Mass adding to Garmin

[+OneEighth]

Is there any way to add more than 1000 caches at a time to Garmin?

 

Right now all I can figure out is Creating a list which is strangely limited to 1000. Or PQs which can only be 1000 at a time.

 

Is there something I am missing? Maybe a 3rd party way to, for example, add all caches from a certain state all at once?

[+HHL]

You can run 10 PQs per day. IE: you can upload 10 x 1000 caches to your unit.

 

Hans

[+noncentric]

You can use the PQ Splitter tool on Project-GC to determine what date ranges to use in PQ's so that you can get all caches in a state, or some other criteria that PGC offers.

 

Depending on what state you're interested in, you may be able to get the entire state in one day with the 10 per day limit. For example, the entire state of Rhode Island can be downloaded with just 3 PQ's. The state of Ohio would require more than 3 days of 10 PQs/day.

 

Keep in mind that your GPSr may have limits as well, depending on the model. You may be able to download 10,000 caches a day, but your Garmin may not be able to hold them all.

 

ETA: add hyperlink to PGC

Edited July 12, 2017 by noncentric

[+OneEighth]

I have Garmin 64st. Has a good amount of space. I have done 10 PQs from 2000-2011 which was close to 10,000.

 

Thank you so much noncentric for that link. That helps a TON! I love that website but had no idea they had that feature.

[+Walts Hunting]

If you get a program with API rights like GSAK you can download 6,000 in one swoop. Add the PQ's and you got 16,000 downloads a day.

[+Elliotts4]

Walts - can you please give more info on how to download 6000 caches at once using GSAK? I've used GSAK for years but I'm not familiar with its finer points. Plus we just moved from an older GPS which could only load 2000 caches max at a time (so the 1000 cache limit in a PQ wasn't a big deal) to a GPSMAP 64st. We have a vacation coming up and I'd love to load about 20,000 caches to the GPSMAP (we won't find more than a few hundred at most, but I'm trying to cover a large city plus the area all around it) and I'd love to know the most efficient way to do that.

Also, I'd appreciate thoughts on whether to use GPX or GGZ files. I read a bunch of forum threads and from those I get that GGZ loads faster, but doesn't load the child waypoints, which I'd really like to have. Someone mentioned loading the child waypoints as POIs, but didn't give more info on how to do that.

If I use GGZ, would I load all 20K caches into GSAK and then export one GGZ file?

I've already deleted the preloaded GGZ file on the GPSMAP unit.

Thanks in advance for any help!!!

Edited July 19, 2017 by Elliotts4
clarity

[+on4bam]

6 hours ago, Elliotts4 said:

Walts - can you please give more info on how to download 6000 caches at once using GSAK?

There's a lot in the help file on this. In short: Menu item "geocaching.com" > get geocaches > use the two pages of options  > OK... and wait

 

For getting the caches onto your GPS, use the garminexport macro, it gives you flexibility to export the caches. I always use GGZ and wps are exported as POI which means the waypoints menu is not cluttered with 100's or 1000's of WPs but they are found under "extra's" divided types as parking, virtual, reference, final.... just like on GC.

 

 

[+Elliotts4]

Great - thanks for pointing me in the right direction - though for others who may be reading this later, it's in the GSAK Help File, not a help file on geocaching.com. It took me a bit to figure it out!

[+DeniScott]

I too would like to be able to download more than 1000 caches at a time. Is there a link somewhere that I can download every cache at one time? Is there a base file with all of the current caches that can be downloaded direct from Groundspeak or geocaching.com or someplace? Even state by state would be awesome or by country. Thank you for any replies.

[+GeoTrekker26]

What do you mean by "every cache at one time"?  If you mean every cache on Geocaching.com, the answer is no and it would be silly to do so.  Using only PQs you can DL 70,000 caches in a week, but that's silly too.

[+RufusClupea]

On 7/19/2017 at 5:51 PM, Elliotts4 said:

Walts - can you please give more info on how to download 6000 caches at once using GSAK? I've used GSAK for years but I'm not familiar with its finer points. Plus we just moved from an older GPS which could only load 2000 caches max at a time (so the 1000 cache limit in a PQ wasn't a big deal) to a GPSMAP 64st. We have a vacation coming up and I'd love to load about 20,000 caches to the GPSMAP

Apologies for the non sequitur; I'm considering a 64st.  Are you/will you be using a MicroSD chip, and if so, what size (GB) for those numbers of caches?

