[ForeFeathers]

Thank you for all of this very useful information. This gives me some base info to start looking for a low-cost yet functional unit that will bring some of the frustration out of wandering farther from home when caching. It was easy to know just which cache pages to print when caching nearby but as you start to drive farther you’re not always sure which way you’ll feel like going and it would be great to have enough easy to access information along to just turn the wheel any direction that feels right. I think I’m also putting a new GPSr on my Xmas list too. I NEED mapping! I’m comfortable and like both my Summit and my son’s Legend and would probably stick with Etrex. Probably a LegendC or VistaC. I see there are higher end units available (though they’re not in our local stores). Is anyone using one and feels it’s worth the extra bucks?

[ForeFeathers]

Ok- will do presentations. Now I’m doing another one at work. It just seems a little strange to be participating in an intersting activity that is a group activity where you never/ haven’t met anybody else in the group.

It feels odd?

So it then feels odd to stand in front of 20-30 people or more explaining the activity. You feel like you’re a part of it one way- but not a part at all in another.

I’m not sure I’m writing what I mean to say.

But it’s time for lunch.

[ForeFeathers]

I’m not an expert- and not an EE. But I spend a lot of time with the model aviation hobby and I have all kinds of batteries and chargers for those batteries- NiCd, Nimh, and LiPo. There are very big differences between brands of batteries in how well they perform and hold up. There is also much debate about whether there is or isn’t any memory effect with NiCds- you can find experts that will argue either way.

But I think many times memory effect is blamed for simple overcharging. More information here:

Summary from above site:
-DON’T deliberately discharge the batteries to avoid memory
-DO let the cells discharge to 1.0V/cell on occasion through normal use.
-DON’T leave the cells on trickle charge for long times, unless voltage depression can be tolerated.
-DO protect the cells from high temperature both in charging and storage.
-DON’T overcharge the cells. Use a good charging technique.
-DO choose cells wisely. Sponge/foam plates will not tolerate high charge/discharge currents as well as sintered plate.

[This message has been edited by ForeFeathers (edited 10-24-2005).]

[ForeFeathers]

Some dogs get owners that hunt pheasants. Some get owners that hunt ducks. Some get owners that hunt squirrels, or grouse, or woodcock- mine hunts for little containers that don’t even move…

Please don’t let the other dogs see me, please don’t let the other dogs see me…

[ForeFeathers]

Any chance you would be willing to share your ppt with us?

The presentation I set up was specific to scouting in many ways and included many photos of my family. Parts of it also came directly off of geocaching.com- so I don’t know how that would work? However, when I find some time I could work up a more generic version and send it to you. I put a good number of hours into it and perhaps it could save someone a lot of time to use it as a base from which to create their own.

[ForeFeathers]

Ah,

Is less really more, or more less, or more- well- more? We’ve only been keeping track of caches for a few months on the site though we did a few two or three years ago and just signed paper logs. I will say this, as a newcomer to this place I found/find it odd that the congratulations page is filled with “topped 500”, “reached 1000”, and so forth. It would seem to me, and it has been my experience, that finding a cache takes about 1/10 the work, trouble, and expense of placing one. I would think the congratulations would belong as much or more to those doing the placing rather than the finding?

We have really enjoyed the last few months of geocaching. I was asked to do a presentation for the local scout district on geocaching and GPS. I don’t think I’m any expert but the folks in charge knew my family had been geocaching and asked me. So I did it. I put together a 60 slide PowerPoint presentation and added a slide of the family at sunset in the kayaks with the chinese proverb, “The journey is the reward”. That really sums up our exerience so far. The tupperware was the reason we arrived, but not the reward.

Oh, I had some great feedback on the presentation. One older gentleman walked up afterward and told me it was his job to travel the state attending different district meetings. He told me it was the most interesting presentation he could remember. He was amazed with geocaching. Another guy, who had given me all the reasons a GPS was inferior to a compass before the presentation and laughed at my “high tech” set-up and the idea of geocaching walked up at the end and told me it was a fantastic presentation- and that he now wanted a GPSr for Christmas.

