Useful Tips & Software

[+EdrickV]

Thought I'd share some info I've learned while trying to get some benchmarks loaded onto my smartphone.

 

1. The Me First post could use some updating. It doesn't seem like you can download county maps anymore, it's all by state now. Which can complicate things when trying to get benchmarks onto a GPS/smartphone.

 

2. While BMGPX still works, I've found that NGS-GPX seems to do a better job of formatting GPX files. At least for the programs I tried putting them into. GPX files made by BMGPX would cause one program's import routine to crash, and trying to load the extra data (aka view the datasheet/recovery logs/etc.) failed on the other program. Files made with NGS-GPX didn't have the same issues. NGS-GPX has optional features that BMGPX just doesn't have.

 

3. For Windows Mobile 6.1, the software I would recommend for benchmark hunting would be BasicGPS.

Unlike the other program I've tried, Cachebox, it does not balk at one of the things NGS-GPX does, which is to use the "cache size" info to indicate if the coordinates are Scaled or Adjusted. You can access the full data sheet from within the program, without a data connection, so (as long as things like box score formatting aren't an issue) you can do paperless benchmark hunting from one app. (On my phone, Opera Mobile is set as the default for .html files, so when I tell it to show the full info it creates an html file which opens in Opera Mobile. If PocketIE was default, it might view it right in the program. I'm not sure.)

 

You can't load a whole state's worth of benchmarks at once with full data sheets, and I don't know for sure what other limits it might have. I do know I got memory issues trying to load 600+ NGS-GPX formatted datasheets at once, while 450 or so BMGPX datasheets loaded alright. (Though the BMGPX datasheets could not be accessed, so it wasn't much better then loading benchmarks from .loc files.) I do know I was actually able to load an entire state's worth of benchmarks (12,000+) using a .loc file, but that wasn't really what I wanted to do.

 

Another thing to be aware of is that while NGS-GPX can set cache types icons to indicate Scaled/Intersection (structure)/Adjusted, BasicGPS as far as I know doesn't support two of the types. (Benchmark and Locationless cache)

 

4. This is where I mention GSAK, which I've only tried out today but which is actually what made getting a bunch of benchmarks, with datasheets, onto my smartphone possible at all. Given a "home" location, you can set a filter to show just the benchmarks (or caches) within a certain distance of that locations (along with lots and lots of other options) and save just those into a gpx file. GSAK also had no problem importing a huge list of 12,000 benchmarks, complete with datasheets, regardless whether the gpx was made using BMGPX or NGS-GPX. May actually have to buy this program, once I've got some extra money to spend and get a premium membership.

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

Thought I'd share some info I've learned while trying to get some benchmarks loaded onto my smartphone.

 

1. The Me First post could use some updating. It doesn't seem like you can download county maps anymore, it's all by state now. Which can complicate things when trying to get benchmarks onto a GPS/smartphone.

 

Here is the link to retrieve the county datasheets. Select the state you want and then select the county. It only allows for getting about 1000 datasheets at a time, so you may have to get several partial listings per county.

 

John

[+EdrickV]

The link in the Me First topic goes here:

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_archive.prl

And there is no option there to download county datasheets. I actually found the county page now, and it actually seems to work, but when I had tried using it before (I got there from a link somewhere) trying to use it for my county just gave an error message, that as I recall seemed to be saying there wasn't any data. (I did try just selecting one item in order to eliminate any timeout issues.)

 

In any event, I've now got the big statewide file loaded into GSAK anyways, so I don't need county specific downloads, and can download benchmarks to my smartphone based on distance from a set of coordinates. I've also got a POI file with the full statewide benchmark list I'll try using on a Nuvi I've used. And the way it was made it should have the full datasheet available. Assuming the Nuvi can handle it, which I don't know for sure.