 

Can you explain this? I've seen others say the same, and I can't for the life of me work out why! Surely the GPSr points you in the right direction with a nice friendly arrow - why would you need a compass to help?

 

Matt

 

I just took it to mean that with a GPSr you get a compass pointing you in the correct direction, whilst a netbook may not necessarily (depending on the software installed). However, now I think about it, is the internal compass something separate from the GPS altogether? Then I, too, would like to know why it's better...

[+Viper715]

A friend of mine uses a Oregon 200 that does get you right to the cache just fine and does not have a magnetic compass. When your walking the GPSr works out what direction your heading and is able to determine North East South And West from that hence knowing location and direction can point you in the right direction for the cache. The benefit of a magnetic compass I found when I bought a Dakota 20. Say you are trying to decide your next cache when looking through your waypoints it tells you what direction they are even when you are standing still. Also when your are close and hunting your cache you don't have to b moving fo the arrow to point you the right way. In all fairness thoughas my friend points out it is not really all that inconvenient to take two steps

for the non mag compass to tell you he directions. It depnds on your caching style if it would be beneficial or not.

 

Having a GPS with an internal compass helps a LOT when geocaching... That'll hurt the netbook approach quite a bit.

 

Can you explain this? I've seen others say the same, and I can't for the life of me work out why! Surely the GPSr points you in the right direction with a nice friendly arrow - why would you need a compass to help?

 

Matt

 

I just took it to mean that with a GPSr you get a compass pointing you in the correct direction, whilst a netbook may not necessarily (depending on the software installed). However, now I think about it, is the internal compass something separate from the GPS altogether? Then I, too, would like to know why it's better...