What compelled you to buy your GPS?

[GeoPernas]

I went to dinner with my wife and a friend of hers, and the conversation was horrible, boring chick stuff. So I'd read about geocaching on Slashdot (about a month ago), and brought it up as, "Hey, I heard about this goofy sport...". Well, we got home and wife asks me about it. She actually wants to try it out...

 

So, this is all the permission I need to buy something I'd always wanted, a mapping GPS for my car. I figured if the geocaching thing didn't work out, I'd still get great use out of my GPS V. It was a lot more fun than we thought, and plan to do a ton more after this month winds down (she's in Boston for work this week, and then my sister's wedding is this weekend! Whew!).

[dan@vaxcave.com]

Bought mine solely for geocaching (at least so far) even though our team already had one eTrex. I simply couldn't pass up a eTrex Legend for 80$ (after the Garmin 50$ rebate). This was a split second descion that I made while at a sporting goods store liquidation. I'm beginning to see what some of you are saying about wondering how we ever survived without one, I love knowing where I am on the planet all the time (withing 6 meters of course, but who's counting).

[+Snoogans]

I bought mine in 1996 to input the coords to my requested final resting place in the backcountry of the high Sierras. Instructions in my will; Scatter me at these coords N XXX W XXX in the Recess Valley.

 

It was kinda weird going back to that spot for the first couple of years. Like visiting my own grave.

 

I'm on 71 finds with that same old GPS.

 

Sngans

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

[Rockratgirl]

I'd heard about Geocaching via BookCrossing and at the beginning of the year, bored, I was looking for more details on it.

 

I loved the idea, bought a Magellan 315 on Ebay, had it delivered next day and was off to Spain for our first Geocache within 6 days of discovering the sport.

 

I'd like to say I use it for other things, but I hate to lie ...

 

Sam

 

~ Love many, trust few, learn to paddle your own Canoe ~

 

~ We can't run away for ever ... but theres nothing wrong with getting a good head start ~

[+GOT GPS?]

Saw a GPS at an Army/Navy surplus store in 1997, and bought a 12 channel Magellan 4000XL in 1998. Never really got usefull, until I bought a Garmin GPS III in 1999 for Waypoints and tracklogging, and hooking up to a computer. Became even more fun to use after May 2, 2000, when SA was turned off.

 

Found out about Geocaching in May 2001, when finding all possible uses for GPS, for my Webpage listed here bellow.

 

Now I get my exercise, tracing out all the streets like this:

 

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

My Old posts as Geoffrey

My Current Post as GOT GPS?

My profile

My Home Page about what is GPS

[Astropilot]

I bought mine (a Garmin GPSmap 195) for use while flying. Needless to say, this unit was loaded with a basemap of the United States as well as all of the current avaition data;(airports, navaids, intersections, GPS Approachs, andairport information.

 

For several years I used it almost exclusivly for airnavigation. One year I decided to take the GPSr with me on vacation to the east coast. It proved to be of as much help on the road as in the air. We got lost returning to the resort, so I just fired up the GPS and 'back tracked' from our current position back. It worked like a charm.

 

I've also taken the unit with me on a cruise ship. It was great knowing where the ship was at anytime, and to be able to track our voyage.

 

Just lately, I got into geocaching, Once again the 195 is proving to be an outstanding, if somewhat bulky, unit leading to the caches I've found so far. The unit regularly shows EPEs of 20 feet or less, even under heavy tree cover.

 

But the real reason I bought the GPS was for air navigation. The rest of it's uses to date are just icing on the cake.

 

Good enough... Never is!!

[+rusty_da_dog]

Well, I bought mine simply for geocaching. I read an article in the newspaper one Sunday, decided I had to have one.Went to Ebay found a Mag 315 for a good price, and got it on the way. I was caching inside of a week. Now over 100 finds later the 315 is still going strong, but I am trying to convince my wife I need to upgrade to Platinum.

Thanks,

Rusty

 

RW Da Man!!!

