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Favorite App to Use When Benchmarking


UMainah

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As the topic says, What's your favorite software app that you use to help you find benchmarks?

This can be anything thing by the way.

Some examples could be:

DSWorld

GSAK

Geocaching.com

BenchMap

etc.

 

Personally my favorite lately has been BenchMap for Android. I'm not a hardcore benchmark hunter, but I do enjoy finding them. I have an Oregon 450 that I use for planned geocaching trips where I might be out of cell range (which is very often up here in Maine), but I primarily use my phone to do the bulk of my geocaching. What I love about this app is that while I'm out searching for geocaches I can pull out the BenchMap app and see all the NGS marks around me with out any preplanning on my part. It's awesome for some spontaneous benchmark hunting.

 

What's everyone else's favorite apps?

I also figure this might be a good topic get a list of all the apps that might be out there that are helpful to benchmarking.

 

These apps can be for:

Windows 8/7/Vista/XP

Windows Mobile

Windows Phone 7

Mac OS X

iOS

Android

webOS

Symbian

web apps / websites

anything

Edited by UMainah
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When planning a trip, I use this order:

NGS»GPX if I need to import new or updated stations,

GSAK & Topo9 to give me a list of stations along my route,

My Google Earth KMZ to check for locations and obstructions that may be in the way,

Topo9 on the road,

My GPS, the PN-60wse to help me find it.

 

For un-planned stops, I use my App, BenchMap and my PN-60wse. :)

 

After a find, I'll record it back in GSAK and then submit recoveries by hand.

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Right now I'm taking a break from 'road hunting' but spending a bunch of time map planning with the hopes of changing the color of a few more Montana counties (Thanks, holograph for the 'counts by county' list:)

 

http://www.holoscenes.com/special/geocac/data/geocac_recovery_ctfips.txt

 

If NGS county ShapeFiles are an app, I get them into Excel, delete GEOCAC and FIRST OBSERVED; then pin them on GE with DSWORLD and also on my laptop DeLorme in case I lose Verizon air-card linkage. In the field my year old GSAK is used for 'To Find' shorthand notes and maybe a hand entered L/L into a Garmin ETrex Vista.

 

Also working on a possible Oregon road trip for one of my favorite target groups (CGS+SS U.S. COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY AND STATE SURVEY) by using various GSAK filters to come up with an Excel file that will be dropped onto GE. MEL

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I tried searching for Benchmap in the market but could not find it. Who is it made by?

 

 

 

As the topic says, What's your favorite software app that you use to help you find benchmarks?

This can be anything thing by the way.

Some examples could be:

DSWorld

GSAK

Geocaching.com

BenchMap

etc.

 

Personally my favorite lately has been BenchMap for Android. I'm not a hardcore benchmark hunter, but I do enjoy finding them. I have an Oregon 450 that I use for planned geocaching trips where I might be out of cell range (which is very often up here in Maine), but I primarily use my phone to do the bulk of my geocaching. What I love about this app is that while I'm out searching for geocaches I can pull out the BenchMap app and see all the NGS marks around me with out any preplanning on my part. It's awesome for some spontaneous benchmark hunting.

 

What's everyone else's favorite apps?

I also figure this might be a good topic get a list of all the apps that might be out there that are helpful to benchmarking.

 

These apps can be for:

Windows 8/7/Vista/XP

Windows Mobile

Windows Phone 7

Mac OS X

iOS

Android

webOS

Symbian

web apps / websites

anything

Edited by jcmanvzw
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I tried searching for Benchmap in the market but could not find it. Who is it made by?

 

Ya, it's still in beta

See this website:

http://ngs.tsqmadness.com/droid/

and this thread:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=275377&st=0

 

Send him an email and he'll add you to the beta testing list.

It's still being worked on. It had issues on larger devices (tablets), and now that I got my hands on one, some more development will happen. I expect to actually get it posted in the Market sometime in May.

 

--Mike.

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I often use the ScaredyCat site to informally browse for benchmarks:

 

http://benchmarks.scaredycatfilms.com

 

To actually prepare for an outing, I overlay GPX files onto calibrated topo maps using MacGPS Pro. However, I now have about a dozen California counties' worth of benchmark data sheets loaded into my new Garmin eTrex 20, so I don't need to use any computer software much any more.

 

Patty

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I tried searching for Benchmap in the market but could not find it. Who is it made by?

 

Ya, it's still in beta

See this website:

http://ngs.tsqmadness.com/droid/

and this thread:

http://forums.Ground...pic=275377&st=0

 

Send him an email and he'll add you to the beta testing list.

It's still being worked on. It had issues on larger devices (tablets), and now that I got my hands on one, some more development will happen. I expect to actually get it posted in the Market sometime in May.

 

--Mike.

 

 

It looks so awesome! Can't wait to get it for our phones. Hubby and I have been talking how we miss benchmarking and need to get back out there! This will certanly make it easier!

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When looking for marks to look for, with internet access, I start with the well known Benchmark Viewer.

http://benchmarks.scaredycatfilms.com/

To actually get datasheets I use the NGS site (downloading state wide monthly archives as well as county specific datasheets) and run them through NGS-GPX. The GPX files are added to different databases in GSAK, which I use to make smaller area specific files to load on my phone.

 

On my phone (Windows Mobile 6.1 HTC Tilt) I use Cachebox for both Benchmarking and Geocaching due to the fact that it can have multiple databases. The larger a database is, the longer it takes to open and work with, so I've split things up quite a bit. But I have thousands of Geocaches loaded in multiple states as well as multiple databases of benchmarks. (I believe there is an Android version of this program that is still being improved while the WM version seems to have been abandoned. The Android version may use the API.) The one downside for me is the time needed to pre-download maps via WIFI since I don't have a good data plan.

 

I have also used a Nuvi 1300LM for Benchmarking/Geocaching via a GSAK macro that can put most of the info from a GPX file into a POI specific data field. The Nuvi has about 12,000 benchmarks from my home state loaded into it that way, with the full datasheets, and probably more from other areas. (That's every benchmark that was in the monthly archive I used.)

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When benchmarking on the fly, you can't beat BenchMap. I recently tried it out on vacation and it worked very effectively. For heavy-duty benchmarking from home, I use paper datasheets and a three-ring binder. Works well for adding notes and adjusted coordinates for later posting. Of course, paper is the only way to go when there's no Internet access(deep in the mountains, etc.).

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