A Happy Convert

[+Ghostcat78]

Yes, I went paperless. Which rhymes with Nakedness. Which is what I feel like by not having handfulls of papers with cache info littering up my geo-backpack, and the back seat of my truck.

 

I used cachemate and GSAK. A big HOOYAH! to Clyde and smittyware.com

"We salute you Mr. Giant pocketknife computer programmer Inventor!"

 

The Pro's of Paperless caching:

 

1. You get to be a premium member, pocket queries is worth $3 a month

 

2. I must have saved myself 2+ hours by downloading 100 caches instead of printing them off

 

3. I must have saved myself x-amount of $$$ by not printing them off and wasting $28 ink cartridges and reams of paper (Think about this one)

 

4. Yet one more use out of my sony clie PDA

 

5. No shuffling through papers out in the field

 

6. GSAK is quite magical. Somehow it works and can do everything you ever want it to and nobody knows how except Clyde.

 

The Con's of Paperless Caching:

 

1. Sometimes when you forget toiletpaper those hundreds of peices of paper are more relevant than you realized.

 

2. PDA's are expensive (but afterall we are kind of gadget prone in this sport)

 

3. Battery life is its shortcoming

 

4. Figuring out how to do it can make you waste most of your day off, unless you are smart with computers

[+JohnnyVegas]

Wait until the day you go out looking for a cache and realize you loaded your GPS from GSAK but forgot to update the PQ in you Palm and you don't have the cache info, I have only done this maybe twice-this month

Edited November 20, 2004 by JohnnyVegas

[+TresOkies]

Welcome to the paperless world. Clyde and Brian (smittyware) do a great job. Don't forget Robert who does the gpsbabel code that GSAK uses.

 

If you are hiking in a fairly rough terrain, I suggest that you get a hard case. Heck, even if you are doing nothing but urban micros, I'd still suggest it. I've destroyed two Palm Vs so far (dropped one in a creek, the other took a 100ft plunge down a rocky cliff face). I've cracked the screen on my Tungsten C twice while geocaching and had to send it in for repairs. Yes, I'm hard on equipment.

 

I haven't had any problems with the T|C since putting it in a hard case. Of course, it wouldn't have saved the V that I dropped in Bear Creek, but it might have saved the one that went down the side of the mountain.

[+fly46]

I go paperless - and without a PDA. *gasp*

[+briansnat]

2. PDA's are expensive (but afterall we are kind of gadget prone in this sport)

 

3. Battery life is its shortcoming

 

You can pick up a suitable PDA on E-Bay for around $30. I don't see battery life as an issue. I charge my Palm (M500) about once every 2-3 weeks so it lasts through many caching trips.

 

It is a whole new world though. I sort of went paperless quite a while ago, but never used it because I felt it was a bit of a pain to do (I was using the Spinner/Plucker combo). Then I bought Cachemate a copuple of months ago and its great. Simple to use and I have the pages for the closest 500 caches to my home in the palm of my hand.

[+Isonzo Karst]

Wait until the day you go out looking for a cache and realize you loaded your GPS from GSAK but forgot to update the PQ in you Palm and you don't have the cache info, I have only done this maybe twice-this month dry.gif

 

Well, we've only done it once, but it did cost us the FTF. Offset cache, one of those, find the date and subtract types. No HotSync = no cache info.

 

I"ve also left the house with the GPSr loaded but left the PDA in the hot sync cradle (twice) actually makes for some ~interesting~ caching.

[+BigWhiteTruck]

Best combo is using a gps that connects to the palm pilot itself, then you never have to load it with waypoints. Even better is when your gps connects to the palm pilot without wires, like mine does using bluetooth.

 

My gps doesn't even have a screen on it, it has an on/off switch and that's it. It sits in my backpack while i cache. I pull up a cache in CacheMate on the palm, then hit the nav button for the cachemate nav plugin. The palm pilot becomes the gps screen.

[+tls11823]

I'm another recent Cachemate convert. I like the way they let you fully try the product for free before buying, with only a few reasonable restrictions. One download and I was happy to fork over eight bucks.