CHS#1

[+Kite and Hawkeye]

I did a no-gps-required cache, which whet my appetite. Even $100 was a fairly large chunk of change to me, so I dawdled on buying the actual GPS, but then a cache appeared at the county fair. Commercial cache? Temporary cache? Whatever, it got me to get my eTrex. I ended up unable to FIND the cache, because it was a cleverly hidden micro and I was a newbie, but in the year since then we've found plenty. I wistfully wanted to place a commemorative cache at the fair again, but I know it wouldn't be approved :/. (Last year's fair cache was moved nearby but offsite after the fair was over, and we got to log a find on it there.)

[+bthomas]

I was driving the the desert basin ranges behind Mono Lake, just in Nevada. I have a good sense of direction, but about 30-40 minutes beyond the pavement I got that strange yet unfamiliar feeling of wondering if I missed a turn. Stopped the vehicle and climbed on the roof to look over the sagebrush. About 80 feet away was the back track to Aurora.

 

Thought I could do better than 80 ft, so I used my REI dividend on an eTrex. What a marvel, to be accurate within 10 feet! And from the manufacterer's website, I found geocaching.com!

[+Lefty Writer]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jtice:

Well, basically, Im a complete techno junky, who loves to get his hands on any electronic device. I had no REAL reason or use for getting it, besides, I just had too. I always wanted one sence the first time I heard about them.<snip>

---

 

Well said, jtice, well said!! I bought my first GPS (Magellan 315) in Jan '00 just because I could, and they were kinda cool. Some of my skydiver/pilot friends used theirs to determine and adjust the best "spot" for the days jumping. It was (and still is) fun to plot locations just for the sake of plotting them, building road trip routes, etc. I really didn't hear about geocaching until just a few months ago. I just stumbled onto the site from another link and thought, "hmmm, looks pretty cool..."

 

And how ironic.....

 

Back in my cadet days at Texas A&I, and then in my basic course at Ft. Sill, I hatedland nav! (dismounted land nav)

 

Couldn't stand it! [homer simpson best whining voice]Stupid lensatic compass and map with my stupid protractor that got creased down the middle because I stuffed a stupid MRE bag over it, going through all that brush trying to find a stupid stake with these stupid letters on them and then doing a stupid "walking resection" to my next stupid set of stakes! [/homer simpson best whining voice]

 

OTOH, mountedland nav was fun! At Ft. Sill, a bunch of us would pile into an air conditioned van and following along on our topo maps. The instructor would periodically stop the van and pick a student to quickly give him an 8 digit coordinate of where we were. Easier said than done, because he was really into the history of the post and kept pointing out interesting land marks..."Now off to the left is Medicine Bluffs...that third peak from the left is where Geronimo rode his horse off of while trying to escape from the cavalry." Now, who could follow along on the map with that going on? LOL

 

Now contrast that with tramping around in the woods looking for tupperware laden with ??? Now thisis fun! And having a Magellan SporTrak Pro makes it even more fun. And looking back on it, it's good to have basic land nav skills using map and compass, terrain association....

 

P

 

carpe cerevisi

 

[+elmo-fried]

I bought mine so I could go War Driving with Netstumbler. Found a couple hundred APs (80% or so of them wide open) and then a friend told me about GeoCaching. Geocaching is much more fun, IMHO, but there is no reason one cannot go wardriving while en route to a cache ;-)'

 

Jason Roysdon

jason.roysdon.net

[+Spzzmoose]

I got mine for free (well...almost) from the Marlboro catalog. Yes, I'm a dirty rotten scum sucking, bottom feeding smoker (trying to quit). I had a bunch of miles (coupons) saved up and I had to use them up as they expire in August. I saw the yellow etrex in the catalog and having so many spare miles, I decided to get one. When it was delivered, I did a google search on gpsr and found this website! The rest is history!

PS. I was saving my miles for the iron lung but I knew I never get the required amount!!

