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New to the sport, need advice!


Rockthemike13

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Today I got opened my first GPS unit, a Garmin Dakota 20. I've been messing around with it for about 3 hours. Have also been reading about, looking into getting in Geocaching for a few years now, and am incredibly excited.

 

I spent a large part of my night manually entering in caches that are close to me, with the hope that my wife and I can go some sunny afternoon/evening and look for caches. I have been spending about 20 minutes manually entering caches into my gps, despite looking for about an hour online for a way to upload caches directly to my gps, it doesn't seem like it can be done. I'm almost sure I can, the GPS plugs into the computer, yet for what reason I haven't been able to find out why. Can some body who's a little more familiar with this stuff help me out? It would save me countless frustrating hours articulately entering every coordinate and note onto my gps.

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Today I got opened my first GPS unit, a Garmin Dakota 20. I've been messing around with it for about 3 hours. Have also been reading about, looking into getting in Geocaching for a few years now, and am incredibly excited.

 

I spent a large part of my night manually entering in caches that are close to me, with the hope that my wife and I can go some sunny afternoon/evening and look for caches. I have been spending about 20 minutes manually entering caches into my gps, despite looking for about an hour online for a way to upload caches directly to my gps, it doesn't seem like it can be done. I'm almost sure I can, the GPS plugs into the computer, yet for what reason I haven't been able to find out why. Can some body who's a little more familiar with this stuff help me out? It would save me countless frustrating hours articulately entering every coordinate and note onto my gps.

 

Two things here- did you try plugging it into your computer?

 

And second-it does support paperless caching. Since you are a basic member, you can only load the co-ords. If you want the description, hints, etc you need to sign up for a premium membership.

$30 a year to save hours every time you want to go caching? As a PM, you can also use pocket queries. Allows you to download masses of geocaches to your GPS in a short amount of time. You can also filter these-just caches with a difficulty of less than 3, or just caches that have the flashlight required attribute. Just select what you want, and the picking and choosing is done for you.

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Two things here- did you try plugging it into your computer?

 

And second-it does support paperless caching. Since you are a basic member, you can only load the co-ords. If you want the description, hints, etc you need to sign up for a premium membership.

$30 a year to save hours every time you want to go caching? As a PM, you can also use pocket queries. Allows you to download masses of geocaches to your GPS in a short amount of time. You can also filter these-just caches with a difficulty of less than 3, or just caches that have the flashlight required attribute. Just select what you want, and the picking and choosing is done for you.

I did plug it in, it just shows on the screen of the device that its plugged in, but I can't do any thing with it. Can open the files from the computer, but haven't gotten that far.

 

That is most excellent btw, thank you so much! I still haven't figured out how to even load the coordinate, but I would definitely like the hints and comments, as I see a lot of caches are damaged/missing and need hints or something to find. I don't really feel like carbon copying all that information to paper.

 

Once I figured out how to get the coordinates on there (just to make sure I'm competent) I probably will pay the 30 for that extra oomph.

 

EDIT: I'm so close! So I get the .loc file, where do I save it to? I saved it right into the gps and none of the sub folders, but when I open up the gps I can't find any thing regarding the file in question.

 

Edit 2: Finally got it, and got myself the premium membership, which is incredibly awesome. Thank you so much for the advice TDM! I'm sure we're going to have a blast once we get rolling.

Edited by sonic_13
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All right! Went today, successfully found 7 caches, was a great time. A lot of this was aided by the fact I knew the area quite well, my wife and I are really excited to start traveling.

 

Which leads to my next question.

 

My GPS unit shows almost NO terrain except for the major high ways. It doesn't show back roads, or any thing. This kind of information would greatly help when not walking along the highway. Is there any way to upload/purchase this kind of information? I spent a bit of time this afternoon trying to figure it out, but no luck. I'm a total dunce when it comes to this sort of thing, any help would be appreciated.

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Link for reference:

 

Dakota 20

 

If you click on the "map" tab, you will be able to choose your region and the available maps for your area, although I'm a bit surprised that you don't have most, if not all, of the roads for your area. The maps usually just includes things like elevation contours, trails and things of that nature.

 

Glad to hear you and your wife had a great time. Good luck :)

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All right! Went today, successfully found 7 caches, was a great time. A lot of this was aided by the fact I knew the area quite well, my wife and I are really excited to start traveling.

 

Which leads to my next question.

 

My GPS unit shows almost NO terrain except for the major high ways. It doesn't show back roads, or any thing. This kind of information would greatly help when not walking along the highway. Is there any way to upload/purchase this kind of information? I spent a bit of time this afternoon trying to figure it out, but no luck. I'm a total dunce when it comes to this sort of thing, any help would be appreciated.

 

Congratulations and welcome! You are correct about the lack of maps....most handheld GPSr's are only supplied with base maps, which includes major highways and waterways and not much else. To have more topographic detail you will have to install maps for your region to the device.

 

You can purchase the maps directly from Garmin but they are a little pricey. You can also download maps for free (yes, it's legal) from a site like gpsfiledepot.com. You want easy, buy the Garmin maps. You prefer free (and are at least a little bit computer savvy), the free ones work just fine.

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