Poll: Before geocaching?

[Enos Shenk]

Just curious as to what you used your GPSr for before you heard of geocaching. If it applies to you anyway.

 

Personally i bought my original emap in Orlando when i was working for bellsouth mobility. The directions to the cellular towers we were working on were not always clear, or even near accurate, but the direction book had lat&lon for each site. So, i was finally inspired to purchase the emap from a CompUSA to help me find my job sites.

 

[Episkipos Enos Shenk, KSC]

[http://enos.deviantart.com]

[+smithdw]

I bought mine for 4-wheeling out in the forests. While looking for info on GPS systems, I found the GC.com site. The rest is history...

[Tickridge Photo]

I bought it just for geocaching. However, now I use it for Hunting, Fishing, Work, Camping and a great all-around to play with.

 

Oh, Yeah! I almost forgot. Now that I have a GPS there is some photography books that give cords to find certain scenery to photograph.

 

Tickridge Photography

Where we

"Line'em up and Shoot'em all"

[+Team GPSaxophone]

I bought it for hunting, then stumbled across this website.

 

[+Capt. Jack & 1st Mate]

Bought mine primarily for elk hunting and found it VERY useful for marking my favorite fishing spots as well as other waypoints. Now with a GPS V, it has proven itself invaluable for navigating unknown cites as well as backroads for geocaching and other trips.

[adrianjohn]

None of the above so I didn't vote!

I bought mine, as I suspect many other users on here did, to use with my Ham Radio equipment. More specifically for APRS (automatic position reporting system) and as a supplement to using a map and compass when walking and camping.

 

Have boots and GPSr, will cache for fun!

[+Smitherington]

I bought mine because I was going to Ecuador and I wanted to stand on the Equator and have it read zero. And I did!!! And it did!!!

I primarily used it as an electronic map before geocaching. I still use it when traveling but the fun is geocaching.

[+GIDEON-X]

It was the summer of "95" I was doing some mapping work for the "BLM". They wanted the high water line of a local reservoir plotted, they had two interns from Tuffts to help, and ask what else I'd need. put a request in for two GPSr units (got 4) The units were a bit hokie compaired to the units of today. But did the job (which took two months) After that we used the GPSr to record some archeological sites (site steward program) ~~~ and now of course the "SPORT" of geocaching

 

Mzee ~~~ "And now where"

[+Logscaler and Red]

None of the above.

 

It was a gift.

 

Why ?

 

Just because.

 

Now I use it for Hunting, Fishing, locating hot springs, marking interesting spots I want to come back to, checking milage for work, hooking to the laptop to plot travel and a box full of other things.

 

Oh, geocaching also.

 

logscaler.

[+TEAM 360]

I bought mine strictly for caching, but now I use it for all sorts of things, especially to mark open mine shafts I stumble across out in the desert, points of interest, etc...

[+Kevin & Susan]

Used a Garmin etrex while working for Sprint on their now-defunct Multi-channel Multi-point Distribution System (MMDS) wireless internet known as Sprint Broadband Direct Wireless (BWG). We recorded a customer's location in relation to the mountain-top antennas into a computer database. It also helped determine the direction and distance to the antennas while at the customer's site when the horizon was too hazy to make a visual. One of several ''bugs'' in BWG was that a clear ''line-of-sight'' was required to qualify for the service, so that the relativey weak upload signal from the customer's antenna could reach the mountain top. And another was the distance from the mountain top. The weak upload signal had a 25-30 mile max reach for optimum internet access.

The luckiest customers were getting download speeds on their PC's of 6-8 Mbps, and uploads of 300-350 kbps. The average was 4Mbps/150kbps. Not too shabby.

The worst ''bug'' of all, and the one that really doomed the service, was it's success. The more customers we brought online in a given sector (node), the slower the service became, until it became as slow as dial-up at peak use hours.

I liked working for Sprint, but their bold willingness to be the testers of new technology was also the reason for them laying off over 3500 employees across the country in 2001 when it didn't pan out

 

[This message was edited by Kevin & Susan on May 10, 2003 at 05:24 PM.]

[+Satch47]

Flat water Kayaking. I can get to where I'm going (which is no place in particular)easily, but getting back is the hard part. When you're 500 yards out in the river, all the shoreline looks alike to me. I use it to get back to where I parked my car.

 

What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?

[+ShaneN4Girls]

Can't vote. My reason isn't listed.

 

I bought my Rino 120 to use when hiking and camping with my family or Boy Scout troop. It just so happened another Asst Scoutmaster told me about this site (darn him) and now I'm hooked.

 

Adversity is certain, misery is optional.

[+flask]

my mom gave gpsrs to everyone in our family because she had gone caching and thought we would all enjoy it.

 

i had heard of it, and was going to buy myself one, but mom beat me to it. she was surprised that i knew EXACTLY what to do with it.

 

it doesn't matter if you get to camp at one or at six. dinner is still at six.

[+Bloencustoms]

I had to hit the gadget button. I had a yellow etrex for a while before I read an article about caching. As I didn't have a computer at the time, I never got into the sport. About a year later, I got a computer, found the site, and started caching. Well, I was hooked enough to upgrade to the Vista, and get a laptop for the big screen mapping. Geocaching helped to justify the purchase of that first reciever, once the newness wore off it sat on a shelf untill I started caching.

 

"Searching with my good eye closed"

[+lightnsound]

I was working on the road doing lighting and sound for a candidate [®Az.]during the 2000 primary presidential elections. We were in New Hampshire and hitting 4 to 6 locations a day. The ol' Rand McNally was getting quite a workout. One of the other guys on the crew had a DeLorme Tripmate GPS and Streets 7.0- After driving with him I just had to get one for my van. I went to the first Computer City we passed, in Nashua I think, and got a laptop, the GPSr and the software. I soon realized that the DeLorme GPSr had drawbacks and got a eTrex. (yellow was all there was at the time.) We could map out the next day's locations and route it, then just hand out floppys with the route to all who had the hardware. I've been hooked on GPS and its many uses ever since.