[+GEO*Trailblazer 1]

To make a long story short.Just after Desert Storm,Dad bought Grandpa one because Grandpa kept getting lost in the Ozarks on his Horse.Well that was one of them newfangled Gizmo's that them Techies have said Grandpa,I do not even know how to turn it on,here Sonny you take it and learn how to use it then you can teach me...Ok Grandpa I said.Well 10 years or so later I finally got Grandpa to sell me the Magellan 2000,that I borrowed and borrowed and borrowed from Ole Grandpa,And he still don't understand it.It was quite the Challenge.I was Hunting Benchmarks and my own kind of Treasures(Township Corners)and other Old Set Stones throughout the Country that I had Stumbled across well this could go on forever.......Help I am Addicted to GPS.

 

THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL IN THE FOREST DOES NOT EVEN LIVE THERE*********WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS*GEOTRYAGAIN **1803-2003 "LOUSIANA PURCHASE" 200TH ANNIVERSARY AND THE "LEWIS AND CLARK EXPADITION" http://lewisclark.goeg.missouri.edu http://www.lapurchase.org http://www.msnusers.com/MissouriTrails

[+TotemLake]

These are really cool stories!

 

Keep them coming!

 

Cheers!

TL

[+vamelungeon]

Having gotten lost in a woods/swamp/bayou area while hunting, I became a believer in compasses and maps and actually using them in the woods. I have always loved maps and have quite a collection of all kinds, and got a GPSr as soon as I could afford one, and have used it in the car and out in the forest hiking, hunting (finding treestands in the dark is tough), canoeing,etc. I even used it as a speedometer when the one in my car went bad, and when my son had his Learner's Permit (I could monitor his speed from the passenger seat without leaning over). I read about geocaching and this is one really fun activity, and yet another excuse to be outside.

[katybird]

About a week ago, I saw "geocaching" mentioned on wheresgeorge. I asked what it meant, and someone told me "Oh, these people like to hide stuff and use gps devices to find them." I think my first reaction was "Oh, well, I don't have a gps device." But, the whole idea must have stuck in my head, because a day or so later, I was looking for stuff to surg and thought I'd do a Yahoo on "geocaching" - it lead me here. When I read the media articles, I thought "That sounds fun - but I don't have a gps gizmo." Then, I read the newbie FAQ, which said that you can get a perfectly appropriate unit for about $100. I thought "Hey, I can afford exactly that much!" I got ALL fired up about starting ASAP!!! I read a bit of the forum, learned that the Yellow Etrex would absolutely suit me, and ordered it - probably about two hours after first logging on to this site.

 

I've been telling people how much fun I had yesterday, finding my first two caches (I am proud of myself for getting out there, looking, within an hour of tearing open the box!) I've noticed that most people just look perplexed, but some people get VERY interested and you can just tell they're hearing the same bells I did when I first heard about this sport.

[+Sluggo]

As I was reading this thread I kept thinking; “Why isn’t this getting Markwelled?” Then it hit me… We all love to tell each other about how/why we do this stuff and how/why we bought a GPSr is part of that story. So here’s mine:

 

Shortly after I arrived on Terra (Earth to you guys) from Trafalmadore, I decided I needed to learn to fly airplanes. Partly because it’s the only almost civilized transportation method on this planet (by Trafalmadorian standards) and partly because I could learn Terrian .. err Earth navigation. The primitive methods of navigation that Earth-Pilots learn was very boring to me and hence I wasn’t very good at it. I was spoiled by the Trafalmadorian Blearkertz System (TBS) that we use on Trafalmadore. Everyone (whether a pilot or not) on Trafalmadore is issued a TBS unit at birth. The TBS tells us where we are in six dimensions of the space-time continuum (even insides flangores (buildings) and under aqrufftulds (water or oceans)).

 

So in 1996, I bought a Garmin GPS III Pilot to use when flying. It was crude when compared to a TBS but it was easier that Pilotage or Dead-Reckoning. I also used it in my automobile. I told a (human) friend how handy it was when driving and convinced him that he should get one too. He asked me to help him find a good/cheap one so in May of 2001 I started searching the Internet to find him a good/cheap GPSr. (Boy! I wish I could get a TBS on the Internet). While searching, I stumbled across Project APE and then to geocaching.com. The rest, as you humans say, is history.

