Help, Could Someone Explain The Gps/palm Set Up

[+The Wit]

I'm sure this has been asked before, but some of the post I have read are a little more tech.

 

What are the basics of using a Palm w/ my GPS. I understand I can keep track of my caches, etc. But all these file conversions and third party apps are confusing.

 

Couls someone just give me the real basics to get started. I have both GPS and a Palm

 

Thanks

[+Olar]

First of all you will need a premium membership with geocaching.com so that you can download cache data in the .gpx format with the pocket query feature.

Next you will need a program such as gpx2html to convert the .gpx file to html so that a program like Plucker can export the html file to your Palm.

There are other fine applications to do the same thing that you can read about in the forums. These two just happen to be what I chose to use.

 

Cheers, Olar

[+harleycache]

Check out Cachemate ($7.00 but well worth it) and GSAK (this one's free, but also worth it). The two together are very easy and work great. Also, like just mentioned, be a premium member to get the .gpx files.

[+Team Flashncache]

I'll second the Cachemate / GSAK motion.

Granted, they're not as intuitive as they could be, but once you figure out how it's done it's a snap!

[+IVxIV]

Yup Cachemate rocks! And the membership to Geocaching is well worth it too

 

With that combo you can download cache locations from all around the area you do your searching into your Palm. Basically once done you have all the info loaded to your Palm that is on the cache webpage, including the Cache description, rating, co-ordinates and also the past logs of others who've been there. Often those past logs can have valuable insight to finding an elusive well hidden cache

 

What's more, the cachemate library is a searchable database! For example once you've been out & found a cache & would like to find another, you can key in your current co-ordinates into Cachemate, and it will auto-sort the index to show you exactly where the next nearest cache is to your location! Typically I leave home for a day of caching, and after finding one I let Cachemate tell me the next nearest one(s) and so on,, all day! It's another level of fun to finally figure out where the day's travels have taken me, and beats sitting at home with maps/paper, pre-planning the day (which might be more efficient but less spontanious lol)

[+GOT GPS?]

What are the basics of using a Palm w/ my GPS.

 

Looks like your asking this without saying which GPS or Palm your using.

 

Do you need certain cables to hook these up, and Palm Software to communicate with the GPS?

 

Delorme has PDA Mapping software for use with a connected GPS to the PDA.

Edited April 10, 2004 by GOT GPS?

[sidewallwolf]

I am using a palm m515, with my Etrex legend.

 

To connect the two together I purchased a Palm to serial adapter from. http://www.expansys.co.uk .I then connected this to the standard etrex/serial cable.

i.e. (palm)<>[palm-serial cable male]<>[femail serial-etrex cable]<>(Etrex GPS)

 

(device) [cable]

 

Next thing I did was choose not to get a geocaching.com premium membership. I haven't caved in to this yet because when I started geocaching with geocaching.com, it was seen as a non-commercial venture and has even driven out certain geocachers who were thought to be carrying out so called commercial activities. - Lets hope we always have the ability to get the cache information without having to pay for it.

 

First use EasyNiche to convert your .loc (or GPX file) to a GeoNiche Palm database (*.pdb file). The great thing about EasyNiche is that it has been writen in java, so it is multi-platform. If like me you have a non M$ platform such as Linux it will run on them all. You then have two things you can do with the output from EasyNiche:

 

(i) At this point you can read the output Palm database using the GeoNiche palm software - which has a free unregistered version which you can use. (the downside of this version is that you cannot bulk load caches) - Although it can hold many. www.nwlink.com/~raydar/GeoNiche/ .

 

In order to use the database contents, you just Hotsync the palm after double clicking the *.pdb file produced.

 

(ii) You can convert it to the gpx format (identical to that provided by the geocaching.com premium membership) and then convert this to a palm database that will be recognised by Cetus GPS. The tool to do this with is GPSBabel. Which, by coincidence will also run on either a M$, Mac or Linux platform. GPSBabel comes in two flavours.

(1) A command line version which is by far the most flexible, though a little less intuitive, or

(2) There is a GUI version GPSbabel Gui, which is mentiioned earlier in the thread.

 

Cetus GPS provides similar functionality to GeoNiche Cetus GPS

 

I hope this is helpful. I'm afraid that I do not have any knowledge of Cachemate, however I'm off to investigate.

Edited April 11, 2004 by sidewallwolf

[+embra]

CYBret's page is an excellent resource with detailed instructions.

