This topic contains 13 replies, has 13 voices, and was last updated by 
draconis dave 19 years, 6 months ago.
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Ok I have found the worst way to go paperless. This is being in a hurry to go and cache, aren’t we all, and not bringing any notes what so ever. I mean no paper, no PDA, no laptop, just your GPSr with the downloaded waypoints. Not a good idea, I had no idea what size I was looking for or even if it was a vitural or not. But I still found 4 of the 6 I went looking for. Now I have to go back and get the info I need to log the 5th one.
Isn’t that called Colombus caching? You know… out to discover the new world and all?
Yah, sort of exciting, isn’t it!
Yes it was a lot of fun. But we did have an earthcache that we spent 15-30 Min looking for a cache at. We called it a day and when we got back we found out that there was no cache there. Now we have to go back and answer the question to log the cache.
Yikes! Bob and I often do this, but on purpose. Sometimes we don’t look at the PDA unless we get there and can’t find the cache. Ususally one of us is sitting at the finder’s tree only moments after arriving to the suspect area. (And if he’s found too many that day, I cheat! I let him walk in front of me so A) I get a better view, and B) I can peek at the PDA without him seeing me…I fess up though after beating him to the tree.
MB
That’s the reason bogus coordinates for mystery caches need to be in a spot that is “obviuosly wrong”. Many people (myself included), have looked for a cache on their gps screen without having the cache info. If the coordinats put you in the middle of a parking lot or lake, you discover something might be wrong
Been there..done that! Sometimes it is more fun and challenging. Unless you find out the coords are waaaaaay off. If two of us go out without info, one looks at the site for micro and small and the other looks for the larger. get in a mind set and it really helps……….sometimes LOL
Even though I usually have my PocketPC along, I still like to change the icons in my GPSr to give an indication of what I’m looking for those times I don’t have it or leave it in the car. It’s easy to customize the icons using GSAK. Since the GPSr icons don’t exactly match the geocaching.com icons, you’ll have to experiment to see which ones are most meaninful to you. Here’s the mapping I use for my Garmin 60c:
Traditional = Geocache
Multi = Stadium (kind of looks like 3 flags)
Event = Bar
Virtual = Bell (kind of looks like the geocaching.com virtual)
Web Cam = Live Theater (smile and sad face)
Mystery = Information (as in need more info)
Earth = Airport
Micro Cache = Medical Facility (they can be painful after all)Of course the downside to doing this is that the next nearest cache feature that Garmin provides doesn’t work because it only looks for nearest waypoints that use the geocache icon. This doesn’t really bother me since I rarely use that feature anyway.
As long as I’m at it, here’s what I use for the generated waypoint description:
(%Dif/%Ter)%bug=* %Name by %ByFor example this generates: (2/1)* Geocache Name by abcdmCachers
* indicates there is a travel bug present in the cache. Of course Garmin will cut off the end if the name is too long (why in this day and age of cheap memory Garmin has description length and waypoint limits is beyond me).quote:
Originally posted by abcdmCachers:
It’s easy to customize the icons using GSAK. Since the GPSr icons don’t exactly match the geocaching.com icons, you’ll have to experiment to see which ones are most meaninful to you. Here’s the mapping I use for my Garmin 60c:Traditional = Geocache
Multi = Stadium (kind of looks like 3 flags)
Event = Bar
Virtual = Bell (kind of looks like the geocaching.com virtual)
Web Cam = Live Theater (smile and sad face)
Mystery = Information (as in need more info)
Earth = Airport
Micro Cache = Medical Facility (they can be painful after all)
I do the exact same thing with a twist. download the free program from garmin called ximage. with this you can upload a custom set of icons to your gps, I found some online that are cache type icons.
there is a trick to getting gsak and your gps to know what icons to use, you need to create a text file in the gsak folder called garminother.txtin this file you need to tell gsak this icon is this one in the gps.
EXAMPLE of garminother.txt
Custom 0 ; cacheV
Custom 1 ; cacheTone last step, when you go to send waypoints to your gpsr, you need to change the gps symbols to reflect the garminother.txt
now when you send waypoints you will always get the cache type for the icon. I prefer this to the open/closed treasure box. this is by far a compleat explanation of how to do this, but if anyone wants to know more feel free to ask.
