MnGCA

Pear Head · Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 6:12 pm Post subject:

How much detail does the Street Atlas provide when you get really zoomed in?

One of my chief desires in mapping is to help me in that last few blocks to get to the cache. I can route myself on major roads just fine - it's that last few blocks that you often end up driving around the most before you find the "right spot".

I tried out Rand McNally's product but it doesn't seem to give street names when it's zoomed way in. The most it will give is apparently two names in the current view. This is hard to work with when you're looking at a dozen streets...

If you could post some digital camera shots of your XMap I'd sure appreciate it!

Thanks to everyone for all of the info so far!

Marsha and Silent Bob · Past MnGCA President Joined: 02 Sep 2003 Posts: 6261

Autorouting! Wink

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Sad state of affairs.

TangoDeltaDelta · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 1:51 pm Post subject: Palm, GPS, cell phone

I use a Palm Tungsten E (in a metal hardcase) with Mobipocket and PocketQueries from the GC site. That works well for keeping all the local cache info up-to-date and handily available when out in the field. I have a couple of queries setup to run every other day centered on work and home. (I've got an SD card to give me more storage space for this and music, etc.) I wouldn't want to be without it. This works GREAT!

I also have some other freeware on the Palm -- HintDecoder (not really required as the hints are not encoded but rather on an "Appendix" page in Mobipocket, but some multi-stages have ROT-13 clues) and Mimee, which can do unit conversions. These only see occasional use.

I don't actually log on the Palm, but rather just from memory when I get back to a PC and an internet connection (more on this below). I also haven't loaded a mapping program on it yet. If I'm really not sure of the driving directions, laser-printed paper is where I'm at so far. The GC maps or any of the on-line maps work pretty well as long as you can zoom in and out.)

I tend to be much more selective when adding cache waypoints to my GPS. I have a Garmin Etrex Legend ( and a compass -- I wish I had a Vista -- I may upgrade) and about half of my waypoints are entered by hand, and the other half via a .loc file using the serial data cable and PC freeware EasyGPS. Either works fine for me.

I've tried accessing the WAP site for geocaching.com, but it to date I haven't gotten it working correctly on my Sanyo SCP-4900 cell phone. The one thing I've really been considering upgrading, primarily because of geocaching, is my cell phone. Some of the newer phones apparently have better browsers that work/play well with the WAP site, and having a camera built in would be much easier than carrying a separate digital camera -- I'd probably get a lot more pictures, and be able to log a find from virtually anywhere. I think these things would add to the fun.

IMHO, the biggest thing is to have fun! If the tools make it more fun, use 'em -- if not, leave them at home. Cool

(You can google all the software names mentioned above for current links.)
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TangoDeltaDelta

Pear Head · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 3:58 pm Post subject:

I ended up buying a Sony Clie. To make a long story short, I'm having problems with the one I have and will most likely buy a different Sony Clie model. I also bought a 512MB stick (I didn't want to ever have to worry about memory, which I don't).

I tried the Rand McNally maps for the palm and will end up mailing them back to the company for my $ back (I have the permission email, just have to mail it back now). The reason I wasn't happy with them was primarily that it didn't display street names. I could get it to display 1 often, 2 rarely, and never more than that. Seeing a grid of 6 square city blocks with no street names is hard to navigate.

I'm currently trying out the Mapopolis stuff (google for palm maps I think). They have demo maps for free that expire over time (9 days). I will eventually come up with a serial cable to hook up my GPS (I think I have one somewhere). I haven't found the mapping to be useful at all yet - it will probably be more so when I have a GPS hooked up. Right now it's not worth my time to find out where I am on the map and where the cache is so I can figure out how to get there.

I'm curious how Silent Bob (and others) do mapping while on the road. Explain more please.

I tried the Cachemate software on the palm but didn't like it because it seemed like too much selecting to get all of the information that you wanted.

I ended up going the route that EasyStarts outlined earlier in this thread. It was a big pain to get started but it seems like it works ok now. I run 4 PQs for MN, 2 for WI, 2 for OK, one for my own caches, and another odd one here and there. Most are twice a week. The MN query pulls ALL MN active caches, including those that I've found. The WI and OK ones only pull unfound (by me) active caches. I don't always update GSAK or my Palm, but at least by pulling the PQs twice a week I can get all of the logs into the Palm.

I was only going to pull the MN caches that I haven't found but decided to pull them all as a number of times I have gotten cell phone calls from other cachers looking for information on such and such a cache.

I can't keep track of the caches I do in my head until I log them so I use the memo pad so I can scratch out the information to log later.

So, that's where I'm at now. I've had the Palm for about two weeks now so it's still a learning experience.

Pear Head · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 4:02 pm Post subject:

Thanks again EarlyStarts for the information on your GSAK and Plucker setup.

I modified your PQ dates a little a couple of days ago to create more "room" in the final query, since some querys were returning far less than 500 caches. I now use:

Jan 1, 2000 -> Aug 10, 2003 = 490 caches
Aug 11, 2003 -> May 1, 2004 = 480 caches
May 2, 2004 -> Nov 1, 2004 = 489 caches
Nov 2, 2004 -> July 1, 2005 = 434 caches and counting

Marsha and Silent Bob · Past MnGCA President Joined: 02 Sep 2003 Posts: 6261

Pear Head · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 5:27 pm Post subject:

Now I understand... Thanks. I would still like to get out caching with you sometime so that I can understand all of that great technology that I'm missing out on.

rickrich · Geocacher Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 673

Pear Head · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 6:58 pm Post subject:

Does that filter out the non-active caches? We (or I anyway) don't download caches that are not active...

I think that is the way Early Starts had suggested as well.

Pear Head · Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 3:44 pm Post subject:

Pear Head · Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 5:39 pm Post subject:

Jan 1, 2000 -> Oct 31, 2003 = 499
Nov 1, 2003 -> Aug 10, 2004 = 493
Aug 11, 2004 -> Apr 15, 2005 = 498
April 16, 2005 -> Aug 31, 2005 = 499
Sept 1, 2005 -> Jan 1, 2006 = 498
Jan 2, 2006 -> ? = 218 and counting