2 Question About Uploading To 60cs

[+Panda Fan]

I am somewhat new to Geocaching and I just bought a 60cs. I also use a Palm IIIxe & Cachemate. I have used GSAK to upload my .gpx files to. I also use EasyGPS(USB) to upload my Cache waypoints to my 60cs.

 

Question #1 - When I upload my cache waypoints to my gps, it shows up as a dot and not a Cache(Treasure Chest). What do I need to do to change this? I am having to manually change each cache after it is in my gps.

 

Question #2 - When it downloads the Cache/waypoint in to my gps, the Hints seem to be the "The person it was placed by" and not the hint. What do I need to do to change this problem?

 

[+Team DEMP]

Lets see if the following helps. Assuming you're going directly from GSAK to the GPS, you need to set things up on the GSAK side for what you want to do.

 

Click on GPS / Send waypoints and in the screen that opens up, you'll make the following changes:

 

On the main box on the left side of the window, you specify what icons to associate to the 4 various statuses. I have:

Found = Geocache Found

Not Found = Geocache

Placed = Geocache

Archived = Man Overboard (which might not work on the 60 so pick a different one)

 

To change the above icons, select the status and then click the Change button. You can make the changes in that window.

 

For the Cache Description box on the bottom, make the value %hint

%hint will populate the Note in the GPS with the Hint (or the beginning of the hint if it gets truncated, which is a Garmin limit not a GSAK limit).

 

Let us know if that helps.

[+ZackJones]

Regarding question #1: I've seen this happen as well. What normally fixes it is to click the Save button in EasyGPS and then resent them to your GPS. NOTE: Once you save the file using EasyGPS it's basically worthless because EasyGPS saves it in a binary format. I normally send the waypoints to my GPS last just to make sure I don't need to use the GPX file anymore. If I do need to use it again for any reason I just extract a fresh copy from the zip archive and start over.

 

Zack

[The McToy Bandit]

I had the same (or similar) problem with waypoint icons. I solved it by exporting the waypoints to Garmin's Mapsource and loading them into the unit from there.

 

The problem with the hint is that the notes field on the 60CS only allows a very limted number of characters.

 

I have spoken with Garmin about this and asked them to increase the number of usable characters since the notes field is about 3 times bigger than the text that can be entered.

 

Call Garmin and ask them to make this change in their next software upgrade. If enough people ask, we will probably get it.

[robertlipe]

NOTE: Once you save the file using EasyGPS it's basically worthless because EasyGPS saves it in a binary format.

Don't recent versions of EasyGPS save as GPX by default?

 

Regardless, GPSBabel can read and write the EasyGPS binary format (it's called, cleverly enough "easygps" in the options) so you can convert your "worthless" files back to the land of the living.

 

Oh, and to the original question, I don't think that EasyGPS gets the icon data right for the 60's when reading from a .loc, but it gets them right when reading from a geocaching.com .gpx file, so be sure you're feeding it from your pocket queries and not just hte ''donaload by nearest' pages.

Edited September 30, 2004 by robertlipe

[+Panda Fan]

The problem with the hint is that the notes field on the 60CS only allows a very limted number of characters.

 

I have spoken with Garmin about this and asked them to increase the number of usable characters since the notes field is about 3 times bigger than the text that can be entered.

 

Call Garmin and ask them to make this change in their next software upgrade. If enough people ask, we will probably get it.

Thanks for the ideas. I was able to get it fixed, execpt for the Notes field.

 

Thanks for the heads up on the note field Mctoy Bandit. I will try and get ahold Garmin on that fact.

 

By the way are there any ideas on the Special Tags %, that work good with Cachemate and or Gsak for the 60CS?

[+Sputnik 57]

By the way are there any ideas on the Special Tags %, that work good with Cachemate and or Gsak for the 60CS?

I currently set %smart=20, max characters 20, and waypoint description to %Name (%Dif/%Ter) by %By

 

This gives me the smart name, the difficulty and terrain, and if there is room, the name of the cacher that placed the cache.

 

I would like to hear what others are doing.

[+Panda Fan]

I currently set %smart=20, max characters 20, and waypoint description to %Name (%Dif/%Ter) by %By

 

This gives me the smart name, the difficulty and terrain, and if there is room, the name of the cacher that placed the cache.

Being the newbie that I am, were do I insert these in GSAK at?

Edited October 4, 2004 by Panda Fan

[+andrewsi]

There's a spot to change this in the Send Waypoints to GPS dialog. (Waypoint description format). Note that GSAK will not work with the GPSMap60CS over USB unless you pay the registration fee. If you have the serial cable, though, you should be good to go.

[+Sputnik 57]

andrewsi is right. Click on GPS, send waypoints (or click on the lightning bolt icon) and then under waypoint description format, type

 

%Name (%Dif/%Ter) by %By

 

Then set "you can build waypoints using tags" to

 

%smart=20

 

Maximum characters = 20

 

Garmin says 30 characters will fit, but I haven't had much luck getting more than 20.