A Few Questions

[+Us 4 and Jess]

we have been caching now since the beginning of january we have about 60 finds

 

but we are not interested in travel bugs we found one and made a mistake grabbing it and droppping it in the next box and not taking the the number and taking one from the next box and swapping it for the first one, dont get me wrong i was told of my mistake very nicely and emailed the owner who told me the number and we managed to sort the 2 bugs out in the end, but they seem more of a hassle to me than they are worth

 

we are not interested in setting a cache of our own, we just like to go out at he wekend with the dogs and the kids for a walk and find caches

 

is this going to cause us problems in time to come or are we ok plodding on the way we do?

 

basically all we do each weekend is put the numbers into our "yellow" and go

 

will we be be considered as just taking and not giving back?

 

also i would like to know about going paperless................how do laptops work out in the field ect............we are looking to invest in a laptop in the near future ........would we be able to use this from the car to give us our coords and to fillin cache finds as soon as we find them?

 

and what are these cachemates ive had read so much about?

 

any help appreciated

 

i hope we can stay noobs until at least 500 finds cos i have more questions lol

 

us 4 and jess

mandy

[+-Phoenix-]

Im not sure a laptop is ideal, get a good PDA or PDA type GPSr, since it will double as your GPSr

 

The trick to connecting to the web in the fields is to have a bluetooth enabled GPRS mobile phone, but be warned, the connection speed aint broadband.

 

Once youve got your Bluetooth phone, then all you need is a bluetooth enabled PDA (or laptop) and away you go, Ive found that PDAs are easier to make this conenction since they are generally congfigured to make this type of connection easier.

 

Myself Ive got Bluetooth laptop, mobile phone PDA and GPS reciever, the phone stays in my pocket, the GPSr reciever sits in a pouch on the shoulder strap of my rucksack, and the PDA in my hand, I can even make and recieve phone calls from the mobile phone through the PDA (though in truth I limit this to just text and GPRS, since I look a tit with a PDA to my ear!!!

 

Ive found the Palm Zire with a BT308 GPSr works great... with the exception to sodding Fugawi!!!

 

My PDA now is my SatNav to get me to the parking spot, contains my cache notes, is my GPSr, Camera (1.2Mpixel), clock..... and a bunch of PDA functions.... and once Ive shoehorned Fugawi into it it will be my OS landrager maps.

Edited March 11, 2005 by -Phoenix-

[+Stuey]

we are not interested in setting a cache of our own, we just like to go out at he wekend with the dogs and the kids for a walk and find caches

Hi Mandy,

As someone who has set quite a few caches, I'd like to say that it is great to get anyone visit my caches. I certainly wouldn't expect anyone to feel obliged to place a cache because they have found some. You may change your minds one day... that's entirely up to you. Just keep on playing the game however you wish, whatever makes you happy

[+Us 4 and Jess]

hi stuey

 

thanks for that, what i was thinking was because we are geocaching .........and have a few finds ....are we expected to set caches

 

mandy

Edited March 11, 2005 by Us 4 and Jess

[+Molinnis]

Hi Mandy

 

As Stuey says you play this game/obsession the way you want to.

 

Some people like to do 50+caches in a day, others 50 in a year. Some people always do swaps others just sign the log (TNLN). At the the end of the day you play the game as you want to and enjoy yourselves.

 

Happy caching

Mike

[Nediam]

500 caches and still a noob!!!

I don't think too many people would have a problem with you not setting caches, after all, there are people with quite a few finds who haven't set any. I've only set one myself, although I am now looking at setting some more (it's almost as addictive as finding them )

With regards to a lap top in the field - BAD idea! . I wouldn't advise walking around with £600+ of computer that's gonna break into a million pieces if dropped or is going to pack up at the first sign of rain. If you leave it in the car you're gonna have to be careful where you park in case of theft .

I use a PDA with a Compact Flash GPS reciever, it's not waterproof but can be put in a "ziploc" plastic bag to keep it dry. I usually only log caches at home when I return, but I can log / check web pages on my "smartphone" a SPV C500 if necessary.

As regards cachemates, I've never used it / one and don't know what it does.......can't be that necessary then

Best of luck with your future caching, who knows, you may get the placing bug too

[+-Phoenix-]

Personally I dont reccomend the Compact Flash type GPSr, the Bluetooth ones are much better and here is my reasoning.

 

A Bluetooth GPSr has a battery life of about 20 hours as opposed to a PDA which is about 8, this means you are happy to leave your Bluetooth GPSr on all day, but you will be wanting to switch your PDA off when you are not looking at it.

 

When you are using GPS you will notice that it takes the GPSr time to find and latch onto the satalites, for this reason you will be reluctant to turn it off, with the compact flash GPSr you will always be torn between preserving battery life on the PDA and maintaining a good sat lock, while the Bluetooth one just stays on all day.

 

When in the car using SatNav you need to put thte GPSr on dashboard so it can see the sky, actually I use an extension antenna on my BT308 so I just throw it in the glovebox, but that aside the dashboard may not be the best location for you PDA to view the screen while driving.

