Please help me super, frustrated

[mrbeachroach]

Hello, I am a veterin geocacher, have done this for several years with an old Magellan gps, that is about the size of the first 1990s cell phone. I have not cached for about 1 year now and tryd yesterday to take my kids, for the first time. My boys are 6 and 4!!!! I talked it up bigtime. told them we are going on a tresure hunt and that I promised we would find tresure. I was also exxcited becase I felt like this being in the 21st century I finally have the best tecknology available. I was using a droid app I downloaded from my phone called (CGEO). long story short every cache I went to was off by atleast 100 feet or more, I new this becase after 3 missed finds I went to a cache that I have done before and new exactly where It was. It was the only one that my kids foud, and It was a Micro. No tresure. I promised them Icecream as a treasure if we could find 4 micros, but that was before I realized the gps was off, so bad. So 1 micro in 3 hours in a well populated city, then I folded and took them to icecream anyway.

 

I tryed to salvage this at the icecream shop as they had WIFI, I dowloaded the IPAD app from geocaching.com, alos dowloaded GEOBUCKET. Problem is as soon as you get away from the WIFI location the GEOCACNG APP, AND geobucket app do not let you pic up the geocaching signal.

 

I tyed the generic compass app on my Droid. NOTHING WORKED!!!!!!! I felt like I took my kids to Disney World and Micky Mouse was not There!!!!!!

 

Please Help Me. I have a Droid. My wife has an IPHONE. What Program app will acutally, ACURATLY, work everytime for paperless, caching, that I can relly on?

 

Desperate for a good answer, Thank you.

 

-mrbeachroach

[+StarBrand]

There is an official android app: http://www.geocaching.com/android/default.aspx

[+toil&trouble]

There is also an iPhone app, works fantastic, especially with a good 3g signal. We use it often, and it is often as accurate as our Garmin.

[Clan Riffster]

What Program app will acutally, ACURATLY, work everytime for paperless, caching?

The Garmin app, installed on an Oregon 450T, works well.

[+zack_black]

If your phone is triangulating based on cell towers and not the built in GPSr then you could be off by as much as 100'. Make sure your app is using the built in GPSr for the phone and you will have better results.

[+teadams]

 

~snip

 

Please Help Me. I have a Droid. My wife has an IPHONE. What Program app will acutally, ACURATLY, work everytime for paperless, caching, that I can relly on?

 

Desperate for a good answer, Thank you.

 

-mrbeachroach

 

I use an iPhone with the official Geocache.org App and while it works well, the accuracy does not approach that of a dedicated GPS. It is getting better however and many people, hunting regular size caches can deal with a 16' accuracy. that might be a bit much for finding micros. YMMV

[AZcachemeister]

Most (if not all) ANDROID phones have a setting to either use the built-in GPS, or not use it.

Choosing the option to use the GPS will significantly improve your location accuracy.

Choosing to use the GPSr will also significantly lessen your battery life, which is why the option is available.

[+FishieFive]

We have an iPhone 4 and have used it exclusively for caching. It's very accurate and usually we're right on top of the cache once we get to GZ. We use the official Geocaching app.

[+dakboy]

Cell phone GPSrs have good days and bad days. My Droid seems to have more bad days than good - I would never depend upon it as my sole GPSr.

 

You can get a DeLorme PN-40 for $125 right now and avoid that headache completely.

[Team Soupbones]

I also recommend the Official Geocaching Android app from Groundspeak over most of the others. I could still do with some work, but it does the job. Team it up with an app called GPS status ( free form the Google Playstore/Market ) GPs status has a feature where is downloads extra location data to help improve your GPS accuracy from the nearest cell towers. I fire this up, get the latest data, clear my phone GPS's cache data out and then run the geocaching App. Seems more accurate that way.

[+OZ2CPU]

just bad luck, when you know a bit more what to do and NOT to do, then you will be fine using a phone,

first of all, some phones are a bit off, specially when wifi and bluetooth are enabled at the same time,

some phones got very good gps antennas and some even a very good compas like the IP4,

but still you need DATA for the map and geocache info,

that is also often a problem when you are out in the bush,

so another trick is to know the area you want to goto BEFORE you leave home,

now download all geocaches and map info for OFFLINE useage, now you are free :-)

turn off wifi and data and bluetooth, just the GPS is on.. and you will find them all,

try a little bit at home first, so you know you did actually download cache and map info, stored in the phone,

see it all works fine, when data and wifi is turned OFF

[+DragonsWest]

Next trip out, use the maps on Groundspeak to find an area which Small and Regular sized caches, which are most likely to have trade items.

