(very) Low End Units?

[+sjalex76]

I am wondering if anyone else is using a really low-end unit to do geocaching? All I have is a "GPS enabled" Nextel (motorola) i205 phone. I expect I will need to get myself a compass to go with it, but so far I have had moderate success with dead reckoning (:

 

This phone just gives you raw coordinates and an estimate of accuracy, no waypoints or direction or map or anything else. Anyone else use a similar "setup"?

 

Cheers,

 

Stephen

[+Marky]

That's pretty cool. I haven't heard of anyone else doing that. I wonder if you could write a small java app that could draw a compass screen and allow you to enter a waypoint. Can you browse the web and enter your find logs from the phone as well?

 

--Marky

[+EScout]

Can you send the data to a PDA? If there is a data cable and you can connect it to even a basic PDA, you might have all you need.

[+Prime Suspect]

I am wondering if anyone else is using a really low-end unit to do geocaching? All I have is a "GPS enabled" Nextel (motorola) i205 phone. I expect I will need to get myself a compass to go with it, but so far I have had moderate success with dead reckoning (:

 

This phone just gives you raw coordinates and an estimate of accuracy, no waypoints or direction or map or anything else. Anyone else use a similar "setup"?

 

Cheers,

 

Stephen

Are you talking about a full-blown GPS, or just a phone with the e911 GPS chip? The specs on those chips are laughable. To meet the specified requirements, all they have to do is determine your location to within 410 feet (which is pretty bad), and it only has to be able to do that about 2/3rds of the time (which is really bad). Basically, all it has to do is locate you to within a city block, most of the time.

[+sjalex76]

well if I could afford a PDA I would probably just buy a real GPS, but the phone isn't just the e911 chip, it's real GPS but it's limited in functionality. I get by well so far, and it's an interesting challenge to use this thing especially without a compass.

 

Really I just wanted to know if anyone else was going low-end.

 

Cheers,

 

Stephen

[+sjalex76]

FWIW the phone doesn't do java and I don't have web access, so I guess I will continue roughing it.

 

Cheers,

 

Stephen

[+leatherman]

(motorola) i205 phone. This phone just gives you raw coordinates and an estimate of accuracy, no waypoints or direction or map or anything else. Anyone else use a similar "setup"?

I just met NBJPoppa the other day. I thought it was ingenious that he was using a Motorola just like that.

He has been teased by a local for not having a real GPSr. However how can you knock someone with 224 finds with a phone?

[+Cherokeecacher]

That's pretty cool.  I haven't heard of anyone else doing that.  I wonder if you could write a small java app that could draw a compass screen and allow you to enter a waypoint.  Can you browse the web and enter your find logs from the phone as well? 

 

--Marky

Any web-enabled phone will let you go to

 

http://www.rtr.ca/geo#start

 

OR

 

http://gdbclub.org/cgi-bin/gc/mobile.cgi

 

both are low bandwidth and can be used on many web-phones. I keep both of them on my phone because they each allow you to do different things. Click on the links and try them out. Yes, one of them will let you log your finds.

[+NBJPoppa]

Wow! This is way cool!

 

OK, so this will be my first post in the forums, as I couldn't seem to get my account to work until today.

 

As Leatherman pointed out I've been using my NextTel i58sr phone to do my geocaching. Someone else commented about the "dead reckoning" issue. With the phone GPS I have to ask the phone to figure out where I am currently, and then I have to determine which way to go to get closer to the cache. A couple of problems show up with this approach. The first problem (which I don't have happen too often) is I may get confused as to which way is North. Sometimes I'll head 90 degrees away from the direction I *think* I am going, and may not realize that the wrong coordinate is changing. (Duh...) I cannot seem to remember to bring my old Boy Scouts of America compass with me on a regular basis, either.

 

A second problem occurs more frequently, and that has to do with reception. Apparently when a "real" GPSr unit is turned on it is in constant contact with the satellites to keep track of its position. My guess is that this "constant lock" help when you get into tree cover. With the cell phone, well, it seems to search for any satellites every time I ask "where am I?" This is especially true if I haven't asked for several minutes, but under tree cover it can get *really* bad. In cases like these I'll look for a clearing South or North of the cache to determine the position of the West coordinate, and East/West to determine the position of the North coordinate, and draw an intersection of those in my mind. Sometimes this works really well, and other times it doesn't.

 

Probably the worst problem I have with the phone is poor short-term memory. [] See, the cell phone doesn't have the ability to store any data about a cache. As a result I used to always bring a printed cache data sheet with me so that I would be able to refer to it for the correct coordinates, have a place to write down the coordinates of the next waypoint (or something similar), or (if I needed it) to be able to translate the hint. As I got better at finding caches I stopped bringing the data sheets with me, and this problem started to occur more frequently. In fact over this last weekend I spent a good 30 minutes searching for a cache .010 minutes North of the cache because I didn't remember to coordinates correctly.

 

Now the phone I have also is web-enabled, but it is really difficult to use. I find I cannot navigate the geocaching.com web site at all with it, so I was quite pleased to see these two URLs posted. I'll have to try them -- but quickly! Why, you ask? Because I may not have this cell phone much longer. It is company issue, and I've just had yet another freedom from work day. []

[+Stunod]

Wow! This is way cool!

 

OK, so this will be my first post in the forums, as I couldn't seem to get my account to work until today.

 

As Leatherman pointed out I've been using my NextTel i58sr phone to do my geocaching. Someone else commented about the "dead reckoning" issue. With the phone GPS I have to ask the phone to figure out where I am currently, and then I have to determine which way to go to get closer to the cache. A couple of problems show up with this approach. The first problem (which I don't have happen too often) is I may get confused as to which way is North. Sometimes I'll head 90 degrees away from the direction I *think* I am going, and may not realize that the wrong coordinate is changing. (Duh...) I cannot seem to remember to bring my old Boy Scouts of America compass with me on a regular basis, either.

 

A second problem occurs more frequently, and that has to do with reception. Apparently when a "real" GPSr unit is turned on it is in constant contact with the satellites to keep track of its position. My guess is that this "constant lock" help when you get into tree cover. With the cell phone, well, it seems to search for any satellites every time I ask "where am I?" This is especially true if I haven't asked for several minutes, but under tree cover it can get *really* bad. In cases like these I'll look for a clearing South or North of the cache to determine the position of the West coordinate, and East/West to determine the position of the North coordinate, and draw an intersection of those in my mind. Sometimes this works really well, and other times it doesn't.

 

Probably the worst problem I have with the phone is poor short-term memory. [] See, the cell phone doesn't have the ability to store any data about a cache. As a result I used to always bring a printed cache data sheet with me so that I would be able to refer to it for the correct coordinates, have a place to write down the coordinates of the next waypoint (or something similar), or (if I needed it) to be able to translate the hint. As I got better at finding caches I stopped bringing the data sheets with me, and this problem started to occur more frequently. In fact over this last weekend I spent a good 30 minutes searching for a cache .010 minutes North of the cache because I didn't remember to coordinates correctly.

 

Now the phone I have also is web-enabled, but it is really difficult to use. I find I cannot navigate the geocaching.com web site at all with it, so I was quite pleased to see these two URLs posted. I'll have to try them -- but quickly! Why, you ask? Because I may not have this cell phone much longer. It is company issue, and I've just had yet another freedom from work day. []

You can download MyLocation to run on your i58sr. I run a similar program on my i730 and it works OK as a backup.