Thanks.

[+Elliotts4]

2 hours ago, RufusClupea said:

Apologies for the non sequitur; I'm considering a 64st.  Are you/will you be using a MicroSD chip, and if so, what size (GB) for those numbers of caches?

Thanks.

We put in a MicroSD, but right now have over 20,000 caches loaded to the 64st in 2 ggz files (one local, one for the vacation) and have used only half of the standard memory in the unit - nothing on the chip yet. We did delete the preloaded ggz file of geocaches that it comes with.

I've learned a ton experimenting with GSAK in the past week. The Garmin Export Macro for GSAK is extremely useful. It's amazing to be able to easily work with and view 20,000 caches all at once after being so used to limits of previous GPSr units. So far, very happy with the 64st (we've used it in the field for about 25 finds), GSAK, and the Garmin Export Macro.

Edited July 25, 2017 by Elliotts4

[+DeniScott]

geotrekker26, YES, I, and many others, would like to download EVERY geocache on planet earth all at one time, even if it is "silly" to you. FYI, I just deleted a nice long and detailed reply to your "opinion" and replaced it with this simplified version. For anyone else out there that may have an answer that is actually helpful, I certainly would appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

1000 caches = approx 5MB on my SD card (32GB)

3,000,000 caches in the world / 1000 caches at a time in pocket queries (with no overlap with the circles) = 3,000 pocket queries

3,000 pocket queries x 5MB each = 15,000MB = 1.5GB ish (yes, I know 1024)

3,000 pocket queries = way more time than I have available

Please, Groundspeak, give us a link to download the whole kit-n-kaboodle all at once. Or maybe a filter by state, or country, or raise the limit from 1k caches to like 10k or 25k or something like that. How about 100k or 250k caches? What determines the limit to 1000 caches at once?

Thanks for any helpful replies, S of Deniscott

[+HHL]

Quote

but right now have over 20,000 caches loaded to the 64st in 2 ggz files (one local, one for the vacation) and have used only half of the standard memory in the unit

GGZ file: 20.000 caches are resulting in an appr. 60 Mb file size. This is not half of the memory but in the memory's promille range. It's the built-in map that uses nearly half of the memory. ;-)

The JaVaWa Device Manager (click here) might be of interest for you.

Edited July 29, 2017 by HHL
Added link

[+RufusClupea]

Well, the last couple of posts have convinced me to hold off (at least for the time being) on getting that memory card for the 64st.  It appears (if I'm reading this right) that even with updated maps and every cache in the world (which is far more than I care to load at 1 time--no judgment) I won't fill the 8GB of on-board memory.  Profuse gratitude!

Edited July 29, 2017 by RufusClupea

[+HHL]

2 hours ago, RufusClupea said:

[...] Profuse gratitude!

Nullam causam.

Hans

[+lee737]

On this topic - I don't need to be able to download 150,000 caches at once, I would like to be able to get all the caches in a 100km or so radius in one query though..... making multiple PQs is a bit of a hassle....

[+NYPaddleCacher]

On 7/25/2017 at 2:13 PM, RufusClupea said:

On 7/19/2017 at 5:51 PM, Elliotts4 said:

Walts - can you please give more info on how to download 6000 caches at once using GSAK? I've used GSAK for years but I'm not familiar with its finer points. Plus we just moved from an older GPS which could only load 2000 caches max at a time (so the 1000 cache limit in a PQ wasn't a big deal) to a GPSMAP 64st. We have a vacation coming up and I'd love to load about 20,000 caches to the GPSMAP

Apologies for the non sequitur; I'm considering a 64st.  Are you/will you be using a MicroSD chip, and if so, what size (GB) for those numbers of caches?

Thanks.

I don't have a 64st but I have another Garmin model that uses a MicroSD card (I think the all do now).  I use two different SD cards (64gb each...they're cheap), one with local maps and waypoints, and one that I swap in when I'm traveling.  You could load 20K caches on even the smallest SD card you could find.   Basemaps use far more data.  I have a copy of the Garmin Topo maps for North America on my "local" SD card and use the free routable OpenStreetMaps for Garmin maps for my "travel" SD card.  I'll be creating a mapset for a trip at the end of September that will cover Berlin and Hannover, Germany,   Copenhagen and Malmo (Sweden), and Helsinki.  That mapset will replace whatever is on the travel SD card now.