 

When I explained what I had learned about geocaching to Sugar, she looked up from the parceldfeld (book) she was reading and said simply; “Why?” Now please understand, Sugar is not entirely human and sometimes she has to have everything explained to her several times, or better still (since all partial-breed humans (I think you call them “Women or Females”)) are kinesthetic learners it helps to just show them and let them try it. So we took a trip to the nearest geocache, and she was hooked. Now we geocache as often as we can.

 

A few months ago, I finally got my arc meinoc check (sort of like per diem) from Trafalmadore and I bought a Garmin gpsMAP 76S. It works much better for geocaching that the old III Pilot did.

 

So that’s my story, I hope I don’t get Markwelled. My biggest problem is trying to figure out what I’m going to do to satisfy my geocaching addiction when I go back to Trafalmadore. Maybe I can dream up a game where you find blinums that have been hidden in 4-demensional space at a certain time using a TBS. uhmmm… I wonder how the Cretchnaw Service Rangers would feel about losing a little Time/space bandwidth to a really small blinum left unattended for just a epoch or two….

 

 

This 'flying saucer' situation is not at all imaginary or seeing too much in some natural phenomena. Something is really flying around. The phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious. - Gen. Nathan Twining Chief of Staff, US Air Force, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

 

[This message was edited by Sluggo on July 04, 2003 at 03:12 PM.]

[solohiker]

I am a control freak.

 

Blah, blah, blah,

 

Then geocaching came along.

[Yesterday_87]

I was doing Wheres George, when I saw a listing to Geobills. For some reason they separate GeoGeorge from the others. There was no caches in my area at the time so I did benchmarks, then I moved to a more cache rich area. But for time I had no GPS, I had Oziexplorer and with internet search was printing out topo and airel map, There only been two caches I could not find with maps.

 

V oryvir va lrfgreqnl

[+walkietalkie]

I'm using my SO's old Garmin 11. He used it when he was a commercial gillnetter. He also uses it for hunting. I use it solely for geocaching. Will upgrade as soon as I can and give him his Garmin 2 back

[straydog]

I bought one about 7 years ago because I thought it was a neat idea. It was a Magellen GPS2000 - no frills whatsoever. Well, for one reason or another, I got busy and it got buried. I took it out again and started using it for my many motorcycle trips on the back roads of florida. It worked pretty well at keeping me from getting lost. The fact that it did not have a map, however, made it inconvenient.

 

In a search for a newer model with mapping capability, I stumbled upon this site (via a link from somewhere I can't remember). The idea of a world wide treasure hunt appeals to the adventurer in me, and the electronic gadgetry really interests me also.

 

I confess, I haven't been out yet for my first hunt, but have spent quite a bit of time getting to know the Meriplat I bought as well as monitoring the goings on here. I am looking forward to my first cache. I may and hit one when I'm out and about dodging gators on the back roads.

[+ErSamin]

I had heard about geocaching, but it was not until my husband actually won a GPSr at a computer geek convention that I got one and started my addiction.

 

Now another GPSr, cables, mounts, software geoswag, hiking equipment, PDA, etc. later, the free GPSr has actually cost us quite a bit!

 

"Could be worse...could be raining"

[+TeamBoonieHat]

I got mine while my National Guard unit was mobilizing to go to Iraq. The unit was short on PLGR's ( military GPSr) so quite a few of the guys in my unit purchased civilian models. Long story short, we didn't make it to Iraq but I discovered Geocaching shortly after returning home. It's more fun finding caches than trying to locate where my soldiers are.

[+graewulf]

quote:

---

Originally posted by TotemLake:

What I'm looking for is the real reason you even considered buying the GPS? What made you think... I wish I had one right now?

 

Was it survivalism?