[robertlipe]

First use EasyNiche to convert your .loc (or GPX file) to a GeoNiche Palm database (*.pdb file).  [ ... ]

(ii) You can convert it to the gpx format (identical to that provided by the geocaching.com premium membership) and then convert this to a palm database that will be recognised by Cetus GPS.

 

Im lost in all the conversions going on there, but since GPSBabel runs on Linux, Mac, Windows, and about anything else and can convert directly from GPX to Geoniche and Cetus, why is easyniche a required step on the way to Cetus?

 

GPSBabel does some pretty cute things for the newest betas of Cetus...

[+NightPilot]

Robert, admittedly Sidewallwolf's post isn't a paragon of clarity, the way I read it is that he's only using Geoniche to convert to a Palm .pdb file which Geoniche reads on the Palm. He's then using GPSBabel to convert to Cetus. I may be wrong about this, but that's the way I read it.

[+Mastifflover]

I am using a palm m515, with my Etrex legend.

 

To connect the two together I purchased a Palm to serial adapter from. http://www.expansys.co.uk .I then connected this to the standard etrex/serial cable.

i.e. (palm)<>[palm-serial cable male]<>[femail serial-etrex cable]<>(Etrex GPS)

 

(device) [cable]

 

Next thing I did was choose not to get a geocaching.com premium membership.   I haven't caved in to this yet because when I started geocaching with geocaching.com, it was seen as a non-commercial venture and has even driven out certain geocachers who were thought  to be carrying out so called commercial activities.  - Lets hope we always have the ability to get the cache information without having to pay for it.

 

First use EasyNiche to convert your .loc (or GPX file) to a GeoNiche Palm database (*.pdb file). The great thing about EasyNiche is that it has been writen in java, so it is multi-platform. If like me you have a non M$ platform such as Linux it will run on them all. You then have two things you can do with the output from EasyNiche:

 

(i) At this point  you can read the output Palm database using the GeoNiche palm software - which has a free unregistered version which you can use. (the downside of this version is that  you cannot bulk load caches) - Although it can hold many.  www.nwlink.com/~raydar/GeoNiche/ .

 

In order to use the database contents, you just Hotsync the palm after double clicking the *.pdb file produced.

 

(ii) You can convert it to the gpx format (identical to that provided by the geocaching.com premium membership) and then convert this to a palm database that will be recognised by Cetus GPS. The tool to do this with is GPSBabel. Which, by coincidence will also run on either a M$, Mac or Linux platform. GPSBabel comes in two flavours. 

    (1) A command line version which is by far the most flexible, though a little less intuitive, or

    (2) There is a GUI version GPSbabel Gui, which is mentiioned earlier in the thread.

 

Cetus GPS provides similar functionality to GeoNiche Cetus GPS

 

I hope this is helpful. I'm afraid that I do not have any knowledge of Cachemate, however I'm off to investigate.

 

Doesn't that sound basic? I tried the spinner/plucker combo and while it works I ended up doing what some other have said here. Cachemate and GSAK. Both very easy to learn and understand.

[sidewallwolf]

Im lost in all the conversions going on there, but since GPSBabel runs on Linux, Mac, Windows, and about anything else and can convert directly from GPX to Geoniche and Cetus, why is easyniche a required step on the way to Cetus?

When you download wapionts in .loc format from geocaching.com, they don't contain the full description of the cache. EasyNiche crawls geocaching.com, retrieves the full cache description and adds it into the pdb file. If you just want the location and short description (ie. name) then this step is not required.

[+Learned Gerbil]

When you download wapionts in .loc format from geocaching.com, they don't contain the full description of the cache. EasyNiche crawls geocaching.com, retrieves the full cache description and adds it into the pdb file. If you just want the location and short description (ie. name) then this step is not required.

GC.com is frequently too busy to respond to users. Yesterday I got multiple error messages saying I could not be given the data I wanted due to overload. Apparently, the cause of this problem is selfish people using software to scrape data from the GC.com website. These cause a massivce hit when people try and download descriptions from dozens or hundreds of caches at a time. The administrators treat these data miners as denial of service attacks and when discovered, blacklist the sources. This is becasue the site is intended for use as advertised and data mining is an attemtpt to get round deliberate restrictions placed to keep the site running

 

The $3 a month being charged is what funds the site. Bandwidth is not free, and this site is clearly a major operation. I do not think there is any indication anyone is profiteering from the amounts raised. Bu there is evidence of freeloaders who help ruin things for everyone.

