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Geocaching Books


mdshamilton

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Has anyone bought and read any of the 5 Geocaching books available from Amazon (listed below)? I've been geocaching on and off for the past 3 years...am I likely to learn anything new, be better at finding caches - or are they really aimed at "Dummies"?

 

Does anyone have any views/experience?

 

Geocaching for Dummies (For Dummies S.) ~Joel McNamara

John Wiley & Sons Inc

Paperback - September 20, 2004

 

The Geocaching Handbook ~Dave Ulmer (Foreword), Layne Cameron

Globe Pequot Press

Paperback - July 1, 2004

 

Complete Idiot's Guide to Geocaching (Complete Idiot's Guides (Lifestyle Paperback)) ~Jack W. Peters

Alpha Books

Paperback - June 1, 2004

 

The Essential Guide to Geocaching ~Mike Dyer

Fulcrum Publishing

Paperback - August 15, 2004

 

GeoCaching: Hike and Seek with Your GPS ~Erik Sherman

APress,US

Paperback - April 1, 2004

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I'm particularly fond of the last one. LOL

 

Seriously, you might learn something, or you might not, from my book or any of the others. It really depends on what you already know and what you are interested in learning, though Today's Cacher and geocaching-u.com both seemed to like mine. But if you are an experienced hiker, know how to navigate even without a GPSr, and understand the technology (at least, understand as much as you'd want to), then my book probably wouldn't catch your attention.

 

I haven't looked at all the others, but from the ones I've seen, each has a slightly different angle, so it will be a matter of personal taste.

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I've read Erik's "GeoCaching: Hike and Seek with Your GPS" and really enjoyed it. I liked it a lot because it wasn't just about geocaching, but also about hiking and general outdoorsy stuff (is that a real word?)

 

I've also read most of the Idiot's guide and parts of the Dummie's guide. Both of them are good and since they make heavy use of images from the website they're good for newbies (not just idiots and dummies). However, I spotted a couple inaccuracies in the Idiots guide that should have been caught. I wonder if anyone else has noticed them. Hmmmmmmm.

 

No experience with the other books yet, though I'm hoping to add them to my library soon.

 

Bret

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Too bad they didn't get a fabulous technical editor like Erik did. :lol:

Wellllll, true. I can't imagine the mistakes I spotted would have made it through if they had.

 

For example, page 36:

Triangulation works by a receiver downloading radio signals broadcast from each satellite it can lock on to.  The satellites are in a stationary orbit, which allows the GPSr to calculate its location by determining the distance from each overhead satellite.

 

Can you spot the inaccuracy? :rolleyes:

 

Bret

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Triangulation works by a receiver downloading radio signals broadcast from each satellite it can lock on to.  The satellites are in a stationary orbit, which allows the GPSr to calculate its location by determining the distance from each overhead satellite.

 

Can you spot the inaccuracy? :rolleyes:

 

Bret

The receiver uses trilateration (sp?), and more importanly the normal sats are not in stationary orbit. Those used for corrections like WAAS are, however.

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Has anyone bought and read any of the 5 Geocaching books available from Amazon (listed below)? I've been geocaching on and off for the past 3 years...am I likely to learn anything new, be better at finding caches - or are they really aimed at "Dummies"?

 

Does anyone have any views/experience?

 

Bought? no, the last time I was at the library I ran a search on geocaching. And amazingly they had two books on geocaching, and a brand new book on gps. I guess filling out those little suggestion cards do work :lol: .Checked out all three.

Reading The Geocaching Handbook right now. (the other one was writer's book :lol: , which I will get to next week probably). To me the 'handbook' is much pretty 'dummy' based. So far its had some Ulmer tales, a bit of hide your own cache tips, and what to look for a gps (which makes me think the guy probably uses a gpsIII mostly). The one mistake I saw was that the book (at least the way I read it) said a virtual is a cache with only a logbook :rolleyes: ?

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Triangulation works by a receiver downloading radio signals broadcast from each satellite it can lock on to.  The satellites are in a stationary orbit, which allows the GPSr to calculate its location by determining the distance from each overhead satellite.

 

They're not stationary.

 

ooops - didn't read Welch's post entirely.

Edited by Markwell
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I'm particularly fond of the last one. LOL

I've scanned through all of the aforementioned titles and I have to agree with "writer".

 

And, speaking directly to "writer" himself, you wrote a wonderful book and I keep it in the most popular reading location in the house. If that's not a testimony to work well done then there just ain't no justice in the world. (The technical editing was aces too.)

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And, speaking directly to "writer" himself, you wrote a wonderful book and I keep it in the most popular reading location in the house.  If that's not a testimony to work well done then there just ain't no justice in the world.  (The technical editing was aces too.)

I'm finally getting back in (a very busy month of deadlines, deadlines, deadlines). Thanks for the kind words - and if your popular reading spot is the same as mine, you can wash off any smudges that might get on your hands from the printing. LOL

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