Was it finding your way in?

Was it finding your way back out?

 

What's your story?

Cheers!

TL

---

 

I bought mine because I go off-road quite a bit and did not want to get lost.... i discovered geocaching by accident while researching what allt he GPS terms meant. Now I'm hooked.

[+junglehair]

Funny thing for me is that I don't remember when I first heard of geocaching. I have always had an interest in GPS - even back in the SA days. I probably learned about geocaching shortly after it started, but couldn't afford the GPS at that time. It was always in the back of my mind though, and had been thinking about a Garmin 12 or a Magellan 315. I was leaning more towards the Garmin since I had read somewhere that they were a bit more rugged.

 

Then in December 2001, a friend of mine was asking about GPS units because she wanted to buy one for her 16 year old son for Christmas. He was taking a GIS class in high school and really enjoyed it. I told her that Garmin and Magellan were the most common brands for recreational grade GPS, and told her to let him know about geocaching.com after he gets his present.

 

I was so jealous - here was a kid with a GPS and I still didn't own one. I started researching the latest models available and found the eTrex line. I liked the fact that the Legend had roads as a basemap - figured that could come in handy since I seem to get lost frequently. At that time, they were selling for around $250 - still kind of pricey.

 

I kept my eye on eBay to see if I could pick up a used one for cheap, but didn't have much luck. The used ones were going for almost as much as the new ones - sometimes more! Finally, I found a deal where I could get the eTrex Legend for $150 so I ordered it. As soon as I received it in the mail, I was out geocaching (March 31, 2002) and am still going strong!

 

In fact, this spring, I ordered a new Legend off Amazon.com since they were selling for $139 after rebate. I gave my old one to my mom who is now hooked on geocaching too.

 

-Junglehair

 

I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.

[+despot&smitten]

I first heard about geocaching from Fred Anderson's personal site, www.vituperation.com Fred used to be www.onefatman.com but since losing over 200 lbs, changed his address.

 

As soon as I read about geocaching - a lightbulb when on over my head. Wow! I thought. If I had a GPS, I too could run around in the wilderness searching for hidden treasure! Kewwwwwl! The rest, as they say, is history. I bought a Garmin E-trex from a pawn shop a couple of weeks later, and never looked back. Yah... never ''looked'' back, that is. I've had to use the track-back feature a couple of times to find my way home though!

[+gt40]

quote:

---

Originally posted by TotemLake:

What I'm looking for is the real reason you even considered buying the GPS? What made you think... I wish I had one right now?

 

Was it survivalism?

Was it finding your way in?

Was it finding your way back out?

 

What's your story?

---

I got into the whole GPSr thing kind of oddly.

 

I'm a software engineer. Back in 1996 or so, a friend of mine started his own company to create navigation systems for General Aviation aircraft. His navigation system was based on using several GPSr's onboard the aircraft (one on each wingtip, one in the cockpit, and on in the tail.) He needed a software engineer to write code to interface with the GPSr's and write custom database code, so he called me.

 

For prototyping, we used a GPS-III Pilot -- a really nice unit at the time.)

 

Selective availability gave us fits - one of the reasons we used 4 receivers, and even then altitude data was crap.

 

The prototype software was really impressive. You'd look at at the display and it looked just like a flight simulator, with the terrain displayed (from USGS DTM data,) roads (from USGS DLG data,) restricted airspace (from the FAA) and airports (from the FAA). It was surreal, driving around the Rockies (prototyping was done in a car,) and looking at the computer, and seeing exactly the same thing as was was out the windshield.

 

-- Robert

 

"I drank WHAT?!?" -- Socrates

[Coast Guard Kiteman]

EXTREMELY *late* reply: I was given my GPS by my daughter a couple of years ago. HOWEVER, a couple of years before that I took a long-weekend trip to Pennsylvania from here in North Carolina, to do some camping in a state park, & see some friends. I arrived late - having left home later than planned - but when I unpacked my tent from my truck I discovered that I HAD LEFT ALL BUT FOUR OF MY TENT STAKES BACK HOME IN MY GARAGE. My tent is a Coleman “Sundome” that cannot be fully erected without all its stakes.

