+cjtj Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 I became a member to be able to support Geocaching.com and to be able to use the pocket queries. I was wondering if it would be possible to run pocket queries for Benchmarks. Sometimes a benchmark is pretty close to a cache and this would make you able to get both at the same time. Any opinions? Thanks Cliff (cjtj) Quote Link to comment
+woodsters Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 It would be nice.... Quote Link to comment
+CacheCreatures Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 (edited) 1) Go here and download all the BM data you want. 2) Use Parkrrr's BMGPX program to convert the NGS archive file you downloaded into a GPX file. 3) Now work with the GPX file like you normally would. NOTE: if you plan to use Spinner, make sure you have the absolute latest and greatest. Been using this setup for some time without any problems. By the way, I extracted this info from a few posts over on the benchmark forum. The search feature is a very powerful tool in situations like this. Good luck! edit: added links Edited March 8, 2004 by CacheCreatures Quote Link to comment
+woodsters Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 Thanks for the class CacheCreatures, but that is not what they are talking about. It would be nice to be able to do a pq of benchmarks from this site. Whether they are seperate or another box to select would be nice. At least the option of it. From here and not having to go to another site to download something and then to another program to try and incorporate it with other pq's. I don't use spinner. I have a pocket pc that has GPXview on it. All I have to do is put the emailed PQ that is sent to me in GPX format there and read it. Same as my GPS. All I need to do is to upload the PQ in GPX format to my GPS via EasyGPS. I would be nice to do a PQ here of benchmarks, like we do the caches. Quote Link to comment
+CacheCreatures Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 Thanks for the class CacheCreatures, but that is not what they are talking about. It would be nice to be able to do a pq of benchmarks from this site. Whether they are seperate or another box to select would be nice. At least the option of it. From here and not having to go to another site to download something and then to another program to try and incorporate it with other pq's. I don't use spinner. I have a pocket pc that has GPXview on it. All I have to do is put the emailed PQ that is sent to me in GPX format there and read it. Same as my GPS. All I need to do is to upload the PQ in GPX format to my GPS via EasyGPS. I would be nice to do a PQ here of benchmarks, like we do the caches. Fair enough. I too use a pocket pc, and with BMGPX it is as easy as you describe. Perhaps this might be a good interum solution for you, until the PQ's are avaiable. Quote Link to comment
+cjtj Posted March 8, 2004 Author Share Posted March 8, 2004 Thanks for the many responses, looks like it is in the works. Oh and thanks for the information CacheCreatures. Cliff (cjtj) Quote Link to comment
Wintertime Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 (edited) 1) Go here and download all the BM data you want. 2) Use Parkrrr's BMGPX program to convert the NGS archive file you downloaded into a GPX file. Although converting the NGS data sheets provides a lot more information than just the waypoint one can get from a .LOC download from Geocaching.com, it doesn't include the logs from the web site. Oftentimes, those are very helpful in finding a mark. (I get really confused by the official directions sometimes!) Bret, I'm very happy to hear that PQs are on the way! Edited March 8, 2004 by Wintertime Quote Link to comment
+gnbrotz Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 ...converting the NGS data sheets ...<snip>...doesn't include the logs from the web site. This is one of the main reasons I prefer them. In my area, there are a handfull of us who overlap search areas. I don't like their notes to spoil my hunt. Quote Link to comment
+Kordite Posted March 8, 2004 Share Posted March 8, 2004 I had the same sort of desire to have all the stuff on the website. I've come up with a solution that, while not perfect, is still pretty good. 1) Build the LOC file of benchmarks you want. 2) Use GPSBabel to convert that file to a text file using "comma separated values". 3) Open Excel to create a template. At the top, place: row 1 <HTML><HEAD> row 2 <TITLE>Benchmarks</TITLE> row 3 </HEAD><BODY> In row 4 column 1: <A HREF="http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID= In row 4 column 3: "> In row 4 column 5: </A><BR> Copy row 4 as many times as necessary and then at the bottom add: </BODY></HTML> 3) In Excel, open your created text file. The wizard should start so select Original Data Type as Delimited. On the next window select the comma as the delimiter. This will place the waypoints into their own column. 4) In your text worksheet, copy the block of waypoints into columns 2 and 4 of your template. It will look something like this: <A HREF="http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID= JV2226 "> JV2226 </A><BR> <A HREF="http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID= JV2790 "> JV2790 </A><BR> <A HREF="http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID= JV2791 "> JV2791 </A><BR> 5) Do a "Save As" and select "Save as type: Formatted Text (Space delimited)" 6) Rename the .PRN file it saves to .HTML 7) Add a new Plucker channel pointing to this new file. Make any of the appropriate adjustments concerning graphics, depth and such as you feel appropriate. 8) Synch it up on your PDA and go hunting. The only flaw with this is that it pulls all the graphics from the website including headers, banners and ads. You could change it from details.aspx to datasheet.aspx to get just the datasheet but it also grabs the waypoint name at the begining of each line which makes it a little more difficult to read. You can also use this technique for grabbing the print-friendly pages for geocaches. In row 4 column 1: <A HREF="http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?pf=y&wp= In row 4 column 3: &log=y&numlogs=5&decrypt="> In row 4 column 5: </A><BR> This way, you can create any sort of LOC of GPX file you want and still use Plucker to create nice files for your PDA. I'm planning on a 320 bike ride from Pittsburgh to Washington DC in a few months and plan on doing some geocaching and benchmarking along the way. I used the geocaching.com maps to pan across my route and grabbed the caches along the way and plugged them into a LOC file. I used the NGS map website to do the same thing for benchmarks. I have a list of about 100 waypoints that I plan to plug into the Excel file and convert. It may seem like a convoluted process but I've tested it. Once you have the templates, it takes only a few minutes to convert from a LOC or GPX file to the Plucker output to load on your PDA. Again, it's not ideal, but it's better than trying to splice a dozen counties of benchmarks and as many pocket queries into a single GPX file that has 10 times as much data as you really need. Hope this helps. Quote Link to comment
robertlipe Posted March 9, 2004 Share Posted March 9, 2004 Uuuuh, that looks like a good job for a computer. If you choose "Streets and Trips" format from GPSBabel, you'll get something that Excel will allegedly slurp up that contains the link for you. It doesn't contain the anchor tags, though. I'd be suprised if modern Excel (which I don't own) won't "linkify" them anyway. Regardless, I could probably be bribed to add "urlstrip" and "urltrailer" to compliment the existing "urlbase" suboption that could totally automate this without the use of external tools like Excel. It wouldn't be pretty, but it's the kind of thing you can stick in a batch file and just drag-n-drop to it so it's not like it's something you'd have to do by hand every time... Let the bidding begin! Quote Link to comment
+tanstaafl Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 I don't have a high-speed internet connection so I am unwilling to test this theory. You should be able to use PLucker Desktop to create a file, directly from the GC.com BM search page for putting "cache" pages on a PDA. With the info above about downloading .loc file you'll be paperless hunting BM's in no time. I went totally paperless for my traditional caches and haven't looked back. Quote Link to comment
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