 

Sad reality of many urban caches (and increasingly rural) is profusion of micro (log only) caches. While some may not mind these for their numbers counts, I'm keenly aware that kids don't particularly like them.

 

best of luck!

[+ohmelli]

I use the official Android app - I have a Razr - and I LOVE it - I've found 43 out of 50 cache attempts with only it -- but it, too, does have it's days! There are certain areas where I can just count on it misleading me! Other times it places me on the dot! I am definitely looking into a geocaching specific hand held GPSr! I

[+DragonsWest]

I use the official Android app - I have a Razr - and I LOVE it - I've found 43 out of 50 cache attempts with only it -- but it, too, does have it's days! There are certain areas where I can just count on it misleading me! Other times it places me on the dot! I am definitely looking into a geocaching specific hand held GPSr! I

 

Even with my old GPSMAP 60c, which can usually be found cheep, I was able to zero in pretty well, excepting the worst tree cover (dense Redwoods, nothing, absolutely nothing blocks signals like Redwood trees) with occasional signal bouncing near walls or cliffs taken into account. Wouldn't reall be a bad idea to get a hand-held unit to back you up. Check the marketplace forum.

[Andronicus]

If you want to keep using your phone, but would like the highest accuracy, get a bluetooth GPSr. They are cheep, and they can have as good or better accuracy and sencitivity as the best commercial handheld GPSrs ( I have the Qstarz 818x). With some goofing around with your phone (you need to download a bluetooth gps app), you can make it work with your phone. Then you will be lovin' it! Nothing better than a wireless data enabled device for geocaching!

Edited April 2, 2012 by Andronicus

[+Mudfrog]

I recently bit the bullet and bought a smart phone. I'm definitely not giving up my gpsr but for grins, went ahead and downloaded the Groundspeak app. I wanted to see how well it would work in case i found myself near a cache and didn't have my gpsr with me. To my surprise, it worked pretty well on the few caches i used it on. Still, i would rather use the old tried and true gpsr and save the phone for the paperless part of the equation.

 

My advice would be to dig out your old Magellan and use it. It may be harder to input waypoints into it but it will probably be more accurate (most of the time) than the phone.

[+laker91]

CGEO works great. In fact, they just released the new/fixed version with Live Maps. Once you have started the app, hit the Menu button and then Settings. Type in your geocaching.com account id and password. It should verify the login and you should be good to go. That being said, it does NOT use the geocaching API. I have been using c:geo for a while now and no complaints. I realize it is not the GEOCACHING.COM app, but it works really well for me. I have tested NeonGeo and it works quite well also.

 

Good Luck and welcome back to the adventure.

[+The A-Team]

CGEO works great. In fact, they just released the new/fixed version with Live Maps.

...

That being said, it does NOT use the geocaching API.

[+Castle Mischief]

I own both a fairly new Android phone and an old Magellan. If you actually have the GPS turned on and aren't getting your location from the towers I find the two to be relatively equal as far as signal lock and accuracy.

[+DragonsWest]

[snip] works great. In fact, they just released the new/fixed version with Live Maps.

...

That being said, it does NOT use the geocaching API.

 

Edited April 2, 2012 by DragonsWest

[+jeffbouldin]

I agree with many of the others. You probably have the GPSr turned off. I have a HTC Android phone and don't know if it is the same on yours. In settings go to location, make sure Standalone GPS Services is checked. Another test is to pull up Google Maps, does the GPSr indicator come on on the top info bar? Does it find your exact location on the map? If not the GPSr is turned off.

[+WRASTRO]

I am on my second Android, first was an original Motorola Droid and the current is a Bionic. I use Cachemate and haven't turned on my Garmin 76cs in months. Yes mt 76cs is an old hand held GPS. My phone is better.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

I use the Groundspeak Android App (as well as all the others mentioned in this thread and some that are not) on my Motorola Atrix 4g.

And I carry my Garmin GPSmap 62st.

When the phone fails to get the job done (far too often) the 62st never lets me down.

 

And, I suggest that describing this as a treasure hunt to kids sets up false expectations. I can think of lots of reasons why this is a fun game for kids, finding something that they will want to trade for would be pretty far down on the list. If you're going to bill it as a treasure hunt do what I do with my wife...you go find the caches first, make sure that they have good stuff in them and then take the kids to hunt them! My wife thinks all caches have great treasures in them because I have rarely taken her to one that didn't. I just don't tell her that I put it in there for her to find a few days ago!