 

I was ALREADY exhausted, but had to get back in the truck, go find a store, & buy MORE STAKES. It took at least a couple of hours because I was in a rural-ish area I had never been to before, but I FINALLY found a Walmart & purchased more stakes. I returned to the campground LATE, erected the tent, & *crashed* for the night.

 

IF I had my GPS *then*, finding the Walmart & buying the stakes would have just been a minor inconvenience....

 

BTW - to add insult to injury - during the drive to Pennsylvania, I stopped at a Walmart enroute to purchase a rain poncho. I had either lost mine, or forgotten to bring it, and they are cheap. As I was going through the store, I passed a display of tent stakes identical to the ones I had. I remember thinking something like, 'I do not need to buy any of THOSE, because I have A WHOLE BUNCH IN THE BACK OF MY PICKUP ALREADY!'

 

{Yes, I REALLY remember thinking that...<g>}

[+Chief301]

Holy thread resurrection!

 

Me, I just like gadgets. The whole Boy Scout "Be Prepared" thing. I'm the kind of guy, if I'm going to get into a new activity, I'm gonna use it as an excuse to outfit myself with all the appropriate kit 😎

[+GrateBear]

When I first heard about GPS units, I was really intrigued and just had to get one. So, bought a Magellan Roadmate for the car and had a great time with it. Shortly after, there was an article in the RedEye (an offspring of the Chicago Tribune, free all over town, easy to pick up at L stations for the ride to work in the Loop) about geocaching. Thought that was really interesting and bought a Garmin Legend Cx. Biked all over Chicago, seeing sights I never would have seen in a car, and it's been constant ever since.

[+BAMBOOZLE]

I read an article about geocaching, complete with pictures , in the Living section of the paper. It was love at first sight so I ran out and bought a yellow Etrex. It wasn't long before my wife and I were both using Magellan Platinum's with detail maps and 3 axis pointers......today, I can't recall how many units I own but we both now use 62S units.

[+edscott]

So I could find the easiest route home after a long day of caching.

[+Fugads]

I bought a GPSr after a harrowing search and rescue mission that I was part of, where GPS navigation played a big part. We were trying to reach two girls stuck on a rocky ledge, after dark, in a storm, and in an unfamiliar mountain range. The guy I was teamed with had a GPSmap 60cs, and it was our only aid to figuring out where we were moving that night, through a seeming maze of rocky spires and ridges. The mission ended on a good note, we got the girls off the mountain and they were airlifted to a hospital in the nick of time (both being severly hypothermic). The whole thing is one of my proudest achievements (maybe common place for you folks in the business of saving lives though?). Here's a News Story Link. A few months after the rescue, with REI dividend in hand, I got my first (and current) GPSr, a 60cs. I took up geocaching at first to learn how to use the thing, but then simply for the fun of exploring all the mountainous areas around where I am living. Almost a year later, I went back to that mountain range where the rescue occurred, to retrace my steps during the day. I even placed a multi-cache along the route, GC36RPV.

A poor cell-phone image taken of me climbing up to the subjects

Edited March 10, 2014 by Fugads

[Clan Riffster]

My wife made me buy one after I got lost and spent the night in the Ocala National Forest during archery season. It was some sort of Garmin. I don't remember which one. I nicknamed it 'The Brick', as that adequately describes its size, weight and accuracy. To date, it's the only GPSr I've ever seen which stops conting down distance at 0.1 mile. I guess back then they figured 528' was close enough. Incidentally, as far as I know, it still works. At least it did when I put it away after buying a better one.

[+etphoneme2plz]

Got my GPS for my birthday last year cuz I don't own a smart phone and I wanted to play too!!!

[+OlderNDirt49]

Interesting resurrected thread, so I'll join in. Keep in mind, this is from an "old school" guy....I'm talking about slide rules, party lines, and full service gas stations.

