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Borrowed Magellan Explorist GC & Mac


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Have searched the forums for an idiot proof solution.  We are NOT technologically inclined.  Have a mac desk top, a borrowed Mag. Explorist GC which has not been used for 5? years.  there are a ton of local caches that are not on the unit.  we gather we need need to update the unit?  (that is a question) and then transfer caches to it.  How? 

 

Please be kind:  the answer 'there are a ton of threads on how to do this' is not terribly useful. Seriously, we are techno-saurs - have searched, what we find is for PC's, not for macs and not comprehensible.  Think? we need to get an app on the desktop for downloading caches & then transfer those to the unit?  thanks in advance

Willow Creek Gang

Edited by WillowCreekers
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I may not be of much help. But you shouldn't need extra software to install geocaching files.

When you plug the Explorist into your Mac, does it mount as a drive? If so, you can open the drive and navigate to the geocaches folder. This is where you save any GPX files that you download onto the device. You can use an application (iCaching is what you'd use for Macs), but it's not necessary.

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Mineral2s inference is correct. Explorist GC is a mass storage device that shows up as an external drive and works fine on a Mac...once you have a pocket query with the caches you want in a GPX.

 

The details of getting a premium membership and ordering up pocket queries have been well covered and are exactly the same on any OS.

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Each geocache page has a "Download GPX" link near the top left of the page, below the main title information. Just click this link and save the .GPX file to a dedicated folder on your Mac, or have your eXplorist already connected and mounted, then save each individual .GPX in the 'Geocaches' folder.

 

As others have suggested, the premium membership is worth every dime here is time saved once you learn to use the 'Pocket Query' function alone. There are plenty of other benefits as well.

 

Here is a link to the User Manual for your Magellan eXplorist GC.

 

Good Luck, and Happy Cachin'!

Edited by Atlas Cached
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The first paragraph of Atlas Cached's post should get you there.

 

What wasn't mentioned yet, and so I'll mention it, is that you should delete any .gpx files that were previously saved to the "geocaches" folder. Caches loaded to the Explorist years ago may not exist anymore and so you wouldn't want to have that old data showing up on the Explorist when you go out caching.

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2 minutes ago, noncentric said:

 

This makes sense.  How can we delete .gpx files stored in geocaches folder?  Seriously, techno-dinos here.  Then there will be the how to save cache info in the appropriate folder

 

Not sure we're willing to spring for premium membership - haven't really gotten out feet wet w/ the basics.  

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1 hour ago, noncentric said:

The first paragraph of Atlas Cached's post should get you there.

 

What wasn't mentioned yet, and so I'll mention it, is that you should delete any .gpx files that were previously saved to the "geocaches" folder. Caches loaded to the Explorist years ago may not exist anymore and so you wouldn't want to have that old data showing up on the Explorist when you go out caching.

 

Wow, how could I have left that out? and so much more....

 

1 hour ago, WillowCreekers said:

 

This makes sense.  How can we delete .gpx files stored in geocaches folder?  Seriously, techno-dinos here.  Then there will be the how to save cache info in the appropriate folder

 

Not sure we're willing to spring for premium membership - haven't really gotten out feet wet w/ the basics.  

 

OK, here it is.

 

I re-read the post, and realized your title said 'Borrowed'.

 

So, assuming you want to return this unit is the same condition you received it, do this:

 

After mounting it on your Mac, find the 'Geocaches' folder and rename it to something like 'GeocachesOld'. This way we don't actually delete anything, we just 'hide' it.

 

Now, create a new 'Geocaches' folder, and save your GPX files from Geocaching.com to this directory.

 

BEFORE you unmount the eXplorist, be sure to always empty the trash on your Mac to be sure anything deleted from the GPSr is actually deleted and not stored in a hidden file.

 

Now, unmount the GPSr and power it up to be sure youe geocaches are showing up on the device, then go have some fun!

 

When you are ready to return the unit to whomever you borrowed it from, simply delete your 'Geocaches' folder, and rename the old 'GeocachesOld' folder back to 'Geocaches' before again emptying the trash before dismounting the GPSr.

 

As far as how to save and delete files/folders on the eXplorist, that is all explained in detail in the manual I linked to in an earlier post. I suggest you actually read it.

Edited by Atlas Cached
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So, I had a look at your profile and you are pretty new to the game. Welcome to geocaching. We think it's pretty great and we hope you will as well.

Do you, by chance, own and use a smartphone? An iPhone or an Android phone? I don't want to discourage you from your experience with a GPS, but smartphones come equipped with a GPS receiver chip and antenna within them, and you might have an easier time getting started using the app(s) available for your device. Of course if you don't have a smartphone, then disregard.

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6 hours ago, Mineral2 said:

So, I had a look at your profile and you are pretty new to the game. Welcome to geocaching. We think it's pretty great and we hope you will as well.

Do you, by chance, own and use a smartphone? 

Hahahaha! thanks for the laugh this A.M.  We neither of us have smart phones.  Have stupid ones for emergencies.  One of us used to work for the Bell System (remember that?  AT&T before it became AT&T oh, so many light years ago), and worked in the international division.  Think 'tethered to a land line 27/7/365' for decades.  Working holidays, working crazy hours.  No real interest in having anything that resembles that scenario again!

