Recovering a lost GPSr

[kennythe1st]

Lost my GPSR today at Franklin the Sleeping Giant. I wasn't sleeping but I was giantly stupid, putting it on the bonnet while I restashed the cache then driving off. No sign of it when we went back an hour later.

Anyway my questiion is, for those of us that register our devices with Garmin (in this case) or Magellan, do they have any mechanism whereby we inform them of a loss such that if anyone else registers with that serial # they could action that in some way? I suspect it might be in the too hard basket for Garmin/Magellan for various good reasons.

Any info welcome. Kenny

[Keeper of Time]

Sorry to hear of the loss Kenny

We will be doing that cache tomorrow so we will keep an eye open for it, lets hope we can find it for you.

Cheers
Keith & Jill

[Black Bunny]

What about your insurance? Household insurance will cover some items carried in your car.....
Steve says to ask on the Garmin forum on Geocaching.com.

I feel for your loss.

Wendy

Edit: Steve meant the Garmin web site. My mistake.

[JABs]

We to did the same thing a couple of months ago at the beginning of a two week trip. Sat it on the roof of Car in Dubbo, got ourselfs sorted and then drove off it was not until about 40 km up the highway we realised. So turned around and headed back into town. Of cause no evidence of unit anywhere to be seen. I was due for an upgrade but that was not how I planned it.

[Philipp]

für everyone with a oregon this might be interesting - I know it's in German but it is self-explaining:

http://beidou.ch/hintergrund

there you can create a background image with your contact details in case you loose your unit.

Cheers
Philipp

[tatty]

Not much help to the OP as their unit is already lost, hope it returns to you somehow.
I have added personal contact details to the start up screen whilst the unit is loading up, found the details in the wiki.
That background link looks good too, cheers Philipp

[gmj3191]

I left my Legend on the roof of the car near Winchelsea a few years back after finding a Geodashpoint beside the road. Drove off, turned right onto the highway and realised about 5 mins later what I'd done.
Luckily I found it on the shoulder of the highway about 30 metres past where I had turned. A few small scratches but not much of a problem.

All I can say is that you now have have an excuse to buy a nice new one if you can scrape the dollars together.

[Agent Basil]

Don't like your chances re car insurance. I lost my car in the Canberra 2003 bushfires, the insurer paid out immediately on the car but not the contents - reason - the car was not parked in my drive-way. The car was actually parked at the bush-fire depot while I was out fighting the fires - left a sour taste in my mouth though the ACT Gov met the shortfall.

[kennythe1st]

Hi everyone.

Hey thanks for your sympathy and helpful comments. The great news is that I got it back Having no luck yesterday we decided to change our planned mountain bike route and instead ride to the cache, get a nearby cache on top of Mt Franklin, then ride back along the grass verge for a better inspection for the missing GPSr.

Turning onto the Mt Franklin road I noticed a grey Honda SUV parked where I had been so checked the rear for a GA sticker. None so rode on.

Getting the summit cache was made more enjoyable by riding right to the top. Then I discovered to my surprise that the 'zoom in' stopped at 35m on my trusty old Magellan Meridian Basic, making the loss of the eTrex even more disheartening. 35m variance is not much fun in a very detailed GZ but not wanting to use the hint we carefully surveyed the scene and A+ soon spotted the hide.

So we whizzed back down to yesterday's 'missing GPSr' cache. I swapped out the holey plastic bag I had noticed when logging the cache, while A+ rode on along the highway verge searching. Checking the log I realised that the grey Honda earlier was probably Keeper of Time and I had missed a great opportunity for a chat and thanks. Get a FTF on one of my new caches coming up and you'll have a GA sticker for the car Keeper of Time!

400m down the verge as I approached A+ I could see her swinging something and discerned a huge smile on her face. Sure enough she had spotted the eTrex in the lush grass. Or more correctly, she had spotted the garish silver lanyard that I had appropriated from a micro MP3 player.

I'll put it all down to the good karma of replacing a holey plastic bag with an obviously holy plastic bag. )
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Insurance. It was insured but the excess is probably about the same value being an etrex Vista H. I insure with Ansvar who have an optional Circle of Safety which covers any of our insured possessions anywhere in Australia or NZ even in transit. Sure it costs an extra $200 or so but we never have to think about the consequences of taking anything anywhere especially on holiday. I'm sure other insurance companies have a similar scheme so maybe check it out.
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Owner info. Good idea re recording contact info Phillipp. I always have #1 waypoint as my home location and either in my eXplorsit 210 and/or eTrex Vista, have recorded some contact info. But I'll check to make sure nboth have it!

Kenny

[Keeper of Time]

Hi Kenny

Great to hear that you got your GPSr back, it probably was us you saw parked up opposite the cache (Silver Rav4) and we did see 2 people on bikes go passed as we were about to set off to the next cache.

Hope to catch up with you soon and we will be trying for that GA sticker FTF very soon on one of your new caches close to where I live.

All the best
Keith & Jill

[tatty]

Great news on finding it again Kenny!!

I tried Philipp's background link yesterday, all works ok on the computer however on loading it up on the oregon it is just a plain background with no font visible, it must fall just outside the viewable area. Gives me an idea to play around in PS CS5 with though, so all is not lost.

[Echo]

***Off topic***

für everyone with a oregon this might be interesting - I know it's in German but it is self-explaining:

http://beidou.ch/hintergrund

there you can create a background image with your contact details in case you loose your unit.

Cheers
Philipp

Is there anything like this for the dakota?

[nibbler]

OK the ID background looks great and I would like to use it but as I am no real techie and add to that I dont speak German, could someone give idiot directions on what to put where and how to load it

[MtnLioness]

Google Chrome asks you if you want it translated and does it for you.

[Richary]

What's wrong with a dymo label on the back with your name and phone number. If whoever finds it is honest you will get it back. If they aren't they will peel it off.

Same as having it on the screen, they can chase you down or alternately just wipe it and start from scratch. But the label is simpler for the muggle who might find it and not know how to look up the user info.