 

I had no idea what GPS was until we bought a new car with On-star service, free for 3 months, then about #30 a month for full service. It was nice during trial, but got to thinking at the price of service, I could buy a GPS unit for less then a years worth of service, so went looking. Then remembered a story I had seen about this geocaching thing that had sounded rather interesting. But would that or car navigation be something I would really do/use or was it just an intriguing possibility?

 

So my research began, could I find a GPS unit that would let me try both with reasonably good results? You know, not wanting to get something that would be so limited as to kill the interest in both uses. My research led me to the Garmin Nuvi 500, a unit with full auto navigation and full paperless caching. I waited for the right deal to come along and took the plunge and eagerly tracked the shipment until its arrival. What an exciting early spring Christmas that day was!

 

I'll admit, it took some time for this "beginner" to figure out how to use this gem for either navigation or geocaching, but I finally figured out how to get a couple geocaches on it and navigate to the cache, change to off road walking mode (that one did take some time), and make that first find. But I was hooked on the hobby. Unfortunately, I spent more time in the next month figuring out how to get a bunch of geocaches into the unit, using other on-line services, and logging my finds. But soon had it serviceably figured out. I was now feeling like a true geocacher and purchased a nuvi 2455 for the car so the nuvi 500 would always be available for my adventure days (yes, the wife has now decided by now that the car navigation was necessary for her shopping trips).

 

All was well for a few years, but then I started to question the ability of the 500 when the dnf's started to equal and surpass the finds. Being very rural, a geo trip would require traveling 20 to 50 miles (depending on which direction I headed) to hunt the first cache. Nothing more frustrating to travel that far and have to dnf 3 of the first 4 hunts. So my geocaching attempts severely declined to next to none for a couple years.

 

Getting the bug back this spring, I pulled out the 500 and got it updated and ready to go, only to find out it was on it way to GPSr heaven. Garmin gave me some very reasonable options to replace the unit, so went back to researching my choices. So now, I have a nice, new nuvi 3597 (great navigation unit btq) for traveling, the nuvi 2455 for traveling on geocaching trips, and an Oregon 650t for the hunt when I get there. I have a lot to learn about the 650t, but have had the chance to give it a test and like what I am seeing so far.

 

So here I sit on this cold, windy, wet day anxiously awaiting some reasonable weather to get out there and have some fun. Yes, there are going to be the dnf's, but faith in the GPSr should be a thing of the past. Only thing I am going to miss is seeing geocaches, both found and unfound on the screen of the 2455 as I travel the roads, but that is a small price to pay.

[Coast Guard Kiteman]

Holy thread resurrection!

 

I did the same thing in the "Kite Flying Cache Has it been done before?" thread....

[+jellis]

Friend in a carpool talked about how he was almost arrested (handcuffed) when a paranoid neighbor was thinking he was going to burglerize his home by climbing a 10 foot fence. When he was only looking for a cache on a cyclone fence(not climbing) that separates the property from a canal trail. I got curious on what kind of game this was. I looked up geocaching, read what I needed and went out and bought first a Lowrence. I had to manually enter all the coords in, had no real maps and no auto-routing. I had to print out the cache pages and write down my directions from one cache to the next. Later after I became a Premium Member and found that I could get PQs, Notifications and from another friend a better GPS with maps that I could upload the PQs, get auto-routing and better reception under trees. That GPS was a Garmin 60CSX. I may not have the same machine but stuck with only the 60CSX model ever since.

[+pkohler01]

I got my first handheld GPS in the mid-to-late 1990's. Anyway, I had a group of friends at college who were all into what they called "waypointing" - literally one of them would set a waypoint to some place cool and pass the coordinates on to the rest of them. The result was the 30+ people in this club were going all over the place seeing the same vistas and visiting the same places as everyone else. It was fun.

