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Question about entering cache locations


Guest BigDoggie

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Guest BigDoggie

Again, pardon the newbie questions...

 

I see that the locations are posted on the GeoCache webpage in a standard form of latitude and longitude in degrees, minutes and thousanths of minutes, like:

 

N 33° 45.921 W 084° 20.185 (WGS-84)

 

The instructions seen to be to download this information to your computer, run it through another program, then upload to your GPS using an extra-cost cable. This SEEMS (to one who hasn't done it either way yet) to be an awful lot of trouble.

 

Can't you just enter N 33° 45.921 W 084° 20.185 directly into the GPS?

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Guest Prime Suspect

quote:
Originally posted by BigDoggie:

Can't you just enter N 33° 45.921 W 084° 20.185 directly into the GPS?


 

Yup.

 

But some of us like to keep all the cache locations for our area/state loaded in the GPS. That's a lot of button pushing. So some people use the download feature. I use some software that I wrote which runs in the background and extracts the data directly off the displayed cache page when you press a function key. Seems to be less trouble than the download route, at this point.

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Guest bridaw

Sure you can, go for it. You just need to make sure your GPS is set to the same format as the geocache coordinates before you enter them (hddd mm.mmm h=hemisphere not hours). Once you become more active and you try for multiple caches in one day or weekend... manual entry quickly becomes a PAIN! Plus, there are caches that are more like a tour. There will sometimes be 12 sets of coordinates listed for one cache. You do not want to enter those by hand unless you really enjoy that sort of thing. icon_wink.gif -Brian

 

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Brian & Terry

San Diego, CA

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Guest bridaw

Sure you can, go for it. You just need to make sure your GPS is set to the same format as the geocache coordinates before you enter them (hddd mm.mmm h=hemisphere not hours). Once you become more active and you try for multiple caches in one day or weekend... manual entry quickly becomes a PAIN! Plus, there are caches that are more like a tour. There will sometimes be 12 sets of coordinates listed for one cache. You do not want to enter those by hand unless you really enjoy that sort of thing. icon_wink.gif -Brian

 

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Brian & Terry

San Diego, CA

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Guest dholowiski

s: hddd mm.mmm. But i want to enter information from Mapblast, and it gives the information like this: Lat: 48.998485 Lon: -111.959617

How do I enter that in my GPS?

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Guest bridaw

quote:
Originally posted by dholowiski:

I have an Etrex, and when i'm entering the waypoint onformation it is like this: hddd mm.mmm. But i want to enter information from Mapblast, and it gives the information like this: Lat: 48.998485 Lon: -111.959617

How do I enter that in my GPS?


 

I just bought an eTrex Legend as a second unit (III+ is 1st unit) so I can help you. It is pretty straight forward although I was confused on this very issue when I first started entering coordinates from Mapblast some time ago.

 

I am not sure how much the UI varies from eTrex to eTrex but if you have a Legend it should be exactly the same as below. The bottom line is your GPS will convert the numbers for you if you enter using the correct format "mask".

 

Using your location above as the example:

First, on your eTrex, go to the Main Menu.

Next go to the Setup Menu (hammer icon).

Next go to the Units Menu (tape measure icon that almost looks like a golf club icon_wink.gif

Put the cursor in the Position Format field and press the click stick in and a drop-down menu appears.

Select the "hddd.ddddd" format (should be one click up from the default hddd mm.mmm). Now you are ready to enter your location from Mapblast.

 

I use Mapblast a lot so I generally leave my GPS on the hddd.ddddd format for when I enter locations to stores and other places that I have not been before. Mapblast is great!! You have to leave the last digit of the Mapblast Lat/Lon off when entering into GPS since GPS only has 5 positions after decimal and Mapblast lists 6. You will enter N48.99848 / W111.95961 into your eTrex.

 

You can go back to the Setup Menu and select the Mark menu to enter your waypoint. If you follow the steps above and switch back to the default "hddd mm.mmm" format, your location above should look like this: N48 59.909 W111 57.577

 

I hope this helps, e-mail me if you get stuck.

 

-Brian

 

------------------

 

Brian & Terry

San Diego, CA

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Guest bridaw

quote:
Originally posted by dholowiski:

I have an Etrex, and when i'm entering the waypoint onformation it is like this: hddd mm.mmm. But i want to enter information from Mapblast, and it gives the information like this: Lat: 48.998485 Lon: -111.959617

How do I enter that in my GPS?


 

I just bought an eTrex Legend as a second unit (III+ is 1st unit) so I can help you. It is pretty straight forward although I was confused on this very issue when I first started entering coordinates from Mapblast some time ago.

 

I am not sure how much the UI varies from eTrex to eTrex but if you have a Legend it should be exactly the same as below. The bottom line is your GPS will convert the numbers for you if you enter using the correct format "mask".

 

Using your location above as the example:

First, on your eTrex, go to the Main Menu.

Next go to the Setup Menu (hammer icon).

Next go to the Units Menu (tape measure icon that almost looks like a golf club icon_wink.gif

Put the cursor in the Position Format field and press the click stick in and a drop-down menu appears.

Select the "hddd.ddddd" format (should be one click up from the default hddd mm.mmm). Now you are ready to enter your location from Mapblast.

 

I use Mapblast a lot so I generally leave my GPS on the hddd.ddddd format for when I enter locations to stores and other places that I have not been before. Mapblast is great!! You have to leave the last digit of the Mapblast Lat/Lon off when entering into GPS since GPS only has 5 positions after decimal and Mapblast lists 6. You will enter N48.99848 / W111.95961 into your eTrex.

 

You can go back to the Setup Menu and select the Mark menu to enter your waypoint. If you follow the steps above and switch back to the default "hddd mm.mmm" format, your location above should look like this: N48 59.909 W111 57.577

 

I hope this helps, e-mail me if you get stuck.

 

-Brian

 

------------------

 

Brian & Terry

San Diego, CA

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Along the same lines, I am having trouble with coordinates between EasyGPS (V1.0.9) and a Lowrance 100(V1.8). I can manually load my coordinates into the GPS and download into EasyGPS but the cordinates are not as I placed in the GPS unit.

 

Example...

GPS

N 29-35.704

W 95-04.573

 

becomes:

 

EasyGPS

Latitude: 29.59506

Longitude: -95.076213

 

The same thing happens when I enter the cordinates into EasyGPS and d/l into the GPS unit. Thanks in advance for the help Richard

 

[This message has been edited by BDRI (edited 17 July 2001).]

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Guest bob_renner

quote:
Originally posted by BDRI:

Example...

GPS

N 29-35.704

W 95-04.573

 

becomes:

 

EasyGPS

Latitude: 29.59506

Longitude: -95.076213


They are the same values. N 29-35.704 is in HDD° MM.mmm format and 29.59506 is in HDD.ddddd format. 35.704/60 = .59506

Also, N and E are positive, while S and W are negative.

 

Bob

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