 

And remember the techn-saur bit?  That's us.  No TV, either.  Though yes, a computer.  

 

You have all be so! helpful and welcoming.  We appreciate it.  Going to try to create a new folder and move current caches to old one.  Am sure we'll have a zillion more questions.  

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1 hour ago, darran1970 said:

I also am having trouble loading geo's to my Magellan GC via P.C

Any help would be great, I've up dated the firmware to 2.15 but can't seem to get the gpx files to stay in the folder after I eject the gps.

 

I am not a Magellan power user... because, well, I love my Garmins, but, perhaps the Magellan device software removes GPX files from the Geocache folder after they are indexed into a hidden internal memory? If you are dropping GPX files there and they are gone the next time you check, this is one of the few reasons I can imagine for that behavior. Do the geocaches show up on the device?

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I've never really understood the way Magellans work. I think they were designed to load data via its own software rather than direct file drops, and perhaps later was opened up to the option of doing that. And maybe that's part of the reason why Magellan never gained as much interest as Garmin did. When Garmin switched over to a mass storage USB interface, loading geocaches became simple and straightforward. 

 

@WillowCreekers Are you borrowing your Explorist GC from a friend or from a library / public recreation / school  or an outdoor gear shop? I ask because I wonder if you would be able to borrow a Garmin GPS instead.

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57 minutes ago, Mineral2 said:

I've never really understood the way Magellans work. I think they were designed to load data via its own software rather than direct file drops...

The eXplorist GC manual linked to above says otherwise, but no one wants to read it.

Edited by Atlas Cached
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Ah yes, there it is. So the question still remains - why are people having problems with their Magellan devices at (what seems to be) a higher rate than their Garmin devices?

- though I do suspect it's higher rates of user error rather than the Magellan devices not working properly..

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6 hours ago, darran1970 said:

I also am having trouble loading geo's to my Magellan GC via P.C

Any help would be great, I've up dated the firmware to 2.15 but can't seem to get the gpx files to stay in the folder after I eject the gps.

Darran1970, perhaps you could start a thread about your issue?  this one is specific to iMacs & perhaps it's best to keep it that way.  That way people who are having PC issues can find the info more easily.  Just a suggestion.  

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@Mineral2 your intuition of how this model of Magellan works, based on your experience with devices like Colorado and Oregon would serve you very well. The way you just copy files to the device and it reads them on next boot is the same. There wasn't really any OS-specific custom geocaching component for these devices that was _required_. There may have been a Windows thingy that fetched the GPX file from the server (it probably predated even the Groundspeak API) and unzipped it and put it in the right directory/directories, but it wasn't like the x00 models where you needed something like GPSBabel to smoosh the GPX into something for the GPS.  If you ever had to use those in Linux or UnixWare or whatever else, the steps would be pretty much the same.

I'm about certain that the device doesn't "consume" the GPX files when it boots. It seems far more likely that the files just weren't completely written or were written to an improper place and they were lost when force ejected. @WillowCreekers (and others) be sure to safely eject the volume(s) with Finder and not just rip the cable out or hit the power button while it's connected.

Mineral,  on MacOS, the natural way you interact with files and most devices is through Finder, which is about the Windows Files Explorer. Use the eject button that is next to that volume. That's how you disconnect from a thing, whether it's a network drive or an SD card or whatever. You'll have one entry for the GPS itself and another for any SD card that's installed in the device. (That's a generic tip; Explorist GC may not have such a socket or the card might not be installed...) After copying the file (use two Finder windows: one with the source, another navigated to the "MAGELLAN/Geocaches" directory on the target, then just drag and drop) wait a few seconds, and then eject the drive. You should immediately see the target Finder window close.

[/me looks for better explanation] This site looks kind of spammy, but https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-transfer-files-from-a-mac-to-an-external-hard-drive describes it pretty well. 

The script I have for copying geocaches says that MAGELLAN/Geocaches (and MAGELLAN/Waypoints for parking coordinates) is about what Garmin/Garmin/GPX is on the devices you guys know intimately.

If you're feeling brave, you can save this copying step by downloading straight from the site into the device volume, but it's probably a good idea to keep a copy on your machine anyway.

I've used this combination, though it was long ago. There wasn't anything magic to it. I even exercised this on prototype/pre-release device and bugreported a problem on MacOS that they fixed before release...We have a few members of our local geocaching group that use Macs and Explorist GC and 710s that have been successful using them as described above. It's the same way you'd copy files to a thumb drive.

If you don't put the GPX in the /Geocaches directory, I'd expect it to not "stick" on the write. IIRC these units expose the entire WinMo filesystem to the host and it write-protects some (but not all) directories that are bad to clobber. I remember it being a fun discovery that the device uses sqlite3 internally and you could see the tables, views, triggers, and such and explore those with common tools.


I think that between the bunch of us plus the cited doc, we've explained it in many different angles to get you to the destination.

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