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Newbie that wants to stay organized


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My wife and I are new to geocaching. We only have 15 finds or so and have downloaded around 30 .gpx files and transferred them to a microSD card for our Garmin 450T.

 

We love it so far, very nice cheap (after the cost of the GPS) activity that is very family friendly. Before I get too far into it, I wanted to get some advice on how to organize caches in the future before we download too many, I see some of you with thousands of finds and just wondering how you keep them configured.

 

Right now, I have them seperated on the computer by the date we downloaded them (folder name) and just leave the .gpx file name the same so that we have the name of the cache so we can find it easily on the site later. I transferred all of the gpx files onto the microSD card into one folder \garmin\gpx, which works great, no issues finding the files on the GPS.

 

Any tips are greatly appreciated, sorry for the long post. Any other tips on geocaching are also appreciated.

 

We have a Jeep too, so we hope to use it to find some remote caches (in MI, where we will be moving in a month or so).

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My wife and I are new to geocaching. We only have 15 finds or so and have downloaded around 30 .gpx files and transferred them to a microSD card for our Garmin 450T.

 

We love it so far, very nice cheap (after the cost of the GPS) activity that is very family friendly. Before I get too far into it, I wanted to get some advice on how to organize caches in the future before we download too many, I see some of you with thousands of finds and just wondering how you keep them configured.

 

Right now, I have them seperated on the computer by the date we downloaded them (folder name) and just leave the .gpx file name the same so that we have the name of the cache so we can find it easily on the site later. I transferred all of the gpx files onto the microSD card into one folder \garmin\gpx, which works great, no issues finding the files on the GPS.

 

Any tips are greatly appreciated, sorry for the long post. Any other tips on geocaching are also appreciated.

 

We have a Jeep too, so we hope to use it to find some remote caches (in MI, where we will be moving in a month or so).

Personally, I don't keep them. Some people use GSAK to combine them into one file. You may wish to consider a premium account and use pocket queries to download upto 500 caches in one go.

 

Welcome to the game

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My wife and I are new to geocaching. We only have 15 finds or so and have downloaded around 30 .gpx files and transferred them to a microSD card for our Garmin 450T.

 

We love it so far, very nice cheap (after the cost of the GPS) activity that is very family friendly. Before I get too far into it, I wanted to get some advice on how to organize caches in the future before we download too many, I see some of you with thousands of finds and just wondering how you keep them configured.

 

Right now, I have them seperated on the computer by the date we downloaded them (folder name) and just leave the .gpx file name the same so that we have the name of the cache so we can find it easily on the site later. I transferred all of the gpx files onto the microSD card into one folder \garmin\gpx, which works great, no issues finding the files on the GPS.

 

Any tips are greatly appreciated, sorry for the long post. Any other tips on geocaching are also appreciated.

 

We have a Jeep too, so we hope to use it to find some remote caches (in MI, where we will be moving in a month or so).

Personally, I don't keep them. Some people use GSAK to combine them into one file. You may wish to consider a premium account and use pocket queries to download upto 500 caches in one go.

 

Welcome to the game

 

 

he is Premium

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My wife and I are new to geocaching. We only have 15 finds or so and have downloaded around 30 .gpx files and transferred them to a microSD card for our Garmin 450T.

 

We love it so far, very nice cheap (after the cost of the GPS) activity that is very family friendly. Before I get too far into it, I wanted to get some advice on how to organize caches in the future before we download too many, I see some of you with thousands of finds and just wondering how you keep them configured.

 

Right now, I have them seperated on the computer by the date we downloaded them (folder name) and just leave the .gpx file name the same so that we have the name of the cache so we can find it easily on the site later. I transferred all of the gpx files onto the microSD card into one folder \garmin\gpx, which works great, no issues finding the files on the GPS.

 

Any tips are greatly appreciated, sorry for the long post. Any other tips on geocaching are also appreciated.

 

We have a Jeep too, so we hope to use it to find some remote caches (in MI, where we will be moving in a month or so).

