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Software for Blackberry 9300


renniefam

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Went walking with someone in the Helderberg this morning, heard about Geo caching. I am due for a cell upgrade and after this morning looking at the Blackberry Curve 9300 (GPS enabled). What software do I need to download to start? Costs? If I use my cell and the GPS is on does that constitute browsing or am I downloading info? Trying to find out what the costs will be...Can't wait to get going.

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Went walking with someone in the Helderberg this morning, heard about Geo caching. I am due for a cell upgrade and after this morning looking at the Blackberry Curve 9300 (GPS enabled). What software do I need to download to start? Costs? If I use my cell and the GPS is on does that constitute browsing or am I downloading info? Trying to find out what the costs will be...Can't wait to get going.

 

Hi,

 

GPS uses the signals sent from orbiting satellites to work out where on the earth's surface you are. So the sort answer to your first question is NO, is does not. It is however quite battery hungry so this is something you will want to take into consideration when looking at a phone, or for that matter a GPS unit.

 

As for the other, I don't know too much about software for the blackberry so perhaps someone else who has used one might be more help. There is also some information on the website or you can do a search for software online. To get started the only thing you really need is an application which will allow you to input a location and have an arrow point to it with distance and bearing information. The rest you could print out from the site. Once you get your first few caches under your belt, and maybe meet a few cachers along the way, you'll start to get a better idea of what you need or want to do what is now known as "paperless caching".

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Went walking with someone in the Helderberg this morning, heard about Geo caching. I am due for a cell upgrade and after this morning looking at the Blackberry Curve 9300 (GPS enabled). What software do I need to download to start? Costs? If I use my cell and the GPS is on does that constitute browsing or am I downloading info? Trying to find out what the costs will be...Can't wait to get going.

 

Can only offer moral support at this stage, but... (i) I should get my new 9380 in the next few days and will communicate my new found wisdom :blink: to you, (ii) we're also based in the Helderberg-kom, so give me a shout if you'd like to meet at a cache or need any help and (iii) saw on another threat Vryburger is using a Swartbessie, so I asked him to point us in the right direction.

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Greetings. Hope you are all keeping well?

 

I have been using my Blackberry 9300 Curve (3G) since December 2010 for Geocaching. I have also only been using it and no other device, as I do not have a dedicated GPS. I would definitely recommend you go for the BB upgrade if you do not intend on buying a gps in any case and these are the reasons why. These are some of my observations.

 

I really enjoy having a smart phone not only for social purposes but also for work. Receiving emails anytime, anywhere keeps me up to date with everything I need to know.

 

My BB came standard with BB Maps which means that you can navigate to any place you need to be or to get to the general location of the cache. I use it whenever I am in a strange city or town to help me get where I need to be. It works just like a normal gps. When I do get closer the cache I activate Blackstar. Blackstar has never let me down and have always taken me as close as I could wish for it to do. What I really like about the BB and Blackstar is that you use your BB or computer to look up the caches you want and then download the coordinates file (LOC) and upload it into Blackstar. If I know I am going to do more than a few, I use the computer to dowload all the files and email them to my BB.

 

A great feature of Blackstar is: find the nearest cache. So even if you are not looking to do caching, but you have some time to kill you can look at it and there you go! There is time when you stand still and the gps keeps running up the numbers, but then I just start moving again. Blackstar is a free application. There are apps that you can pay for and I am sure they would be better, but until I run into trouble, I shall be using Blackstar.

 

With regards to cost: I have a contract and pay a monthly subscription of R59. All internet browsing is then included. I am not sure whether the BB gps uses its browser, but that does not matter to me as I have this subscription.

 

Paperless caching is definitely an option with the BB as you just go onto the geocaching.com sit with you BB and read the cache info. No printing etc then required. I do have to print things now and again though when I have to save battery life, or I am not sure about coverage in an area. On the battery: it is a smart phone and the gps does chew the power, so unfortunately you should not attempt to go out with a red battery indicator and think you will be able to do a couple of caches. Maybe one or two. Moral of the story is to have a decent amount of battery life when going out.

 

I hope this helps and that I have addressed most of you questions, but feel free to ask.

 

Have a great day!

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Greetings. Hope you are all keeping well?

 

I have been using my Blackberry 9300 Curve (3G) since December 2010 for Geocaching. I have also only been using it and no other device, as I do not have a dedicated GPS. I would definitely recommend you go for the BB upgrade if you do not intend on buying a gps in any case and these are the reasons why. These are some of my observations.

 

I really enjoy having a smart phone not only for social purposes but also for work. Receiving emails anytime, anywhere keeps me up to date with everything I need to know.

 

My BB came standard with BB Maps which means that you can navigate to any place you need to be or to get to the general location of the cache. I use it whenever I am in a strange city or town to help me get where I need to be. It works just like a normal gps. When I do get closer the cache I activate Blackstar. Blackstar has never let me down and have always taken me as close as I could wish for it to do. What I really like about the BB and Blackstar is that you use your BB or computer to look up the caches you want and then download the coordinates file (LOC) and upload it into Blackstar. If I know I am going to do more than a few, I use the computer to dowload all the files and email them to my BB.

 

A great feature of Blackstar is: find the nearest cache. So even if you are not looking to do caching, but you have some time to kill you can look at it and there you go! There is time when you stand still and the gps keeps running up the numbers, but then I just start moving again. Blackstar is a free application. There are apps that you can pay for and I am sure they would be better, but until I run into trouble, I shall be using Blackstar.

 

With regards to cost: I have a contract and pay a monthly subscription of R59. All internet browsing is then included. I am not sure whether the BB gps uses its browser, but that does not matter to me as I have this subscription.

 

Paperless caching is definitely an option with the BB as you just go onto the geocaching.com sit with you BB and read the cache info. No printing etc then required. I do have to print things now and again though when I have to save battery life, or I am not sure about coverage in an area. On the battery: it is a smart phone and the gps does chew the power, so unfortunately you should not attempt to go out with a red battery indicator and think you will be able to do a couple of caches. Maybe one or two. Moral of the story is to have a decent amount of battery life when going out.

 

I hope this helps and that I have addressed most of you questions, but feel free to ask.

 

Have a great day!

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Thanks for all the replies!

 

To answer all the replies in one, I do want a BB so the other android phones may have better GPS etc but BB is the one I want.

 

Great to hear Blackstar works well enough. Read about this free application but was not sure how well it worked. Will try it out. Not keen on paying yearly fees without trying out geo caching! Can't wait to join the fun!

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On the back of a wealth of experience :rolleyes: I got yesterday doing my first cache with a 9780 and CacheSense - it works wonderfully! The GPS is quick and accurate and cachesense is user friendly and simple to use - even for a techno simpleton like me! Even the camera is a pleasure with no dodgy blue casts anymore (see here). Eventually straight forward paperless caching seems to be within my grasp! Will have an opportunity to give it a thorough test drive next week.

Edited by Hesamati
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So would you prefer CacheSense above Blackstar?

 

I've never used Blackstar, so I can't compare.

Just returned from Mauritius where I did 5 caches using my phone.

(i) CacheSense worked with both my own SIM (not opened for roaming) and a pay-as-you-go one I bought there. (But I've only used the compass function, not the maps as I still have to figure them out...).

(ii) The only real hick-up was that it took probably 10-15min (which felt like an hour!) for it to pick up the satellites the first time.

(iii) Also missed the spoiler photo as I had a DNF on a cache amongst acres of boulders where the spoiler might have helped after 30min of searching.

All in all I was pretty happy.

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