Lawana Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 Hey, I'm in Atlanta. Been caching for about 6 months. I want to go paperless but need to find the least expensive way to do it. Any idea of where and what to look for as far as a pocket pc would go? Anyone selling? Where can I find cheap? What brand or model will do me fine? Yada, yada... Thanks, Lawana Quote Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 Pretty much anything they sell would work. If you are not going to do anything but geocache with it get a cheap Dell Axim. Good battery life. There might be something else with more battery life but a long cache day can use up your batteries. Now if you had more of an idea what you wanted to do with it outside geocaching we could probably narrow it down more for you. Quote Link to comment
+CacheCreatures Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 While I agree that the Axim is a great choice for PL caching, I'd ask why you preface it with the "only for caching" label RK? I use mine for work and love it. Yeah it is huge (X5) but because of that I seem to treat it with more respect and thus it seems not to get broken. All my smallish toys seem to disappear or break right away. Anyway, I'd have to vote for the Axim. I've got the extended battery and it will last all day. Also, pop on over to the GPS Units and Software board. Lotsa good info there. Quote Link to comment
+mtn-man Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 Hi Lawana. Welcome to Geocaching in Georgia! At our GA Geocachers Assn (GGA) meeting next month we are going to discuss paperless geocaching at great length. Our meeting will be Valentines Day, February 14th. I know that may be a bad day, but our meetings are always on the second Saturday. We would LOVE to have you come to one of our meetings. This one will be timely. We have some information on our GGA web site at www.ggaonline.org but it is outdated. I am going to be updating that information over the next week or so. Feel free to visit our web site and look in the "Resources" section and click on "Geocaching Docs". While at the meeting you can see the different programs used for paperless caching first hand and use them on some of the GGA member's PDA's. We hope to see you there! Quote Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 ... I'd ask why you preface it with the "only for caching" label RK? ... They are inexpensive. Which if you have no other criteria like the camera built into the Viewsonic is a good way to sort out which one to get. Chalk it up to a poor choice of words. I've got a iPAQ 3970 and my wife has a Dell. The Dell was cheaper, has longer battery life, has always worked flawleslly. I can't say the same thing for the iPAQ. Quote Link to comment
+CacheCreatures Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 Ahh gotcha! Yeah I saw that ViewSonic just today. Neat idea, although I wonder about the execution. We're getting close, but not there yet. Glad to hear you and I agree about the Axim. Don't know how Dell pulled it off, but for the money it's really hard to beat. Quote Link to comment
Lawana Posted January 14, 2004 Author Share Posted January 14, 2004 Thanks for the welcome mnt-man. I was at January's meeting ar REI. I' hoping to have something going by Febuary's meeting so I can actually learn something. BTW, where/when are the GPS classes you were talking about? Quote Link to comment
+mtn-man Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 The GPS classes will be at the REI perimeter and I-85 locations on this Thursday, January 15 and at the Mall of Georgia location on January 22. We will be teaching basic GPS usage for the REI stores. We have done this for the local REI stores for the past couple of years several times. We will not be talking about paperless geocaching until February 14. There will be many types of PDA models at that meeting I'm sure. You could get a look at standard and color screens and different PDA's with different memory capacity, etc. I saw your post on the meeting page after I wrote my post above. There were so many people there that I just could not meet everyone. Next time we need to get more room! The February meeting geocaching page will be posted in a few days so stay tuned! Quote Link to comment
+artvandelay Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 I bought the Viewsonic after Xmas and It works great. Right now there is a 100 dollar rebate at Staples. I use Gps sonar It is great and free. Quote Link to comment
+SamLowrey Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 (edited) I've got a iPAQ 3970 and my wife has a Dell. The Dell was cheaper, has longer battery life, has always worked flawleslly. Just hope you don't ever need tech support. Edited January 14, 2004 by SamLowrey Quote Link to comment
Swagger Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 Palm IIIxe: ~$30 on eBay + GPX Spinner: Free + Plucker: Free + Premium Membership on gc.com: $3/mo = Cheap paperless caching! Quote Link to comment
+briansnat Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 I think Cruzin has the right idea. Pick up a cheap Palm and get Spinner and Plucker (both are free), I have the pages for the 500 nearest caches to my home on my Palm with plenty room to spare. Quote Link to comment
+joefrog Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 Palm IIIxe: ~$30 on eBay+ GPX Spinner: Free + Plucker: Free + Premium Membership on gc.com: $3/mo = Cheap paperless caching! Ditto that amount for a palm like mine, now -- Sony Clie PEG-S360. I've had mine for 2+ years and it works great as a cache-computer! Quote Link to comment
+mtn-man Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 I agree with briansnat as well. If you want to get into it to see if it works for you then just picking one up on eBay may be a good idea. I bought the cheap yellow eTrex at first and once I saw that I loved geocaching I went out and bought a Vista. I bought the Palm130 because it was the cheapest color model and now I am thinking about buying a new PDA with wifi and such now that I see how useful the PDA is in business too. Quote Link to comment
+Fatboy Slim & Rainey Belle Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 Here in Austin, the Goodwill has a store just for computer related items. They have a stack of Palms for sale starting at $10.00. Quote Link to comment
+CTgeocacher (CTg) Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 As I am reading this thread and don't really want to start a new one...I was wondering exactly what you need to go paperless (software, etc.) and where to purchase everthing? I bought a Sony CLIÉ back in November, (model TJ25) just to keep track of appointments and the like. It works on the Palm OS 5. Is this a good enough unit to use for paperless caching? Thanks in advance for your help! Rich Quote Link to comment
+briansnat Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 (edited) I bought a Sony CLIÉ back in November, (model TJ25) just to keep track of appointments and the like. It works on the Palm OS 5. That will work fine. Now all you need are Spinner and Plucker. And here is an excellent tutorial from Cybret. Edited January 14, 2004 by briansnat Quote Link to comment
+joefrog Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 And here is an excellent tutorial from Cybret. FWIW, that tutorial from Cybret is exactly what I needed to go paperless -- it's the best I've seen! Quote Link to comment
+mtn-man Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 I use spinner and plucker too. The best thing is that they are both free as noted above. CYBret's page is indeed very good. If you get a 2.5 MB pocket query with 500 caches, spinner will convert the file to around a 1.2 MB file for your PDA. That even includes some small images like a GC.com logo and a TBug icon so you know which caches have TBugs in them. Quote Link to comment
+ZingerHead Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 I love paperless except for one leetle thing - when new caches pop up I have to wait for my next PQ before I can load up my Palm. So if I'm looking to be FTF I usually resort to the paper-ful method of caching. Can you use .loc files with GPXSpinner? If not, why can't we download GPX files from individual caches? Then life would be good. Quote Link to comment
+CTgeocacher (CTg) Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 Thanks much for the help, Brian! I'm working on it now! Rich Quote Link to comment
+briansnat Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 Oops, one more thing. You need to be a member to get the pocket query files. Quote Link to comment
+CTgeocacher (CTg) Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 I'm done! I think I'll like it!! A new one was there that I didn't get from Skydiver! That happends alot! Why?? Thanks again and yes, I'm a premium member! Rich Quote Link to comment
Lawana Posted January 15, 2004 Author Share Posted January 15, 2004 Does Spinner and Plucker work with Pocket PC as well as Palm. Quote Link to comment
+reg3 Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 We have a Jornada at work and we copy the folder created with Spinner to the CF card. No need for Plucker. Then you can create a shortcut to the index.html file, double click, and go caching. Quote Link to comment
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