[ForeFeathers]

ForeFeathers,

You use the user flags and then the search function where you can filter out only the caches that you have flagged. Yes, I know, I’ve started talking to myself. I’ll stop posting questions now because it seems like if you spend a few more minutes you can figure it out yourself. Sorry!

[ForeFeathers]

I got it. You flag all the ones you want and then click on the column icon. They all float to the top. Now I just need a column that’s numbered so I know how many I’ve picked…I’ll bet that’s possible.

[ForeFeathers]

I’m doing pretty well with this but one thing that should be simple is escaping me. I have over 130 waypoints in my “Summit” database- all the waypoints that I’d gathered over four years. I finally erased all the waypoints out of my unit for the first time. I’d like to have many of my waypoints back but not nearly all. I haven’t figured out how to pick and choose which ones to put back in. I can adjust the number at the top of the upload screen, but I can’t figure out how to get just the ones I want to be the first 20 or so. It must be done with flagging under the little man icon?

I figured out to handle the six character waypoint name limitation in my Summit. My son informed me his new Legend can handle up to 10. It does take some time to figure this all out.

[ForeFeathers]

Yes,

It was no problem getting the file into GSAK and exported back into Streets and Trips. Sigh, you’re right, it would be hard to live without it after you’ve seen what it can do…

To think we’ve been just plugging the coords in by hand to a GPSr with no mapping ability. It’s amazing we could be using GPS technology and be so “low tech”.

[ForeFeathers]

Oh, and Cathunter,

I’d like to take you up on your offer- email sent.

[ForeFeathers]

That is simply amazing. Something tells me your lawn needs mowing…

We’ve been caching around the area the last few weeks and we’ve found only one cache that didn’t have a hunnybunny log in it. It was our one first-to-find: it seems every other new cache ends up with a hunnybunny first-to-find. My daughter has resorted to making comic strips illustrating her Dad desperately trying to arrive at a new cache before the hunnybunnies. It shows this tire-squealin’ car piloted by this guy with an odd look on his face.

This can’t be a good thing??

[ForeFeathers]

This is all great information. The page from the Florida site is probably the best one-stop source I’ve seen.

Even using the lOC files would enable me to map on Streets and Trips as well as download waypoints into my GPS- I haven’t got that far yet, but I pulled them out so it can’t be that hard to put ’em in.

I guess what I need to decide is just how much caching we intend to do. One thing I can see is the more you do the more driving you’d better be ready to do also. At least from central Wisconsin.

I truly appreciate all the help you folks have given. I have a much better understanding of all of this than I did a couple of days ago. Too bad geocaching is an activity where you don’t meet the other folks doing it! We’ve haven’t run into anyone else yet. Seems like a nice sort of people are involved…

[ForeFeathers]

I may be too late to help here but on the chance you’re still planning. My son’s in scouting too and last fall at a campout we set out a few “meteorites” (a rubber ball wrapped in tinfoil). We placed them in out of the way spots but near enough to trails that a flashlight would pick up on them and sent kids out in small groups during the evening campfire with the GPS to find the fake meteorites (we had one adult follow each group so we didn’t lose any kids). The kids thought it was fun.

He’s going to a campout next month and is planning on doing a more organized course as a leadership project. When I read about the in the dark caches using the little reflector pins (that I used to use to find my bowhunting stands in the early morning dark before I got a GPS) as part of a night course I realized that kids would think that would be the greatest.

Good luck!

[This message has been edited by ForeFeathers (edited 09-20-2005).]

[ForeFeathers]

Thanks for the reply. I must now go and research PQ’s. I don’t have an understanding of what the difference is between the GPX file and a PQ. I also don’t have a PDA. So, I see a problem here- even if I have the laptop in the car…

I don’t have any information with me on the trail unless I print out paper anyway. Perhaps I should just invest in more ink cartridges!

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