 

The best part about the Premium membership is that you can build Pocket Queries, which is a grouping of caches (up to 500 at a time). Go to your profile. On the right side, under Premium Features, click on "Build Pocket Queries". Then you will click on "Create a new query". From there you can specify how often you want it to run, what types of caches, etc. What I did was set up 500 caches of Any type, Any container, and towards the bottom put in "From Origin: My Home Coordinates" within 100 miles. I have it output to my account's email address.

 

So on the days specified, I get an email from Groundspeak that has a ZIP file with my 500 caches in it in gpx format. My latest ZIP file was 548k in size (so you have a rough idea). I live in Winston-Salem, NC, so my 500th cache is still only 24 or 25 miles out (in a more rural area you may not get 500 caches in a 100 mile area).

 

Load 'em into your GPSr and you're set for a while :laughing: I only update the gpx file in my GPSr when a new cache is released or when I've been out hunting and want to update the caches in my GPSr from "Not Found" to "Found".

 

Glad you're enjoying yourselves and welcome to the game!

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On a Windows machine, nothing I've found beats GSAK for organizing and working with GPX data.

 

Second that. GSAK is a very useful took for keeping your caches organized. It's extensible through macros and can load caches directly to many GPS units. It's a great way to keep all your cache information together. It's free to use but the nag screen gets annoying after a while, but registration is dirt cheap considering it's a lifetime registration and all the functionality.

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Thanks for all of the great info, sounds like you can either use GSAK or pocket queries. Sounds like pocket queries is very easy to keep your GPS updated. Once you find geocaches do they no longer get included in the query? Also, do you still keep your finds updated on the geocaching.com website so that you have a running total of how many you've found?

 

Also, can you run a pocket query if you were going to head out of town, say to a certain area of northern Michigan and wanted to hit that area just for the weekend?

 

This is a really cool hobby, especially once we have kids, nice cheap way to get outside, plus I get my gadget fix at the same time.

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I am new too...and have only done PQs. I organize & name them by certain areas or places I plan to visit. That allows be to delete those caches after my trip. When you create a PQ you select the atrributes you want for caches (certain sizes, difficulty, active, not logged by me yet, etc.) My PQs are set to run weekly and emailed. I try to update my GPS weekly with them. There is another featuer "Route" that I have not figured out yet but I believe it has the potential to list caches along your drive to a new location, e.g. Tampa to St. Augustine.

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When you run a PQ, you can choose to include OR exclude caches that you have found. You can run PQ's for anywhere in the world that you intend to visit. You can also run a PQ that emails you your found caches for generating your stats with a macro inside of GSAK. This generates html code for you to include on your profile page. Regarding running PQ's along a route, you define the origin and destination in Google Earth, and then save the route as a .kmz or .kml file that you can upload to your GC account. Then you can run a PQ on the route (it must have less then 500 turns) that returns up to 500 caches. You can specify the width of the corridor you want, along with all kinds of parameters to filter the returns. For example, you might only want caches within 0.15 mile from your route, that are not multi or puzzle caches etc etc. Very flexible.

 

Main thing is, don't try to figure it all out overnight! Take your time - it truly is a sport/hobby for a lifetime, that you can enjoy anywhere on earth, almost!

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Yeah, I definitely don't want to over think it, just enjoy the hobby. I'm a bit OCD with my files though and like to keep them backed up on the PC and organized, once we move to MI I'll have to set up a PQ for the new area we are in. I'm sure it'll help us learn our way around the area while we look for caches.

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Thanks for all of the great info, sounds like you can either use GSAK or pocket queries...

It's not an "either"... it's a "both"!

 

You can set up a group of pocket queries that repeat weekly, then load the resulting file into GSAK into corresponding databases for the area, type of cache, or whatever. Downloading to the newer GPSr units is either a single click or run a simple macro via a button. It is a great way to go for travelling. You can have a database for home, and then create another for wherever your travel takes you (like "Michigan")

 

I've used GSAK for 4 years now, and someday I hope to be able to use 1/10th of the capabilities it has. One that I have used is the filter to give you caches within a short distance of exits. That is great for caching your way along a journey.

 

Happy Geocaching!

 

meach4x4

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