Pocket Queries/Loading Caches

[+Inmountains]

I have been doing PQ's for years, using GSAK to put caches in my Garmin 60CSx. Now I received an Oregon 650t for Christmas and the main reason I wanted it was so I could load thousands and thousands of caches into it. So my question is, how do I load, say, every cache in California, into my Garmin, the fastest and easiest way? Sure, the iPhone/iPad work great as long as I have a signal, but I go lots of places where there is no signal and would love to have the Oregon loaded with every cache in the area. Plus, there is a chance I might visit Germany later in 2017 and would to be able to load my GPS and not pay the high data prices in Europe. My PQ is limited to 1,000 caches, as we all know and California has a bit more than 1,000 caches in it. Is there a place on the Geocaching website where I can just ask it to load all of California's caches?

[+Team DEMP]

You are a GSAK user so that is your best approach. What you want to do is load all CA caches into GSAK and then generated the GPX/GGZ file to be loaded on your shiny new GPS.

 

There are different approaches to get all CA caches into a GSAK database. I did this for NJ using Project GC's page at http://project-gc.co...n&submit=Filter which is set for Cali. It shows 137k caches in the state and with the limit of 1000 caches per PQ you'd need to generate 138 or so of them over a period of time.

 

Then you'd load the PQs into a Cali GSAK database and there you go. NJ was easier :-)

Edited December 31, 2016 by Team DEMP

[+on4bam]

The first thing to do it get the caches you want (as Team DEMP wrote). If you want all of CA make "placed date" PQs and run then 10/day. Two weeks later you'll have them all.

The same goes for Germany but you might leave out some bundeslander if there are areas you are certain not to go.

 

Export with the GarminExport macro. This will allow you to export as GGZ and have all waypoints as POI (to be found in POI/Extra/ subdivided as parking, virtual,...).

 

I haven't had 100000+ caches loaded in my Or600 but had 26000+ Danish caches loaded without any problems.

BTW, if you "grab images" in GSAK you can use the sendimagestogarmin macro to send them to your 650. Nice to have spoilers available on the GPS.

[+Inmountains]

Thank you for the answers so far, it is much appreciated. So my two understandings were true: 1. You can't run a PQ larger than 1,000 caches and 2. The geocaching website will not create a PQ for all the caches in one state. It would sure be nice to plug my Oregon into my computer and click a button that says "Load all California caches that I have not found"

[+HHL]

[...] It would sure be nice to plug my Oregon into my computer and click a button that says "Load all California caches that I have not found"

 

If your current location is Northern California, its nuts to load all caches from Southern California. Before you'll reach the soutern part the data will be stale data.

What you can do is as follows:

Use GSAK and the api.

Menu > Geocaching.com access > Get Geocaches (select your current location - or whatever).

Download up to 6000 caches/day and load your Gpsr with this data.

After changing your location: just repeat this operation with a different location.

 

Hans

Edited December 31, 2016 by HHL

[+Inmountains]

With a son in Washington State, an Uncle and Aunt in Oregon and good friends in Northern California, I make several trips a year up there. We usually stay at the Durango RV park in Redding or Seven Feathers resort near Mt. Shasta, so spending 6-8 weeks a year in Northern California is not unusal. Thank you so much for the help, I am going to play around and see how I might speed things up a bit.