quote:

.....young son comes home with this thing for me.

Ha! Doomed to paperless 'caching for life.

The trees are breathing a sigh of relief.

~erik~

quote:

Originally posted by Aksor+Raskol:
Ok, this is really wierd, but as I was logging these posts yesterday, my son was out spending some money he came by from an insurance settlement (rear-ended by an un-insured intoxicated motorist last year) and came home and handed me an HP iPAQ rx3000. It looks like the dang thing will do everything up to and including replacing the remotes for the TV/VCR/DVD. Is this a good thing? I assume I can use it to go paperless caching, and I stored one file in it manually as a test, but now I can't find it on the device. I'm not looking for technical help here because I still have 463 pages of instruction manual to read (which is A LOT BIGGER than the device). My intent was to just communicate the irony of vasilating over a PDA for under $50 and young son comes home with this thing for me.

LOL, congrats! Once you figure it out, you'll need to puchase a little piece of software for it online called CacheMate. It's only $7, but that's what you'll need to store the cache listings in/retireve them from.

In that case, you are firmly in the PPC land. Get a copy of GPXSonar. You can get it at GPXSonar.
Then come to the meeting next month.

GPXSonar is, IMHO, the best thing since sliced bread. You may also want to get mapping software for your device, which will allow you to have detailed maps of the area on the PDA, so that when you are headed out to find a cache, you are not driving around quite so aimlessly. If you need any help with this, please feel free to contact me via my profile.

I was given a Palm Vx by another geocacher.(No jokes, I know that it is an old unit) The first thing I did was load Cachemate on it. I exported the file from GSAK to the pda and I will never go back to printouts again. Took it to NYC this past weekend and it was a godsend!!

quote:

Originally posted by AtlantaGal:

quote:

Originally posted by Aksor+Raskol:
... came home and handed me an HP iPAQ rx3000...

LOL, congrats! Once you figure it out, you'll need to puchase a little piece of software for it online called CacheMate. It's only $7, but that's what you'll need to store the cache listings in/retireve them from.

Unfortunately, since he got a iPAQ, he can't use Cachemate, since that's only available for PalmOS systems. IMHO, however, GPXSonar is better than cachemate, and so I recommend that. Also, GPXSonar runs only on PPC, not on PalmOS.

Enjoy being paperless, Aksor!

well don't faint, but guess who else is going paperless? i ordered the iQue 3600 last wednesday and am waiting for it to arrive. now i have to have a garage sale to help pay for it.

I would be interested in how the iQue works out for you. I looked at it when it was announced and decided it was too fragile for a klutz like me to take it into the woods.

well the reason i went with the iQue is because my gps, which is an etrex summit, is very limited. the iQue will give me some extra gps features that i currently do not have plus the benefit of paperless geocaching. it seemed the best way for me to go assuming i can figure out how to work it and assuming my personal computer doesn't crash when i load the software that comes with the iQue. i am not sure i will actually use the gps feature once i get out of my truck. i may keep it safely secured in my backpack. i will let you know if it breaks the first time i drop it which i hope does not happen for a long time.

I love the Ique. It has totally changed my caching ability. I use it mainly for navigating or quick park and grabs. The battery does not last that long trying to hike a long multi so I use my sportrak for places I might drop it. They do make a battery extender for the igue though that is portable and uses AA batss. I bought a 1G SM card for it so storage is endless. I do have to reset it every once in awhile but thats no biggy. Ive seen some cases for them that are crush and waterproof but run about 70 bucks.

quote:

Originally posted by redworm:
well don't faint, but guess who else is going paperless? i ordered the iQue 3600 last wednesday and am waiting for it to arrive. now i have to have a garage sale to help pay for it.

Yay, she did it!!! Since JeeptpysRus has an Ique, maybe he can give you a few shortcuts so you can bypass some of that manual. Congrats on your purchase!

redworm??? Man, I have got to get with it!!!!
Only now I'm more confused than ever. Garmin, Palm, PocketPC.... Will a Palm have confliction issuse with my desktop running WinXP or no?
This morning I saw a Zire31 advertised at Fryes for $149 which sounds tempting.
Also I'm interested in logging finds & bugs on the run like Cymbaline does. Does that change what I'm looking for?
I've got some catching up to do, obviously, & I don't seem to be making much headway.
Can someone just tell me to go to X place and purchase Y product, please?

quote:

Can someone just tell me to go to X place and purchase Y product, please?

That would be like asking for suggestions on what kind of car to buy and where to buy it. You'd have as many suggestions as there are people responding. I can give you my recommendations on cars, but I only know my PDA and it's Palm OS. Others may work better, or may work slightly less well, but I suspect you'll be happy with whatever you select.