 

The only thing I missed at first was the maps on the printouts. But then I realized that, as a new premium member, I could use the full features of the Geocaching maps, and could print one map with all the caches in a local area. So far that's worked out great. But if I find myself caching on a whim based on what's in my Palm, I won't have a map to work from. It may be difficult to make sure I'm in the right area. I'll worry about that when it happens, but I suspect I'll manage to survive.

[+planetrobert]

But if I find myself caching on a whim based on what's in my Palm, I won't have a map to work from.

buy mapping software for you palm... it will make things so easy

[+CompuCash]

part of my cache printing included the geo map so I can see what cache I want to do next.

 

part of my cache printing includes the map quest map so I know how to get there

 

now I've found 100 caches - that's 3 sheets of paper each - less than a ream of paper at $1.00 a ream on sale. Or - 3 chears! - I get my paper free from Office Depot by turning in a used ink cartridge. And it is recycled paper too!

so where are all these trees I've killed - and where is the expense. And I print on a 20K page laser cartride. Ageed ink cartridges are way to expensive.

 

I get the full description, the hints, and the last 5 logs when I print.

 

Sure I like the idea (I'm a gadget freek too why do you think I'm here in the first place <grin>?) - but I carry so much stuff now I don't have room. My Ipaq would last through a cache day as long as I only had it on for a few minutes at at time. Too much scrolling around. One look at the sheet and I'm done - back in my pocket. And worse, it was very expensive - and I would not want to drop it. I have a cane in one hand, a gps in the other, a belt pack and a vest. Too much stuff haning on me already.

 

And when with the wife which is often - it gives her something to do - feed me the numbers when I don't get them in the gps - find the hints - read the logs to see what the others said when we can't find it.

Edited November 21, 2004 by CompuCash

[+clrl]

I got a ViewSonic Pocket PC last Xmas. I never used it much until I decided to use it for geocaching. It has a camera that works fine in sunlight and indors (see my pixs of event). I download every Wed. the queries and then export a HTML file from GSAK. I then copy the html file into my Pocket PC. I have two location and it handles 180 caches fine. I carry an extra battery just in case. I agree that a hard cover is nice to have.

Happy caching...

CLRL

[+MariettaGecko]

I went paperless sometime during the first year I was caching. Sure, I've run into cases where I brought the GPS, but left the PDA int he cradle at home, but that's unusual. Additionally, I can now go "spur-of-the-moment" caching. i don't have to plan every trip and pick up only caches that I have printed the pages for. I also don't have to keep up with what pages are out of date and reprint them. Makes for a much more fun experience.

 

I use a Dell Axim X3i with GPXSonar and Mapopolis. I think that this was one of the best investments I have ever made in a PDA. in all honesty, I got this for Geocaching, because my old Palm III just couldn't hold enough caches. In this, I can take every cache in my database at home with NO problem.

 

Thanks to all those who wrote the software that makes paperless caching possible.

[+NightPilot]

I had a Palm long before I started geocaching, and I have never printed a single cache page. It took awhile to find the optimum way to get the data on the Palm, because GSAK, Cachemate, and much of the rest didn't exist at first, but it wasn't that difficult. You can do a lot with memos and cut/paste. With GSAK, Cachemate, Plucker, and Mapopolis, I'm ready to cache any time, anywhere, just about. I may need a new pocket query for a new area, but anyplace near my home, I can cache on a moment's notice, and get voice directions to near the cache. I can't imagine carrying that much paper around.

 

One of the reasons I got a Palm in the first place was that I was tired of carrying paper. There are more than 5,000 oil and gas production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, and many more thousands of lease blocks that might have mobile drilling rigs in them, and I need access to these every day. I used to carry a 3" notebook full of pages, printed in 8pt font, of lat/lon numbers. Now I not only have all this, I have a program that will tell me the distance, direction, how long it will take to get there, how much fuel I'll need, and everything else I need to know, and all that takes up maybe 2% of my Palm's memory. I wish I had owned one of these 20+ years ago when I first started doing this. I would be totally lost without my Palm now.

[+Camo-crazed]

I got my magellan sportrak map for my birthday and I think I may get a palm pilot for Xmas