 

So years passed. We all grew up and moved on to careers, families, whatever. I wound up getting a new GPS and going around to various sites - waypoints, as I still think of them, but I guess they're qualified as waymarks, earthcaches, virtualcaches, etc these days (I dont much care of most of the distinction and wish they were all visible on the geocaching map, maybe as different layers or whatever). So I lurked for a while, basically just collecting coordinates and visiting.

 

I stumbled upon my first geocache around that time. By accident. I was photographing a critter near a tree and spotted wha I thought looked like a fake rock. Sure enough, it was. Of course I opened it up and checked everything out in it - I may even have signed the log, I dont remember. But I put it all back together and still didnt look into geocaching. I would up finding my second geocache late in 2013 at a rest stop in either Indiana or Ohio. Again, by accident. That's when I got really curious.

 

Anywho, I wound up actually getting involved with the community only like 60 days ago and only just last night started marking off the waymarks I've hit (it's going to take a while, I have everything stores in Excel dating back years and years).

 

So last month, after walking around in circles, I decided to both upgrade my smartphone and get a new handheld GPS. I didn't feel like reading reviews or whatever so I just bought one that looked cool and was around the $200 mark - I got the Garmin something 62... GPSMap? GPS Go? Whatever. Anyway, it's snazzy and has some yellow bits on it mixed with the grey in a way that makes it look confident and official.

 

As for what that original GPS was back in the 90's, it was black and had the brand written in white, and cost somewhere around $150. I went to a store chain that's now out of business, Caldor, and bought it there so that I could participate in this club thing and also for use with an internship I held with the US Dep't of Interior.

 

Interesting thread. I've been really enjoying reading everyone's stories.

[+DanOCan]

For me it was the summer of 2003, or right around the time this thread died the first time. A friend of mine had bought a GPSr and hooked it to his laptop (serial cable in those days!) and showed me how he could see his car's position plotted in Streets and Trips. I thought that was super cool and I wanted to be able to do that on vacations so that was my motivation for buying a GPSr.

 

I figured my [now ex] wife would never go for such a thing so, having heard about Geocaching from somewhere, I convinced her a GPSr would be useful for caching and motivate me to go for walks like she was always wanting to do. She agreed so in December of 2003 I bought an eTrex Legend and a caching addict was born.

[+MI_CO]

I wanted to buy one, ever since moving to this God-forsaken state that does not even have a mountain range to tell you which way is west.

 

Geocaching just gave me the excuse to get it by the wife, since it would be exercise and will maybe reduce my extra weight......

 

DustyJacket

Not all those that wander are lost. But in my case... <!--graemlin:-->

 

Hysterical! I moved to the Denver area three years ago. Both my sister and a good friend, who are both really, really bad with directions, always get lost and I know when either one ventures out on their own to the store or whatever, a phone call is coming. I ask them:

 

Are the mountains on your right? You are going south.

Are the mountains on your left? You are going north.

Are you looking at the mountains? You are going west.

Are the mountains in your rear view mirror? You are going east.

[+MI_CO]

Now for the reason for my GPS.

 

Back in 2008, I worked for an exclusive IT consulting firm. 2008 was the company's 30th anniversary. As a 'thank you,' everyone who was US-based received a GPS unit as a gift, as opposed to the usual anniversary gift, like a jacket, shirt, or desk clock.

 

I told my brother what the awesome gift was, and he said, "You could go geocaching." He never geocached, but some of the guys he worked with were fans so he was familiar with it. Well, I did an internet search, found the Geocaching website, and have caching ever since.

 

The original GPS I received was for urban use and driving directions and not particularly well suited for geocaching. After deciding I liked caching, I bought a Garmin Venture HC to take out in the woods. I still have the bright yellow Venture HC and use it today. Just when I was thinking about upgrading my GPS to a more sophisticated unit, smart phones were introduced, and I now use both my phone for driving directions, maps, and the GPS to find the cache once I have arrived at my destination. I definitely need both since I do a lot of caching were cell service is not available.

 

I use my little Venture all the time and take it with whenever I venture out in the wild, even if it is a groomed nature trail, if for nothing else, to make the location of my car!