Edited April 3, 2012 by TheAlabamaRambler

[Andronicus]

There should be a forum dedicated to rating smart phone's GPS capabilities. The experience on each model can very so much, I think users would like to have a way of knowing how well each phone will work. I know that both of the smart phones I have had were dissapointing in their GPS performance. The next phone I get I would like to know before I sign the contract.

[+Sky King 36]

I've been using NeonGeo on my android with really stellar results. I almost never carry my Garmin 60 with me any more unless I am going to be in rugged terrain or weather that my android won't handle well. I agree with what others have said, it sounds to me like either you have the device's GPS turned off, or, there's something wrong with your device.

Edited April 3, 2012 by Sky King 36

[+hzoi]

There should be a forum dedicated to rating smart phone's GPS capabilities. The experience on each model can very so much, I think users would like to have a way of knowing how well each phone will work. I know that both of the smart phones I have had were dissapointing in their GPS performance. The next phone I get I would like to know before I sign the contract.

 

From what I've seen on the forums, I think it would be easier just to make a list of smart phones that are good for caching (that is, have accurate GPSr functions). From what I've read over the past couple years, it would be a pretty short list.

 

(From my experience, my phone (Motorola Flipside) should not be on such a list.)

[+Sky King 36]

If you want to keep using your phone, but would like the highest accuracy, get a bluetooth GPSr. They are cheep, and they can have as good or better accuracy and sencitivity as the best commercial handheld GPSrs ( I have the Qstarz 818x). With some goofing around with your phone (you need to download a bluetooth gps app), you can make it work with your phone. Then you will be lovin' it! Nothing better than a wireless data enabled device for geocaching!

The three best known brands, and their best suited models for caching are:

• Qstarz Q818 or Q1000
• Holux M1000 or M1000c
• GlobalSat. BT-335, 359, 368, or 821

In addition to good accuracy, what an external GPSr really adds to an android or iPhone is a SERIOUS improvement in battery life over using your phone's internal GPSr.

 

Team it up with an app called GPS status ( free form the Google Playstore/Market ) GPs status has a feature where is downloads extra location data to help improve your GPS accuracy from the nearest cell towers.

The current iteration of AGPS is largely misunderstood... Downloading recent AGPS almanacs with a program like GPS Status improves the time to first fix but doesn't improve ongoing accuracy.

[Andronicus]

If you want to keep using your phone, but would like the highest accuracy, get a bluetooth GPSr. They are cheep, and they can have as good or better accuracy and sencitivity as the best commercial handheld GPSrs ( I have the Qstarz 818x). With some goofing around with your phone (you need to download a bluetooth gps app), you can make it work with your phone. Then you will be lovin' it! Nothing better than a wireless data enabled device for geocaching!

The three best known brands, and their best suited models for caching are:

• Qstarz Q818 or Q1000
• Holux M1000 or M1000c
• GlobalSat. BT-335, 359, 368, or 821

In addition to good accuracy, what an external GPSr really adds to an android or iPhone is a SERIOUS improvement in battery life over using your phone's internal GPSr.

I had the GlobalSat BT-821. It was really good, but it fell out of my pocket in to tall grass at a cache. I never found it. However, it did have a lanyard attachment point, so I should have had it attached to me. I like my Qstarz 818x better (it looks cooler, and I like the 5Hz and AGPS features), but no lanyard attachment point. Also, don't downplay the importance of these GPSr's sensitivity. Some of these are as good at -165dBm. That is simply astounding.

 

 

Team it up with an app called GPS status ( free form the Google Playstore/Market ) GPs status has a feature where is downloads extra location data to help improve your GPS accuracy from the nearest cell towers.

The current iteration of AGPS is largely misunderstood... Downloading recent AGPS almanacs with a program like GPS Status improves the time to first fix but doesn't improve ongoing accuracy.

The only thing that will imporve accuracy is WAAS (or the euorpean equivolent EGNOS). Not sure if any Smartphones have WAAS or not. All those bluetooth GPSrs do.

Edited April 3, 2012 by Andronicus

[+DragonsWest]

Has anyone seen the OP?

 

 

Lots of good info here in this thread. Hope you're finding an answer.

[+oxford comma]

I have geobucket on my iPhone and have also used the motionx gps app, both get me within under 10 feet of the coords - which has been perfect so far!