 

I am not addicted to geocaching, really.

[+miuwu]

Bought it to measure accurate distances for the kayak races I entered. Then used it as my speedometer during the races.

[+Brian - Team A.I.]

My dad had a Magellan Pioneer that he wasn't using since he purchased a GPS III. I never really used it much, because at the time I didn't know of anything I was interested in that I could use it with.

 

Poof! I hear about a news story on 'treasure hunting'. I was hooked from there. Since then, my dad gave me his GPS III (as he only used it to watch himself drive to Payson and back), which I used for about a year before eBaying both units to purchase an eTrex Vista. So I guess you could say that the first one *I* actually purchased was solely for geocaching.

 

Brian

Team A.I.

[+Dave_W6DPS]

I voted "hunting and fishing", but it is more Fishing, Hiking, and canoing. May the choice should have been "other outdoor activities"...

 

Dave_W6DPS

 

My two cents worth, refunds available on request. (US funds only)

[+The Divine Ones]

My First Deer Hunting Trip Fall, 2001: A group of us, including my best friend (Geocacher: "TheBoysRan") leave the truck on a logging road and head out in pairs hunting in the Willamette National Forest (Oregon). We're quietly tromping through a freshly fallen snow in search of similarly fresh deer sign. Soon, another heavy snow begins to fall. Within a matter of a half-hour the snowfall has obliterated our shoeprints. Being one who has always naturally had a good sense of direction, I'm not the least bit worried...at first. The snow continues to fall and within a short while there's two new inches of white in areas we're "pretty sure" we just passed. I'm not entirely worried. I still have some "sense" of which direction we need to go to get back to the truck, but I'm verging on the realization (for the first time in my life) of how easily hikers, hunters, backpackers and even the best "outdoorsmen" can get themselves lost in the wilderness, only to be found hours or days (or never) later. Starting back toward where we both "agreed" the truck was probably at, we trudge through the new snow, hoping for some indication of a shoe print we'd left, but not seeing any. The fortunate thing for us was that we all had FRS radios with us. We were able to keep in communication with the others in our party who had already made it back to the truck. As it turned out, we arrived back at the truck, approaching from a direction that was nearly 180 degrees off from where we had thought we were. I realized then that if we'd had a GPS receiver, we could have set a waypoint at the truck and walked directly back to it at almost any given moment. That's when I decided the investment in the handheld device was not only convenient, but could potentially be a life-saver. In the long run, both "TheBoysRan" and I found that sometimes something that seems so necessary can lead to an entertaining hobby in the meantime. Even today, if I have ANY indication that a cache is located more than a few hundred feet from my truck, I place a marker on my GPS where the truck is located to help me get back to where I started "just in case".

[+wimseyguy]

Never had one before getting hooked on Geocaching. The only time I went into the woods was to look for an errant golf shot. Now-the wife is threatening to leave me; the neighbors want me to either mow the lawn or move out of the neighborhood, and the cats are starving!

(Just kidding about the stuff after the golf shot.)

 

These changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes;

Nothing remains quite the same.

Through all of the islands and all of the highlands,

If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane

[+Captain Morgan]

None of the above too so I didn't vote!

 

I bought it mainly because i needed it to record bat locations during bat investigations.

 

[+Marky]

None of the above. We bought it for mapping trails, but found the geocaching.com site the night we got it and found our first cache the next day. We haven't had much time for trail mapping since...

 

--Marky

"All of us get lost in the darkness, dreamers learn to steer with a backlit GPSr"

[+Last Lap Gang]

Too many gadgets at work and I am cheap. Have to have a "REAL" need for something before we got it. Goft from my wife at Christmas after she found out the hockey jersey she got was not that great $50 deal but the lettering alone was $50 and the whole deal was over $200. In came Mr. Garmin Etrex Venture and we have been stoked ever since!

 

Wags, Russ & Erin

[+TotemLake]

I bought mine for hiking and camping.

 

Cheers!

TL

[Morrisk & Family]

I got mine primarily for work. I'm in the military and the GPS is a very useful tool. I can still land navigate with a compass and map but the GPS is so much more fun. Not to mention quicker.

[Tahosa and Sons]

Couldn't vote, there was no category for hikers.

 

Tahosa - Dweller of Mountain Tops.

[+benjamin921]

Had it for hiking and driving.

 

[beaver96]

My first was used as a backup to my compass when backpacking. I quit carrying it because of the weight. Now I have an Etrex and I don't have time to backpack because I'm cacheing.

 

I just wanna be a cosmic cowboy. NGDB

[+Snoogans]

I bought mine to mark the spot where I want my ashes to be scattered in the Sierra Backcountry for my Will. That was 1996 and I'm still using the same Megellan 2000. Gotta get WAAS soon though.

 

Sngans

 

The greatest labor saving invention of today is tomorrow....

[+Cachier]

I bought my Yellow Etrex when they were first advertised in the hiking magazines. Then, most of my hikes were defined loop trails or out and back hikes. Geocaching gave the gadget a real purpose. Now, not only do I find caches but I can usually find my way back to the car afterward.

 

"When you find it, its always in the last place you look."

[+Confucius' Cat]

Verifying radio tower cordinates. Only problem is it is not acceptable by the FCC (they may have changed this policy recently). So you verify they are wrong and you have to pay for a survey anyway- if you really care. No one does.

 

Caint never did nothing.

GDAE, Dave

[jep]

It has batteries and that's was the argument for me to buy it. Discovered GC later on!

 

/Jesper alias Gadget lover