~erik~

Ok after a little more research & a few phone calls I think I'll try'n find a Zire to use mainly for geocaching.
I still have that question about wireless connectability though. I know some of you are able to log your finds in the field. What's the technology there? Blackberry? Treo? Can you look at the geocaching.com website and cache pages on those things whereever there's a wireless signal?
I didn't have this many questions when I bought my Jeep!

I would love to log caches as I find them but from what ive seen it appears its through a phone and takes forever to log. I know cymbaline has blackberry you may want to ask him how it is. Of course there are those like ramness who have a laptop in there passenger seat.

Just my .02. My iQue 3600 rocks! Have had it almost since first geocaching. Take my SportTrack along for long hauls, but the garmin is very accurate and I use it w/ Cachemate which I also really adore. Have not tried SAK though I may load it to my PC. Please feel free to e-mail for set-up advice - etc.

Hey. I really have enjoyed the ability to use my Treo to log finds using a normal qwerty keyboard and/or jump on to the website to check cache pages to check any new logs I may not have seen before I started the day. Just my .02

quote:

Originally posted by JBzHOW:
Ok after a little more research & a few phone calls I think I'll try'n find a Zire to use mainly for geocaching.
I still have that question about wireless connectability though. I know some of you are able to log your finds in the field. What's the technology there? Blackberry? Treo? Can you look at the geocaching.com website and cache pages on those things whereever there's a wireless signal?
I didn't have this many questions when I bought my Jeep!

There's quite a few ways you can log in the field: via cellphone, blackberry, PDA, etc. The common denominator betwixt all of them is "interent access".

Cellphone: I did this on my old phone, via WAP (Wireless Access Protocol). See wap.geocaching.com , you'll get an idea of what you see.

Blackberry/Treo: I use the wap site (see above), or log in via my "normal" blackberry browser, which is a surreal version of the browser you use now. I can log in, view "My account page", log finds, submit a new cache, etc. It can be a bit tedious, but it definitely works. Some of the Treo models would also slot into this category, as they are functionally identical in what they do.

Laptop: Several ways you can do this.
- Wi-fi (802.11a/b/g) access is the most common. Starbucks, t-mobile hotspots, etc. Some locations are free, some fee. Some PDAs have wi-fi cards that you can snap into them, and you then use the PDAs browser to access the net, just like a laptop wi-fi setup. Both are "just like if you were sitting at home" as far as network speed.
- Cellphone-hookup. Mushtang does this. Hook the cellphone to the computer (laptop) via a special cable, and use the cellphone like a dialup modem. Works in a lot of places, but it's a slower connection - 9600 to 36000 baud is the best I've seen, with the slower speeds more common.
- Getting more popular are PC Data cards that some cellphone companies are offering that use a subband of the cellular network for computer network traffic (or something like that - I'm behind on cellular protocols/bandwidth/frequency utilization). Pretty speedy too - not as fast as the higher speed wi-fi (802.11g, for instance), but definitely a bunch faster than dialup, works just fine.

There are definitely other ways to access in the field - satellite phone uplinks, GSM phones, microwave, etc - but they're not germane to this discussion.

I usually only log in the field if there's a problem with a cache, or if I'm after a hard find that's been bugging me. Otherwise, I wait 'til I'm home and do 'em then. I *do* pull up cache pages in the field to see just WTF is going on sometimes - is the cache still active? New coords? New hint? New caches nearby?

JB, if you want quick-and-easy-without-going-goofy and/or if budget is an issue, see if you can access the 'net via your current cellphone and check out the wap.geocaching.com site first - it's not the best, but it definitely works. I used it for quite a while.

If you want some new gee-whiz, take a gander at the Treo or Blackberry units. I favor the blackberry, just as Spiderwebbs favors the Treo; it's kinda like the Palm vs. Axim vs. et al argument - everybody has their favorites.

For comparison purposes, the info on my Nextel Blackberry:
Nextel 7520 unit: $149 (on sale, work pricing)
Nextel cell/radio plan: $59/mo (National 10K Plan, work rate)
Nextel wireless rate: $49/mo (unlimited)

Work reimburses me for the cell/wireless, so that don't bug me much. I also use the nextel radio quite a bit, so it's nextel for me. Sprint and Cingular (I think) also have blackberry units simliar to mine.

Hope this was helpful..

(I can show ya the blackberry at the next meeting if you like. For that matter, it's related to "paperless geocaching", so I'll show/demo to anybody who wants to see it.)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Cymbaline,

Thanks for all your kind replies and helpful information, guys!
I'm in the process of buying a used TungstenE, 256MB SD card, and one of those aluminum hard shell cases so I can slide down the hillsides w/ Erik!
Just under $200 for all including shipping, thru EBay auctions.
Thanks again for all the advice! -JB

This message has been edited. Last edited by: JBzHOW,