Edited April 5, 2012 by lampethree

[+team_golden]

I'm with the original poster on this one. I got an iPhone 4S a couple of weeks ago and put the geocaching app on it. The combination worked well with the first few geocaches that I tried. In one case it left me literally inches from the cache (too good to expect, I know). It appeared to be at least as accurate as the admittedly ancient Garmin II Plus that I used to use.

 

I went out with family over the weekend and we tried to find some more geocaches. We stopped "near" one and the phone just kept on heading down the trail. By the time it stopped, the drift was a couple of hundred yards. Tried another one farther down the trail and the same thing happened. No caches were found that day. This trail was either open or what I'd describe as "lightly treed" (at least by PNW standards), but the phone's GPS was still useless on it. It was a very frustrating afternoon.

 

The three best known brands, and their best suited models for caching are:

• Qstarz Q818 or Q1000
• Holux M1000 or M1000c
• GlobalSat. BT-335, 359, 368, or 821

In addition to good accuracy, what an external GPSr really adds to an android or iPhone is a SERIOUS improvement in battery life over using your phone's internal GPSr.

 

None of these seems to have iPhone support. In fact the Amazon page for the Qstarz devices explicitly says that they're not compatible with any iOS device. Do these all require jailbreaking? Yeah - I'm new to this. Are there reasonable alternatives that don't?

[Team Soupbones]

I'm with the original poster on this one. I got an iPhone 4S a couple of weeks ago and put the geocaching app on it. The combination worked well with the first few geocaches that I tried. In one case it left me literally inches from the cache (too good to expect, I know). It appeared to be at least as accurate as the admittedly ancient Garmin II Plus that I used to use.

 

I went out with family over the weekend and we tried to find some more geocaches. We stopped "near" one and the phone just kept on heading down the trail. By the time it stopped, the drift was a couple of hundred yards. Tried another one farther down the trail and the same thing happened. No caches were found that day. This trail was either open or what I'd describe as "lightly treed" (at least by PNW standards), but the phone's GPS was still useless on it. It was a very frustrating afternoon.

 

The three best known brands, and their best suited models for caching are:

• Qstarz Q818 or Q1000
• Holux M1000 or M1000c
• GlobalSat. BT-335, 359, 368, or 821

In addition to good accuracy, what an external GPSr really adds to an android or iPhone is a SERIOUS improvement in battery life over using your phone's internal GPSr.

 

None of these seems to have iPhone support. In fact the Amazon page for the Qstarz devices explicitly says that they're not compatible with any iOS device. Do these all require jailbreaking? Yeah - I'm new to this. Are there reasonable alternatives that don't?

 

Another reason to ditch Apple rubbish devices and go Android

[AZcachemeister]

 

None of these seems to have iPhone support. In fact the Amazon page for the Qstarz devices explicitly says that they're not compatible with any iOS device. Do these all require jailbreaking? Yeah - I'm new to this. Are there reasonable alternatives that don't?

 

Perhaps it's the need to set-up a Bluetooth com port that makes the iPhone incompatible? I don't have an iPhone, so I can't really say for sure...

 

This WEBSITE seems to say it's Apple that has messed-up the Bluetooth on their devices.

[Andronicus]

...

 

I went out with family over the weekend and we tried to find some more geocaches. We stopped "near" one and the phone just kept on heading down the trail. By the time it stopped, the drift was a couple of hundred yards. Tried another one farther down the trail and the same thing happened. No caches were found that day. This trail was either open or what I'd describe as "lightly treed" (at least by PNW standards), but the phone's GPS was still useless on it. It was a very frustrating afternoon. ...

 

I have found that some phones require cell phone coverage for thier GPS to work well. Was this hike out of cell phone range? My old HTC was like that, the GPS was near usless without cell phone coverage, but with coverage it was fairly good. I think this is due to a poor implementation of A-GPS

[+team_golden]

This WEBSITE seems to say it's Apple that has messed-up the Bluetooth on their devices.

 

That's a fascinating page. Thanks. GlobalSat says explicitly that they use the missing SSP support to communicate with devices. That explains why they don't work. I suppose that the others are the same.

 

I have found one Bluetooth GPS receiver that works with iOS devices: the Dual Electronics XGPS150. Now I wonder how they managed that.

