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Geocaches from Iphone 5 to Oregon 600


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I will be traveling and I do not have room to take my laptop. I was wondering if there is anyway to transfer geocaches from my Iphone5 to my Oregon 600 GPS, very much in the way I would from my laptop - essentially using the Iphone like a laptop. I have seen USB adapters for Iphones and I had one for an Android, however the Android did not have the feature needed to transfer any sort of data to another device other than a laptop. Thanks in advance for any help. And yes I know I Can do a PQ before and load the caches at home but we are not sure of wher we will be traveling. I often take detours from the originally planned route.

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unfortunately Garmin stand alones do not have Bluetooth file transfers, it wireless transfers, yet. they can only transfer between models of the same type, from Garmin.

 

if this is still current info, you can use this

to save from the iPhone to an sdcard, then import to the Harmon physically.

 

Android is probably the easiest to transfer caches, tracks, and waypoints to /from with Bluetooth/wifi/nfc/ftp/sdcard/etc , and you could buy a burner phone to store thousands of caches, dump to sdcard, then import to the Garmin. i don't know if that's too much hassle for your plans though.

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I will be traveling and I do not have room to take my laptop. I was wondering if there is anyway to transfer geocaches from my Iphone5 to my Oregon 600 GPS, very much in the way I would from my laptop - essentially using the Iphone like a laptop. I have seen USB adapters for Iphones and I had one for an Android, however the Android did not have the feature needed to transfer any sort of data to another device other than a laptop. Thanks in advance for any help. And yes I know I Can do a PQ before and load the caches at home but we are not sure of wher we will be traveling. I often take detours from the originally planned route.

Really, you cannot plan in advance? I guess I'm not as spontaneous as most B). I can pretty well figure out any detours I may take on any given trip, and get some extra Pocket Queries to cover it.

 

There are SD card readers for iPhone. If you feel comfortable removing and reinserting the SD card a lot with its fragile retention clip (and if it's a card suitable to accept Pocket Query files), that may be the way to go. It still may be kind of a hassle to download and move files around. Be sure you're able to unzip a PQ.

 

Google “Wireless USB Reader” for a wifi travel router that can connect to USB. I have one that allows a simultaneous connection by wifi to Geocaching.com and to the router. I also have one that only allows one wifi connection at a time, so it's quite a process. But again, with an iPhone with data, it's probably simpler. I also had trouble with these things recognizing the GPSr. I needed to access the GPSr's internal drive, but it only showed the card, which sometimes is full of maps, so I don't want to load caches on it. Also, the obscure file manager that is required for the interface was discontinued on both when I bought them. I had to guess which weird App to use. Those Apps are extremely bad. What a mess!

 

Or resign to use a phone App. I have “Looking4Cache Pro” ready to go in an emergency, so I don't have to bother with the SD card thing for one or two caches I didn't load on the GPSr. Usually something messes up on an App (mine do once I'm way out in the boonies), but I can make and load a new PQ at a Hotspot (in your case, you load it where phone data is available), and with luck, get it to display distance and bearing. I also have Cachly, so I can switch between Apps, and maybe one of them is behaving at that moment :anibad:. They both work offline, but of course you pre-load them at some point before that happens.

Edited by kunarion
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I have to agree with Kunarion.

 

The 600 can hold a LOT of geocaches. So make a LOT of pocket queries covering the extent of the area you know you'll be travelling. Use area PQ's instead of route-based ones for those spur of the moment detours. Remember, you don't have to find them all, so if you end up out of range of your PQs for a short amount of time, focus on enjoying your travels letting geocaching come second. But you can be pretty comprehensive about your PQ making too. And don't worry if they overlap a little bit.

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I will be traveling and I do not have room to take my laptop. I was wondering if there is anyway to transfer geocaches from my Iphone5 to my Oregon 600 GPS, very much in the way I would from my laptop - essentially using the Iphone like a laptop. I have seen USB adapters for Iphones and I had one for an Android, however the Android did not have the feature needed to transfer any sort of data to another device other than a laptop. Thanks in advance for any help. And yes I know I Can do a PQ before and load the caches at home but we are not sure of wher we will be traveling. I often take detours from the originally planned route.

 

I cannot remember the last time I used a computer to load caches to my Oregon or took a laptop on vacation - the iPad or iPhone is my first choice since I use a caching app to plan trips, identify caches, and export gpx files. To make it work you need a small wi-fi router. I use the Kingston MobileLite, which is about the size of my iPhone. There are other brands, including one by RAVPower that has gotten good reviews as well. Essentially, the router sets up a local wi-fi connection. The iPhone uses that network. The gpsr plugs into the router. From there it is simply a matter of transferring the gpx file from the iPhone to the computer. Routers usually come with a file manager, but I use a separate app (File Explorer).

 

Use the iOS Open functions and open the file into the file manager and then move it to the Oregon. There are more detailed instructions in other threads - a search for Mobilelite might do it. But I find it easier to use the phone than the computer regardless of whether I am at home or elsewhere -.particularly if you do not want to blanket an area with pocket queries (I would rather identify caches I want to find first).

 

There are some tips and tricks to it - with my router I can cycle between the internal gpsr and the sd card By unplugging and replugging it. Still, I have never had any problems with it and the whole process takes only a minute or two. The caching app I use (Geosphere) unzips query results, filters and merges pqs with other searches or imported caches, and exports gpx files - like a mini GSAK - so it makes it particularly easy, but there are other ways to unzip and transfer gpx files. I have also used the phone / router to load maps into the gpsr and upload field notes to this site. You can do a lot with it.

Edited by geodarts
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You could make PQ's for the widest possible area you're visiting and importing them is GSAK (Windows). You can then export all caches to your Oregon as one GGZ file.

I've done this on different holidays loading 26000+ caches (whole of Denmark), 1000's in VIC/TAS (Australia) and New Zealand. The only problem with this approach is that caches may get archived/disabled during the trip but as I also have an Android tablet with GDAK (GSAK counterpart for Android) so I updated next day's caches via API.

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oy. I'm guessing the OP is going on vacation for roughly a week. In that time, the number of caches that change status (active to inactive/archived, inactive to active... etc.) will be negligible compared to the number of caches loaded on the GPS. There's no need to have cache listings updated every hour. Some of the advice on here is nothing short of ridiculous.

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oy. I'm guessing the OP is going on vacation for roughly a week.

 

Where did you read that? Just guessing?

 

Yeah, just a guess. In the US, it's rare for people to take longer vacations. We don't have the same holiday culture that much of Europe has. Unfortunately.

 

Since there was no mention on the length of the trip there was no reason to guess (and being a global activity I'm not in the habit to research the OP's location or holiday habits). So there is no way of knowing/guessing/assuming how many caches he/she will need.

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