 

I can't beleive that people who who can afford a hobby that involves significant equipment and travel costs, can't afford $3 a month. Also I can't believe that someone who realy believes in free available information on caches, would use software that helps undermine the funding model of the hobby and helps ensure the site is busier than it would be if they were using the premium service as intended.

[sidewallwolf]

OK, I'll give you that. I have to admit, it is extremely annoying not being able to get onto www.geocaching.com. But, if, like me, you like to do just the occasional cache, and not take it seriously, the premium membership seems a bit over the top if you are paying to do 3 caches a month. I think Groundspeak makes very little profit out of Geocaching, and, you are right, it is probably the reason for the ASP.NET errors when visiting geocaching.com.

 

However, here are a few things to consider:

 

1. There are children and families, who are low volume users, who are unlikely to download dozens or hundreds of cache infos at a time. But, there are also sites, such as www.geocacheuk.com, which is crawling GC.com in the same way. This site has been authorised to do so by GC.com, and is also taking up bandwidth. I am not saying that GC.com should stop them using up bandwidth, these sites are in many cases more useful than GC.com itself, and there is no reason why the webmaster's effort should be shut down. Then there are search engines which crawl the web for information. If you go to www.google.com, and do a search for any cache name, it will be there. These are the main users of bandwidth, in my opinion.

2. To download waypoints from the GC.com, you have to be logged in. Therefore, GC.com know the exact amount of data contained in the .loc files from the net. It is not as if anyone has written a crawler to retrieve cache details without logging in, and then convert them to a .loc file. Perhaps, then, to stop this, geocaching.com should introduce a threshold, sort of you can download the basic cache details from 50 caches a month, and if you want more, you will have to pay for premium membership. To stop people creating more than one account, put some sort of logging (IP logging, maybe?).

 

These are just my own thoughts, but I think I might just, well, shut up about this subject for a while.

 

Jamie

Edited April 13, 2004 by sidewallwolf

[+Maeglin]

2. To download waypoints from the GC.com, you have to be logged in. Therefore, GC.com know the exact amount of data contained in the .loc files from the net. It is not as if anyone has written a crawler to retrieve cache details without logging in, and then convert them to a .loc file. Perhaps, then, to stop this, geocaching.com should introduce a threshold, sort of you can download the basic cache details from 50 caches a month, and if you want more, you will have to pay for premium membership. To stop people creating more than one account, put some sort of logging (IP logging, maybe?).

That may be true if you download waypoints using the provided mechanism (as a .loc file), but not if you're using a program that reads the coords off of the page, and those most definitely exist. You don't have to be logged in to look at most cache pages.

[+Learned Gerbil]

The problem is the bots where someone uses third party software to scrape the details of every cache for hundreds of miles. There are peopel who do that and consume enourmous amounts of bandwidth.

 

As for geocachinguk.com and similar sites that GC.com allow to access data, these are sites that gc.com can shut off any time they like, and they have to follow strict rules of access. GC.com need to manage the data if they are to avoid ulimited bandwidth costs and that is why they offer gpx files, at a minimal cost, and can provide the service with minima, and relevant, advertising.

[+Dawgies]

I'd like to thank "The Wit" for posting the question and "CYBret" for having the page with all the answers! After many months of fooling around with my PDA and trying to figure it out myself I can now say that I'm a paperless cacher! Countless trees will be saved and money in the pocket that won't be spent on ink! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

[+The Wit]

Thanks for all the info. I have the basic idea down now! And thanks for all the extra info.

 

I have a Tungsten E, which in hindsight has been a bad purchase. It is a great Palm, buy I really shot my self in the foot by not having the Universal connector. The mini USB has made connecting anything to it a pain. I keep checking ebay for a decent priced T3

 

Do you guys think it's easier to do with a Pocket PC than a Palm?

[+Learned Gerbil]

You are opening a can of worms there! There are plenty of previous threads on the subject.

 

As for Palm OS devices, you dont need anything particularly powerful for paperless caching, and having a cheap secondhand low tech machine means it is less of a loss when you drop it in a swamp. An old Palm IIIxe will do well and it and they can be picked up very cheap.

 

Bear in mind that there are other makers other than Palm itself. There are often good deals on Sony Clies. You can always make sure the devices you want can be connected by looking here -

 

PC Mobile

 

In my experieince their cables and connectors are excellent quality and they give good customer service, with knowlegable advice.

[sidewallwolf]

Well GPX Spinner will work just as well, and instead of using Plucker you use Internet Explorer.