GPSr with seperated geocaching files

[+BCandMsKitty]

I'm shopping for a new paperless GPSr. Right now I'm using a Garmin GPSMAP 60csx and want to get into something that has paperless capabilities. I have found many units that will do this to one degree or another, but what I want is a unit that I can load geocaching trips in separate files and access them individually in the field. We have an old Magellan Explorist 500 that MsKitty uses that will do this, but is NOT paperless at all. I can't seem to find any info on the storage particulars, or file system details of the various units I see.

 

I'm hoping that someone here will have experience with their units and can tell me which ones will do this.

 

One of the reasons I want this capability rather than all the caches dumped into one big file came up this past summer.

 

we were on a camping trip and I preloaded all the caches we wanted to hunt on our units. The 60csx all went into one big file ... the Explorist 500 into individual flies on the unit for each planned day. We got on a rail to trail that had a bunch of caches. The problem was that with my unit, (one big file for all the caches) There were a bunch of nearby caches, off the trail, that I had to keep wading through every time I wanted to go to the next closest on the trail. The Explorist 500 with a separate file loaded for just that trail didn't see any other caches. Conversely, when we were hunting caches near a different trail, the trail caches would interfere. Happens to us a lot.

 

Our smart phone appss will do this, and we can have seperate databases to access on them, but we like to hunt with our GPSr units and keep the phones or any updating, PAF, etc.

There MUST be newer GPSrs that will do what we want.

 

Any suggestions?

Edited November 6, 2013 by BC & MsKitty

[+BAMBOOZLE]

I'm shopping for a new paperless GPSr. Right now I'm using a Garmin GPSMAP 60csx and want to get into something that has paperless capabilities. I have found many units that will do this to one degree or another, but what I want is a unit that I can load geocaching trips in separate files and access them individually in the field. We have an old Magellan Explorist 500 that MsKitty uses that will do this, but is NOT paperless at all. I can't seem to find any info on the storage particulars, or file system details of the various units I see.

 

I'm hoping that someone here will have experience with their units and can tell me which ones will do this.

 

One of the reasons I want this capability rather than all the caches dumped into one big file came up this past summer.

 

we were on a camping trip and I preloaded all the caches we wanted to hunt on our units. The 60csx all went into one big file ... the Explorist 500 into individual flies on the unit for each planned day. We got on a rail to trail that had a bunch of caches. The problem was that with my unit, (one big file for all the caches) There were a bunch of nearby caches, off the trail, that I had to keep wading through every time I wanted to go to the next closest on the trail. The Explorist 500 with a separate file loaded for just that trail didn't see any other caches. Conversely, when we were hunting caches near a different trail, the trail caches would interfere. Happens to us a lot.

 

Our smart phone appss will do this, and we can have seperate databases to access on them, but we like to hunt with our GPSr units and keep the phones or any updating, PAF, etc.

There MUST be newer GPSrs that will do what we want.

 

Any suggestions?

 

I don't know of any. In situations as you describe I select caches using the map screen ( in fact I almost always do this instead of using the " next closest list " )

We used a 60 CSx and went to the 62S and love it.

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

I do this fairly often...

 

With our Delorme, simply naming each PQ individually before loading to the SD card, they are held separately and can be accessed at any time.

 

I currently hold in our unit PQs for the Marquette (MI) area; for Sault Ste. Marie, MI and Ont.; for Traverse City (MI); for Sioux Falls, SD; for Green Bay (WI); one route PQ from Traverse City to near Gary (IN) along the Lake Michigan shoreline; lastly, a local of our caches -- named "Maintenance".

 

The drawback is that if you are always busy switching between large files, they do seem take a fair amount of time loading into memory (SD card to the unit itself). A small price, in my opinion.

Smaller files (<200 caches) load in about a minute.

 

My other half also carries her iPhone that picks up any that the Pocket Queries miss (they do that occasionally).

Edited November 6, 2013 by Gitchee-Gummee

[+BCandMsKitty]

I do this fairly often...

 

With our Delorme, simply naming each PQ individually before loading to the SD card, they are held separately and can be accessed at any time.

 

I currently hold in our unit PQs for the Marquette (MI) area; for Sault Ste. Marie, MI and Ont.; for Traverse City (MI); for Sioux Falls, SD; for Green Bay (WI); one route PQ from Traverse City to near Gary (IN) along the Lake Michigan shoreline; lastly, a local of our caches -- named "Maintenance".

 

The drawback is that if you are always busy switching between large files, they do seem take a fair amount of time loading into memory (SD card to the unit itself). A small price, in my opinion.

Smaller files (<200 caches) load in about a minute.

 

My other half also carries her iPhone that picks up any that the Pocket Queries miss (they do that occasionally).

 

Sounds like what I'm wanting. Our PQs are usually quite small. (I build them from making a bookmark list for each "area" we want to cache in while on vacation)

What model delorme, or do you think they'll all do that?

[39_Steps]

With the Delorme PN-40 or PN-60 handheld gps devices, it is possible to change the Map focus point to a distant location and then search for nearest caches around that point. Probably the Garmin units will permit changing map focus location coordinates as well. If all else fails, disable the gps satellite search for a few minutes.

 

As to searching only for caches within a certain distance along trail or road vectors for sorting purposes, I do not believe this is possible on the PN-40/60 devices in the field, but the Delorme Topo software can perform sorting searches along a route on the PC. Then multiple files of subsets of available PQs could be sorted and saved in gpx format for transfer to the gpx device.

 

Be aware that the Delorme Topo and Street Atlas apps do not provide full scale cache database category/properties search engines like some of the dedicated database applications, but can be quite handy for proficient users of the PN-60 devices and Delorme apps who do not wish to climb still another product's learning curve.

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

We (G-G) are using a PN-40, brother-in-law and nephew both use PN-60s. We all load them that way.

 

Find it very nice when touring on the Harley, where the true objective is the ride -- having a few (50-100) caches at planned layovers as well as (narrow) route queries. A bigger Harley-Davidson is not the best two-tracking ride available...

 

Simply select one of the (named) route Pocket Queries and go... arrive at first layover and select that named PQ. The next leg could either be a continuation of the route query or, if you desire such, load the individual routes as "legs", simply select that next named leg of the ride... repeating for the next layover, etc.

 

As long as each query is named before loading to the SD card, they remain separate and recognizable for selection purposes (as opposed to queries loaded up with just the query number), and are accessible through the Main Menu. Using only an 8MB card, we have not come close overloading it -- I believe the Delorme units will accept a card up to 32MB.

 

In addition, the (routable) Topo-series maps that are supplied with the Delorme are arguably some of the best maps available, now including all of Mexico and Canada.

 

 

As stated before... large queries loaded to the SD card can take a (seemingly) long time to load into unit memory. Smaller queries load in a matter of a few seconds. All field notes (Finds, DNFs, etc.) are stored in a singular txt. file, and upload easily.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Gitchee-Gummee

[+BCandMsKitty]

OK .. thanks for the info.