[+team_golden]

I have found that some phones require cell phone coverage for thier GPS to work well. Was this hike out of cell phone range? My old HTC was like that, the GPS was near usless without cell phone coverage, but with coverage it was fairly good. I think this is due to a poor implementation of A-GPS

 

The trail has, for the most part, pretty good cell phone coverage. The coverage is much worse near my house and the road is heavily treed, yet the phone's GPS doesn't have any problems there.

 

I hit this trail again today and the GPS worked fine. The track was accurate (mostly within 15 feet of my position) and I had no trouble finding the geocache that I targeted. Very odd. I've read elsewhere that cellphone GPS chips have good days and bad days. This would seem to support that claim.

 

The only weirdness with the phone's GPS that I can definitely attribute to the assist implementation is the behavior if I switch towers when there's no satellite visibility. The front of my house is serviced by AT&T in the US. The back is serviced by Telus in Canada. It's a small house, but the geography is weird. If I walk in the front door and through to the back of the house, by the time I get there service has switched to Telus and the "assisted" part of the GPS, in the absence of any satellite information, has moved the phone to one of their towers. They're 30 miles away, across open water. It makes for some interesting searches in the geocaching app. Anyway, this "shouldn't" happen on the trail.

[+Bob and Kath]

This WEBSITE seems to say it's Apple that has messed-up the Bluetooth on their devices.

 

That's a fascinating page. Thanks. GlobalSat says explicitly that they use the missing SSP support to communicate with devices. That explains why they don't work. I suppose that the others are the same.

 

I have found one Bluetooth GPS receiver that works with iOS devices: the Dual Electronics XGPS150. Now I wonder how they managed that.

 

Just noticed your comment re XGPS150. We are getting an iPod Touch 4 for purposes other than caching, but have seen several devices that will give the iPod the same on-trail capabilities as a regular GPSr. The reviews on Amazon for this unit are very good, but not one of them mention using it for caching. One reviewer uses his for running trails. He was happy with it except he thought the velcro arm strap was uncomfortable. If you use the XGPS150 for caching, where to you put the "puck" so that it gets a good view of the sky yet is comfortable and secure while BWing? Any other thoughts on this would be appreciated. Thanks

[+Scubasonic]

Hello, I am a veterin geocacher, have done this for several years

 

-mrbeachroach

 

I wouldn't say that 109 Finds that you are a Veterin Geocacher with only 109 Finds.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Hello, I am a veterin geocacher, have done this for several years

 

-mrbeachroach

 

I wouldn't say that 109 Finds that you are a Veterin Geocacher with only 109 Finds.

 

Looking over their profile they've found caches with a difficulty rating from 1 to 4 stars and terrain rating from 1 to 3.5. They've been playing the game for five yeara and have found caches in 5 different states.

 

I've seen user profiles with over 1100 finds. All of them were during a two day cache run on a power trail with nearly identical hides and containers and pretty all of them with a 1.5/1.5 D/T rating.

 

Total number of finds is just not an accurate rating for experience.

[+team_golden]

 

Just noticed your comment re XGPS150. We are getting an iPod Touch 4 for purposes other than caching, but have seen several devices that will give the iPod the same on-trail capabilities as a regular GPSr. The reviews on Amazon for this unit are very good, but not one of them mention using it for caching. One reviewer uses his for running trails. He was happy with it except he thought the velcro arm strap was uncomfortable. If you use the XGPS150 for caching, where to you put the "puck" so that it gets a good view of the sky yet is comfortable and secure while BWing? Any other thoughts on this would be appreciated. Thanks

 

I tried a different external GPS (Emprum UltiMate) and found that the accuracy and sensitivity were both no better than the GPS on my phone (iPhone 4S). That makes it fine for caching when you've got an unobstructed view of the sky, but it's no match for a dedicated GPSr. I would expect the XGPS150 to be about the same, but haven't had any direct experience with it, so I can't say for sure. Garmin now has their own external bluetooth GPS, the Garmin Glo. It also supports iOS devices. I've seen claims of 5 foot accuracy for it, but also many complaints of power management issues (easy to turn on accidentally, shuts down if you're not moving, no battery level monitor, ...).

 

I ended up deciding that this external GPS thing was a waste of time and money for me and put a dedicated GPSr on my Christmas list. Your experience with an otherwise unequipped iPod may be different - especially if you stay out of the woods. That's pretty much impossible (and no fun) where I live. I usually strap stuff like this to the top of the pack that I use when I'm out and about.

[+The_Incredibles_]

This thread was started in April. Sadly, the OP last logged in on APril 6, 2012.

Edited November 25, 2012 by The_Incredibles_