Cache Quest Posted August 8, 2003 Share Posted August 8, 2003 Hello everyone... My wife and I are brand new to Geocaching as of 3 days ago... Stumbled on this site about a year ago while doing a search for metal detecting sites and finally decided to give it a try... We just purchased a new Magellan Meridian Platinum GPS from OffRoute.com after following a link from here.. (we believe in supporting sites we frequent) - So.. now that we've already made the purchase and have it in our hands... does anyone have any caveats? Is this a good unit for geocaching? Are we good to go or should we return it for something else? ----- Cache Quest Quote Link to comment
+Stunod Posted August 8, 2003 Share Posted August 8, 2003 The MeriPlat is a great caching unit...I use one myself. You might want to look into getting mapping softare for it. I recommend the MapSend TOPO product. Have fun! "Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson Quote Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted August 8, 2003 Share Posted August 8, 2003 Almost any GPS you can buy is good for geocaching. Some are better at certain aspects of outdoor adventures than others. The important thing is get out there and cache! Quote Link to comment
+The Leprechauns Posted August 8, 2003 Share Posted August 8, 2003 You have bought a high-quality top of the line GPS receiver. There are two schools of thought. Some people buy the cheapest unit possible, to see whether or not they like geocaching, and then upgrade later to a better unit with mapping capabilities and othre features. There is nothing wrong with that approach. You can either re-sell the old unit or keep it as a backup or for use by a caching partner. Other folks like yourself figure, "why spend the money twice?" and just start out with a top shelf unit. I did the same thing, although I chose the Garmin GPS V. Although you will see endless debates in these forums about Garmin vs. Magellan, you really can't go wrong, it is like arguing Ford vs. Chevy. This is especially true for the better models in each brand line. Now go read all the intro materials about finding caches, including all the threads in this forum about how to get started, what to bring with you and so forth. Then go find some caches! PS I cannot believe that a cool username like Cache Quest is still available, with the tens of thousands of members already on this site! x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x Next time, instead of getting married, I think I'll just find a woman I don't like and buy her a house. Quote Link to comment
+TotemLake Posted August 8, 2003 Share Posted August 8, 2003 You have purchased a great unit! It is very reliable in most situations. Allow me to recommend a a great place to start. Embra put together a great list of settings that he uses on the MeriPlat (Meridian Platinum) to get you started. You can always differ on what you want enabled or disabled. I do recommend you buy an SD card and MapSend Topo software to install into your unit. You will appreciate the added abilities these will provide you. You are not stuck with using Magellan's SD card, so feel free to buy the cheaper brand, but I'd say go no lower than 64MB. I personally use 128MB and probably will never reach the max storage on this unit. While geocache hunting, I keep my compass orientation to GPS and North reference to True unless I'm under heavy canopy and the GPS orientation becomes confused (and it will be obvious when this happens), then I will go to Magnetic on both settings to settle the receiver down. The reason to keep to True and GPS orientation is this is the way most caches are hidden, and will get you closer than the magnetic orientation and reference. That's my experience anyway. Cheers! TL Quote Link to comment
Cache Quest Posted August 8, 2003 Author Share Posted August 8, 2003 Thanks for the replys... We plan to combine GeoCaching with our metal detecting whenever possible. There seems to be a lot of caches in our area (the Finger Lakes). Our first choice for a username was "Cache22", but that was taken, it took us 2 days to come up with "Cache Quest" and got excited when it was available, couldn't believe it either... We've already read everything on the site and most of the forums so we might try finding our first cache tomorrow... (a test to see if we can use this GPS) Quote Link to comment
Cache Quest Posted August 8, 2003 Author Share Posted August 8, 2003 Totem, Good tips! I was playing with the settings and wondering what setting would be best... I'll have to check out the topo software... Thanks! ----- Cache Quest Quote Link to comment
+GPS_Brian Posted August 8, 2003 Share Posted August 8, 2003 Many good recommendations though I prefer setting the compass to magnetic orientation. You've paid extra for that feature, use it! There are quite a few benefits of using that electronic compass, not the least of which is the ability to use it while standing perfectly still or turning in circles. And I've not seen any occurance where an error in compass heading played a part in location error. In fact, I'm not sure that most caches are hidden with any consideration for calculation of bearings at all, just coordinates. -=-=-=-=-=- GPS_Brian =-=-=-=-=-= Quote Link to comment
+TotemLake Posted August 8, 2003 Share Posted August 8, 2003 Yep, using the floating compass for bearings works well for the closeup work as the compass will point in the direction to the waypoint if you have it enabled as a GOTO. While the waypoint is enabled as a GOTO, I found setting the Position-Destination line off during closeup work also helps as it will give me an estimated distance without the visual interference of the line. Couple that with the EPE and you can get a pretty good idea of your circle of search. Cheers! TL Quote Link to comment
Cache Quest Posted August 10, 2003 Author Share Posted August 10, 2003 Well.. we played with the GPS for several hours today trying to experiement with various settings and really just confused ourselves... We're 'hands on' type people so decided that maybe we should just head out and try to find our firest cache... ya'know... real world experience can sometimes help... well... we know have a little better understanding of how everything works together... we found the cache within 15 minutes from the time we started and within 1 minute from the time I said... "It should be right around here" - Tomorrow we plan to head out and actually start changing some of the settings mentioned here and experiment.. we really enjoyed it!! - I'll log the find tomorrow.. ----- Cache Quest Quote Link to comment
+TotemLake Posted August 10, 2003 Share Posted August 10, 2003 Excellent! That's really the only way you're going to learn. You can only do so much in the backyard. Cheers! TL Quote Link to comment
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