Phones & GPS

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Team Pathfinder
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Phones & GPS

Post by Team Pathfinder » 28 September 17 11:07 am

Thought I might start a topic and see if we can keep a few people interested in the forums.

When these forums started the only way to geocache was by using a GPS, some of us even started at a time when there wasn’t maps in those units and in our case at least, the GPS only went to two decimal places.

Question:-
Do many people use / own a GPS unit or have most switched to smartphone. We still have our Garmins - I even updated from Magellan to Garmin. Ian has an IPhone and uses that occasionally, more when we are looking for just one cache.

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CraigRat
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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by CraigRat » 28 September 17 11:39 am

I found my oregon GPS in a drawer last weekend, havent used it in at least 2 years!

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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by Sol de Lune » 28 September 17 11:46 am

Don't use a phone, only my Garmin Montana 610....and Oregon 550t, 300 and yellow e-trex before that. Have maps for all over the world on the 610 and they work a treat.

Couldn't imagine what it would be like to cache without it...especially overseas.

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oldfella
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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by oldfella » 28 September 17 11:55 am

98% of my caching is still paper based. I use an Oregon 300, Magellan explorist XL and a Magellan 710. Mainly use the old XL. Use the phone to verify a cache if needed when driving through an area and have signal but other than down loading for offline I would say that over 75% of the areas I cache in at the moment there is no phone signal ( Telstra). Will stick to the GPS for the forseeble future. The phone is good if I had not had a caching plan and just wanted to check if there were any hides close by as I drove through the area. It is only in the last twelve months that I have had my Android smart phone ( not by choice) and not into this level of tech at present.

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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by Laighside Legends » 28 September 17 12:18 pm

I have a Garmin GPS that runs Android (and hence c:geo). Almost the best of both worlds... (it only connects to the internet via WiFi which can be a bit limiting)

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Team Pathfinder
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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by Team Pathfinder » 28 September 17 1:25 pm

CraigRat wrote:I found my oregon GPS in a drawer last weekend, havent used it in at least 2 years!
And the batteries where still charged? :-)

I take it you either use a phone now or don’t get out geocaching as much as you might like eh?

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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by Team Pathfinder » 28 September 17 1:48 pm

Good to see we aren’t alone in staying with our GPS’s. I couldn’t help but notice at the recent WA Goes Big that most used their smartphones. I felt like a bit of a relic, that doesn’t stop me though :D

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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by spatialriq » 28 September 17 1:55 pm

I started geocaching in 2011, so my first cache was via smartphone (c:geo). Since purchased a Garmin 64s. But only use that if I'm caching out bush for the day. But as I'm Perth based, the bulk of my geocaching is urban (or is that urbane) .. so I'd be 90% smartphone.

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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by cantanga » 28 September 17 7:09 pm

I use my phone mostly, its easier and (generally) has decent enough GPS. That is if I remember to turn off all the features that supposedly make it more accurate, they instead make it about 50m less accurate. I also have one of the old yellow garmin etrex H, hence why the phone is easier. I will only use that if I'm only hunting a couple of caches in a rugged area or will have to walksome distance. Don't think I've used it though in 2 years as family commitments has seen me doing urban caches, or caches that are only a short walk.

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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by Richary » 28 September 17 9:47 pm

I started with the old yellow eTrex, so a maximum of 500 caches and no info. A day's caching would involve printing out the listings for the ones I wanted to visit. I then upgraded to a 60cx from memory, with limited maps but still no descriptions.

As caching grew I found 500 cache limit would only get me about 30km from home, so that was when I basically switched to the work-supplied iPhone as I could have every cache in the state loaded, and a work callout could easily take me 100km away from home with basically no notice. Or even further if it was a next day job. I know that modern GPS units can have all the maps and GPX files loaded, I just find it easy to use the phone as it works for me. In the days I used to do work trips interstate I would just generate a GPX for the area of interest beforehand so as not to use too much data when it was more expensive to do so and load beforehand, while realising I could also look at online data (at least for Groundspeak caches).

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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by the Monkey King » 01 October 17 12:53 pm

I still use a GPSr for caching. I prefer it to my phone, but I do carry my phone with me as back up if I need it.

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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by Tuena » 01 October 17 5:27 pm

I still use a GPSr, Garmin now as I broke my Magellan 710. Occasionally I use the phone to enter a find. I do Waymarking more than Geocaching now-a-days & a phone would be of no use anyway.

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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by 2y'stassies » 01 October 17 9:26 pm

We started in 2010 with etrexHs and now use Garmen 64's. Resort to occasionally using phone just to check whether there are any caches that have been published after we did our research for particular areas. Would prefer to navigate with GPS. One of our team still loves the simplicity of her etrexH.

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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by Now_To_Morrow » 02 October 17 12:26 am

When I started geocaching I used printouts. I didn't have a smart phone or GPS and couldn't afford either. As I discovered and did geocaching on my own, I ended up with way less finds that DNFs so gave up.

When I stared back up I had and used a smart phone, and shortly after, my sister gave me her old slightly broken Magellan GPSr. From my experience the GPSr is way more accurate than my phone, costs less in data use, and works in non-phone-service areas. I know you can now download offline data on the GC app, but the map info is poor. I use both - GPSr for planned trips and phone for unplanned. My GPSr memory card slot is broken so I have limited memory on it. I prefer logging my finds later though with my phone (when away) or home computer as typing the log on my GPSr takes way too much time - perfectly good geocaching time!

A Garmin64s or the like with chirp (the s) is on my wish list. Probably won't happen for a while though.

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Re: Phones & GPS

Post by Just a cacher » 03 October 17 6:51 am

I started by printing out information and a map, like No_Tomorrow did. I wanted to see how much fun it was before investing in a dedicated GPS unit.

Being very stubborn, I used the printout method for about 3 months, then Steve bought me a GPS. Of course, as soon as technology was invilved, Steve got interested in caching as well.

He now uses iphone exclusively, but I still use the Garmin.

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