 

Also A bluetooth GPSr can be used with anything, your laptop, your mobile phone (software pending) very easily no wires or anything

 

If the compact flash slot is your PDAs only expansion slot then do you want to use it for a GPSr or your memory expansion, but then again if the PDA you get isnt Bluetooth enabled you may have to use the slot for your Bluetooth reciever, take a look at the Palm Zire 72, Bluetooth and 1.2 MPixel camera, and if you can buy it with the GPSr and SatNav software straight out the box.

 

With Bluetooth you can connect to your mobile phone and access Groundspeak live in the field, very handy for the DNFs where you want to check the logs for those tiny extra clues or other DNF reports.

Edited March 12, 2005 by -Phoenix-

[+sTeamTraen]

The kind of people who would complain because you hadn't placed any caches, are the same kind of people who would complain that your caches were lame if you did.

 

My guess is that at some point in the future - maybe when you have 200/300 finds - a little light bulb may go on one day, and you will be inspired to create a cache of absolute genius, inspired by 20 great caches you have done and avoiding the pitfalls you have learned from 100+ lame ones. And it will be eagerly anticipated - "hey, these guys waited so long, this must be good". And you will be heroes

[Nediam]

Personally I dont reccomend the Compact Flash type GPSr, the Bluetooth ones are much better and here is my reasoning.

 

Phoenix has mad some good points most of which I considered or had pointed out to me by sales people when I was purchasing.

 

The battery life on my PDA, a HP 2210, with the GPS removed is around 4 hours, with the GPS it only drops by about 30 mins. This has only been a problem once as I always put the PDA back in it's charging cradle when driving between caches to top up the battery. I have also now purchased a spare battery if I'm totally out in the field for more than 3 hours (i.e. "The Plough" series etc)

 

The other thing I considered about the bluetooth GPS was the fact that I am more likely to lose it if it isn't attached

 

With regards to the expansion slots, my PDA has both CF and SD slots. This is highly practical as my camera, PDA and even my mobile phone all use SD cards and this allows me to swop and change if necessary.

 

Another good thing with my phone is that it's a "smartphone" which has pretty much full internet access (except flash........sort it out Mr Gates ) This enables me to download web pages, hints and spoilers as and where needed without the need to bluetooth.

 

One word of caution regarding mobile phones and bluetooth, make sure that the phone can transfer DATA via bluetooth as quite a few phones claim to be bluetooth enabled but can ONLY tranfer HANDSFREE signals.........make sure before you buy

 

As I said, Phoenix has pointed out some important issues, and now that the 2210 is no longer available, I don't know if there are any other PDA's with SD and CF expansion slots.

The imporatant thing to remember is it's "horses for courses". Decide what you want to do and how you want to do it and then look at what equipment suits you

[NickPick]

As far as going paperless goes, I can reccommend markandlynn's paperless caching guide. You can access it through their homepage via their profile (markandlynn). It's a very usefull guide to pocket queries, gsak and cachemate.

 

Of course, if you don't want to become premium members just for the pocket queries, you can go paperless by using any palm PDA, and copy-pasting the cache description into memo pad, download the .loc file into your GPSr, and then use the palm to view the description in the field. More advanced palms can view photos aswell, so you can always download spoiler photos or clue photos for viewing in the field aswell.

 

Hope this helps,

Nick

[+Alibags]

Some days it seems that everyone is trying to foist their own version of geocaching etiquette upon you, well, if not you then at least on the forums. As long as you are enjoying yourself and are following the GC guidelines and few actual rules (eg. if you take something, leave something) then you can safely ignore them. Geocaching is essentially a pointless task, but it does lead to doing a lot more walking and also exploring of areas which you would never have thought of visiting before, which cannot be anything other than a good thing.

 

On a non-technical theme regarding laptops... I would be a bit wary about leaving one in my car these days, even locked in the boot, and the advantage of a PDA solution to paperless caching is that you can readily carry it with you.

[+Turkey Trotter]

As far as going paperless goes, I can reccommend markandlynn's paperless caching guide.  You can access it through their homepage via their profile (markandlynn).  It's a very usefull guide to pocket queries, gsak and  cachemate.

Unfortunately, markandlynn's homepage is currently down (due to excessive data transfers)

[NickPick]

It seems that markandlynn's homepage is a victim of its own sucess. They have so much useful stuff on there that it gets so many hits it runs out of bandwidth. I think it's only limited daily, so it should be open again tomorrow. Meanwile, if anyone desperately needs the paperless guide, I can email it to them.

[markandlynn]

It seems that markandlynn's homepage is a victim of its own sucess.  They have so much useful stuff on there that it gets so many hits it runs out of bandwidth.  I think it's only limited daily, so it should be open again tomorrow.  Meanwile, if anyone desperately needs the paperless guide, I can email it to them.

SORRY

Any suggestions gratefully recieved.

 

Trial versions of GSAK (from GSAK) and Cachemate (from smittyware) (palm only)

Autoroute (for importing CSV files)

Pocket Queries.

Go get the Trigpionting GPX file for a usefull database if you are unsure about paying up a membership fee and want to bag some trigpoints (plenty of FTF's left)

NB check out ebay for a cheap palm we use a Palm Vx hold about 2500 caches cost £18 so if you drop it and it breaks not to much to lose.

[+DomHeknows]

i can mirror the content if you want - drop me a pm/email to arrange if you want this.