EDIT: I made a simple howto and zipped my custom icons, I posted the file online so if anyone is interested I could post a link.
[This message has been edited by hogrod (edited 02-28-2006).]
I tried to start off paperless and that didn’t work out so good but after a couple months, I’m back to paperless with a few caveats. I have queries that run on geocaching.com that give me several different gpx files for different locations I frequently travel too. All of this information is downloading into my explorist 210. I guess this thing is like a combo of a PDA/GPS? It has special icons for geocaches which I can flick on and off in the map mode. The type of cache is there and I can tell on the screen if it is a multi or regular but not the size.
Before I go, I usually will browse online to get a few in my head then when I’m out there I have some I know I wanted to do so when I look a them on the map at least I have some knowledge to make a choice on.
The problems with going paperless:
No parking coords
Puzzles have to be solved and entered manually
Missed more than one bonus because I didn’t know it existed until I went to log my find
No foreknowledge of travel bugs and such but usually something like that is a nice surprise and not really a problem….
Long cache names that all start with the same characters (you know who you are) are truncated so they all appear the same in the list mode. When I was hunting these, I had to manually make them in shorter in the file before uploading it so I could differentiate between them in the field.Away, I have had NO paper with me except for kleenex, not even a map for weeks and weeks and I’m really happy. I really don’t like paper all that much in the wild. It’s very hydroscopic and starts to absorb moisture immediately.
Trudy & I have been doing a lot of Columbus caching for the past several months. To give ourselves a fair chance, we only download Traditional caches. As long as we clear the GPS before we load the new list, we will do alright. during our last couple of Columbus caching adventures, we averaged over 90%…
Clues? We don’t need no stinkin’ clues! ~tb
[This message has been edited by Trudy & the beast (edited 03-25-2006).]
I have done this on a few occations, most of the time when I just forgot my cache notes. I actually called my wife of the cell phone one time and had her track down the notes and give me the clue. I only found about half of the caches when I went out without any notes at all, and then I’m usually kicking myself after I get home and read the clue. So it’s not as fun as regular caching in my book, but still better than no caching at all.
Mike
quote:
Originally posted by WIsearcher:
The problems with going paperless:
No parking coords
Puzzles have to be solved and entered manually
Missed more than one bonus because I didn’t know it existed until I went to log my find
No foreknowledge of travel bugs and such but usually something like that is a nice surprise and not really a problem….
Long cache names that all start with the same characters (you know who you are) are truncated so they all appear the same in the list mode. When I was hunting these, I had to manually make them in shorter in the file before uploading it so I could differentiate between them in the field.Away, I have had NO paper with me except for kleenex, not even a map for weeks and weeks and I’m really happy. I really don’t like paper all that much in the wild. It’s very hydroscopic and starts to absorb moisture immediately.
GSAK lets you do all sorts of changes to the cache name/description when you export to GPS. I’ve gone to doing %drop2 for the ID (it drops off the “GC” making it easier to alpha search)
and then something like:
%typ1 %con1 %diff/%terr %name %own
for the description.
Gives you the type (Multi/Regular/puzzle) container size (Regular, Small, Micro)
Difficulty/terrain
Cache name
ownerof course that is only up to the character limit of descriptions in your gpsr waypoints.
I really like the added bonus of the PDA, it does let you do the puzzles, as well as know about bonus waypoints and parking info. You can easily get a PDA for under $50 that will work just fine for caching.
ps: I’m planning to host another paperless training soon. I will post in these forums when it is planned.
[This message has been edited by NSLP#1 (edited 03-28-2006).]
I’ve only done that accidentally. A trip up to northern Kettle Morraine had me leaving the house without my cache prinouts.
JD and I did fairly well. As I remember, we only didn’t find a couple out of about a dozen. Sometimes knowing what’s coming prevents us from even trying a cache. Maybe the cache looks too involved, or too many stages or whatever.
Now, when I’m going out of the area, I upload the cache pages to my laptop, and look at them in the vehicle, but not on the trail. I also use a system in the icons to descerne the types in my GPSR(like others have mentioned)
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