Geocaching Australia

Some of you may know my name, but I've been out of the game for a few years, and my original GPSr is well and truly f*&%ed...

Since I stopped playing, GPS has become mainstream... and seems to be in every other car...

I'm thinking about getting back into the game - mostly as an excuse to do some bushwalking..., but I need a new GPSr...

Is there any device that I could use for geocaching, but that would also give me friendly travel directions in my car?

Please feel free to advise me to do a search, but also be aware that I apparently still seem to be a moderator here

Plenty of choice there, a GPS enabled PocketPC with Tomtom and various Geocaching programs, as will the latest mobile phones, there's a few threads on the Nokia Navigator 6110. I've been using a Nokia N95 pretty much exclusively for the last year, not as good as a real GPS in gorges and heavy tree cover, and battery life is an issue, but for short trips and spontaneous caching it's great.

Erm re the n95, no car charger?

Welcome back Leek!
Nokia 6110 works great for turn by turn directions in the car. Full Australian maps and works out of the box. Some of the other Nokia models with GPS require a paid subscription for voice direction.
I have also been using it for geocaching. Software I am using is not ideal but there are some good programs I belive you can upload waypoints from gsak etc. Best battery life I have got is about 5 hours with the gps running.

delta_foxtrot2 wrote:Erm re the n95, no car charger?

LOL Pictures dragging a car behind for a several hour hike.

Damo. wrote:LOL Pictures dragging a car behind for a several hour hike.

I saw this pic once of a guy that riggs up solar panels on his hat to charge accessories...

delta_foxtrot2, love the witty comments and all, but how about addressing the topic and giving a plug for your beloved blackberry?!

Welcome back Leek!

From my experience, the in car units are good for roads and "how to get there" info but fail off road. I noticed the latest garmin maps (2009) on my nuvi stopped showing the road I was on as soon as it entered a National Park, The road continued through the park and exited on the other side.

Before someone tells me, I know I could put T4A maps on it.

The older (mapsource 4?)maps on my etrex vista showed the road continuing as I knew it did.

Perhaps something like a Garmin C60 as they will do turn by turn and have an arrow you can follow when off the road. I'm not sure if they talk.

Swampgecko has both the Nuvi and a C60, he could answer the talk question.

leek wrote:but also be aware that I apparently still seem to be a moderator here

Doesn't worry you that no one noticed you were gone? ...Just kidding...Nice to see you back.

The choice of GPS units is ridiculous now and from my limited experience with turn-by-turn units they are not that good for off the bitumen use. Even the expensive Pocket-PC types have limited battery life and aren't as rugged as the hand held type units. I certainly wouldn't take one on a bushwalk with me, give me my trusty old and battered hand held GPS any day.

Just my 2cents worth.

Riblit,

Before someone tells me, I know I could put T4A maps on it.

I am pretty sure you can put shonkymaps on these. Check out this thread at GPSAustralia:
http://www.gpsaustralia.net/forums/show ... light=nuvi

Cheers,
Mike.

Leek... Leek... why does that give me a sensory flashback of cigarette smoke?

Just a personal observation: I used to use TomTom on my Palm to give me voice turn-by-turn directions but these days I tend to use my Garmin GPS60cs most of the time. It has turn-by-turn but just with a beep and a big graphic showing the corner, not a friendly voice.

However, it's mounted in a cconvenient place to see without neglecting the road and it's been perfectly adequate. It helps that I'm often navigating towards a cache when I'm going somewhere I don't know, and they're already on the Garmin!

In other words, it's worth looking at a GPSr that's completely suitable for the off-road stuff and a compromise for the street use, and find it a better compromise than the other way around.

For almost no compromise have a look at the Garmin Colorado, great for geocaching will do Wherigo, turn by turn navigation and paperless caching. You can also add extra maps. My one know has City Nav, Blue Charts, Track4Aust pro, Shonky Topo as well as the American base map. Takes a little time to start up but with the profiles very easy to switch between the different maps. Only down side with the turn by turn, it only beeps to tell you to turn it would have been better if they had added voice.

zactyl wrote:delta_foxtrot2, love the witty comments and all, but how about addressing the topic and giving a plug for your beloved blackberry?!

2 reasons, people keep complaining about me, and the Storm has a GPS bug and goes funny when it looses phone network, GPS works fine with SOS only even, but until they fix this I wouldn't recommend it... Although the 8310 works great, previous BB I used....

riblit wrote:From my experience, the in car units are good for roads and "how to get there" info but fail off road. I noticed the latest garmin maps (2009) on my nuvi stopped showing the road I was on as soon as it entered a National Park, The road continued through the park and exited on the other side.

I really love google maps and national parks, more often then not I'm supposed to be driving off cliffs

Welcome back leek. I know the name but of course you have been quiet since I moved to NSW!

I have the Nokia 6110 and have used it for caching. But not found it suitable to be my main caching GPS. It takes a while to lock sometimes to get the coords. In conjunction with the Trimble software I find it useful though if I end up somewhere unexpected or need to re-read the clues on a cache once I have walked several km from the car and laptop (find closest caches feature) allows me to check the info live off the GC site if needed.

I haven't really played with it's on road capabilities as I already have an in car satnav. The TomTom is fairly good most of the time though if it thinks the cache is on a bike track, it will take you to the end of the bike track rather than 50m away from it where you can walk across the grass. Plus a few map errors - wanting me to turn right where I can't, and in the country it has led me through some tracks where I decided low range was the best option - certainly not family car friendly. But once you accept it's limitations it has it's place.

To be honest once you are out of the car I have found nothing better than the original yellow eTrex or the Garmin Foretrex which is what I use now (the eTrex died a while ago). No fancy bells and whistles to confuse things, or maps. Just the arrow to follow.

Thanks all... Show's you how out of date I am or how thing have changed... <br><br>
I was expecting to spark a Garmin vs Magellan fight, but instead got Nokia, BlackBerry, TomTom, Palm...<br><br>

I have the Nokia 6220, but haven't tried to use it for caching... It's accuracy is a little worrying as it frequently advises me to do u-turns because it thinks I'm on a road 30m away... Maybe I should just get my old battered Magellan Meridian repaired...<br><br>

Hope to be more active soon... <br><br>

Oh... and Papa_Bear_Left - you'll be glad to hear that I gave up the weed 13 months 2 weeks, 3 hours and 14 minutes ago...

leek wrote:I have the Nokia 6220, but haven't tried to use it for caching...

That'll do! Make sure you are using A-GPS, makes a huge difference to lock-on time and accuracy, except when you're out of mobile phone range down in a gorge... So you'll need data on your mobile plan, but that's pretty cheap these days, A-GPS and Trimble Navigator don't use much, 5mb should last you a month with light use. So go get Trimble Geocache Navigator and go caching!
You might need an emergency battery charger too, grab a 2XAA one from the supermarket, ~$35 and a car charger if you don't have one, $15 at DSE.