This just in.. I made a bonehead move.

Today is my blunder post. We’ve nabbed a few caches in the past few days—which has been nice—but in the pursuit of another park and grab, I made a mistake. Fence post caches are pretty neat spots but there’s only a few ways you can hide a cache on a fencepost. Yesterday I approached a cache location, saw a fencepost and knew immediately it was one of these three ways: hanging inside, attached to the lid or magnetically affixed.

This cache was one of the “inside the pipe” hung-by-a-hook type, and I spotted it immediately. I set down my PDA, reached for the cache.. and promptly dropped it. It fell all the way down the pipe to the bottom. Great. I logged the find but gingerly left the cache and posted a note as to my mistake. I came back later that evening to try and extricate it with a hanging magnet but I hadn’t thought that through either as the magnet would (duh) cling to the side of the pipe instead of gently being lowered to the metal hook. I had another idea to remove it, but It occurred to me that I was going through far too much trouble for a hanging micro.

So I’m going to open my cache box at home and see if I can fashion a suitable replacement. If not, I will offer to upgrade the owner’s cache with an Army decon container.

Hardware: Geocaching with a PDA

The hardware! It’s about time I got to this article. I’ve received a number of inquiries about how I make the PDA work as a geocaching device, and it’s actually pretty simple. I have a knack for over-complicating things, but I have to admit—this one is pretty straightforward.

The gear:

n Dell Axim X30 PDA with Bluetooth

• 1 car charger
• 1 desktop cradle sync/charger
• 3 cases (2 aluminum hard, 1 black leather soft)

n Holux GR-230 Bluetooth GPSr “puck”

• 1 charger A/C + usb cigarette lighter charger port

n 1 Apple iPod Touch 2^nd Generation (optional)

The Axim:

PROs:

n It’s cheap! When I first bought mine in 2004, it cost me thereabouts of $200 +/-. Now a solid used unit will run $50-90 depending on condition and accessories on eBay.

n Replaceable battery! There’s essentially 2 types of Li-ion batteries for the Axim—900mAh, which sits flush with the PDA’s back and 1400mAh (the extended battery) which sits about ¼ inch out from the back of the PDA. Ironically enough, each cost roughly the same on eBay at $10 each and they typically last 3-5 years depending on use and care.

n SD card, wi-fi, bluetooth, internal microphone, external speaker, runs all Windows Mobile 2003 software—syncs with Outlook or a server for contacts, calendar, email and files—infared port for sharing data, printing or working as a remote control.. etc. You get the idea. This little guy does quite a bit.

n It’s light! With the 900mAh battery installed, it weighs less than my cellphone (handy if dropped—less inertia = less chance of damage)

CONS:

n It’s not ruggedized. It is a PDA, after all. To get around this, I’ve procured two aluminum cases (one for the 900mAh battery size and another for the extended battery) with neoprene cushioning.

n Battery life. With the 1400mAh battery, battery life is approximately 4 hours without any form of recharge. The 900mAh will yield about 2 hours and change depending on usage and battery care. To mitigate battery drain as an issue, I travel with the 900mAh as a backup battery and charge the device between caches when driving.

n It’s a 2-part unit. To work as a geocaching platform, the Dell Axim must connect with a GPS receiver. This can be done through a physical cable but that’s just not very conducive to good caching. Instead I connect to a Holux-manufactured GPSr “puck”. And yes, as the name suggests.. it looks like a hockey puck.

The Holux GR-230 GPSr:

There's really not much to say about this device, and certainly not enough to do a pro/con writeup. It's operation is mind-numbingly simple. Get this—you turn it on. Oh, yeah that's really all there is to it. Once you turn it on, you connect to it via bluetooth on the PDA and viola, you've got a GPS feed. It's durable, it comes with a non-slip pad on the bottom to keep it anchored to whatever you set it down on (no adhesive) and the battery life is extremely long. I got 8 hours out of it once, and it was still going strong without a recharge.

It does come with a port for an antenna if you'd like to plug it into a vehicle without a clear view of the sky above, and it's chargeable both through DC (USB cable to a cigarette lighter charger) or A/C (USB cable to a regular A/C socket plug adapter).

The iPod Touch:

I've got to say, this is one cool app for iPhone users but it's less than helpful for iPod Touch users--especially those who already have an all-in-one caching platform on the PDA. That said, it's user and fat-finger friendly so I've caught myself using it from time to time. If I could use the iPod Touch the same way I use the PDA, I'd retire the PDA as the iPod Touch has far more features and capabilities than the PDA and a much longer battery life.

In the field I've caught myself shutting down the PDA when I get to the cache location, and whipping out the iPod from time to time to get the cache hint and/or clues to the cache itself. I do this because it preserves battery on the PDA and its easy to "fat finger" your way through the cache details. The PDA has the exact same data, but it takes me just a little bit longer to get to it.

That’s about it! As I’ve said before, it’s pretty straightforward. If you have any questions regarding your setup, don’t hesitate to ask.

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Updated paperless software setup for PDA geocaching

Since I’ve been successful at getting the PDA brought back from the dead like Lazarus from the grave, I thought I’d share how my PDA setup looks and feels as a total geocaching platform. This is going to be a longer post with more pictures than usual, so go grab a cup of coffee and a warm blanket.. or perhaps a nice frosty lager (just one!)—whatever your preference.

First things first, the biggest and most prevalent problem with PDA geocachers is battery life. With the Dell Axim (and many other good quality PDAs) there’s one great, cheap and easy fix—a higher capacity battery. I bought a 1400mAh extended life battery and a replacement 900mAh battery (sits flush with the device), and so far the 1400mAh is more than enough by itself. The battery monitoring software I’ve installed has shown a 4 hour lifetime with strong PDA use (Bluetooth, gps applications, TomTom, etc.) and that’s not even factoring the spare 900mAh I keep.

I’ll focus on the hardware in another post. Today I want to focus on the software. Under most circumstances, I stick with only three bits of software on my Dell Axim (Windows Mobile 2003) PDA—TomTom navigator, BeeLineGPS, and Cachemate. Sometimes I’ll use GPXview, but it’s similar in function to Cachemate and much slower to use. All of these geocaching-related software packages are listed in the right of this blog’s page under “notable links.” The design of this setup is entirely a paperless caching device born on outside functionality as a business (or personal) tool as well. Until recently, it served as my everything box—a contacts, email and calendar platform with internet functionality (with the added benefit of serving as a Skype-phone too).

The PDA connects via Bluetooth to a Holux GR-230 “puck” that weights a few ounces and has a separate and very slow draining battery. Once I establish a connection between the PDA and the Holux (a 5 second procedure of clicking 2 buttons) I’ll get to the business of locating a cache and navigating to it.

TomTom is the program I use primarily to identify local caches in relation to the roads available—I import my Geocaching.com .gpx files in to TomTom by loading them in GSAK and converting them to .ov2 files and copying them to the TomTom maps directory on my PDA. I’ll usually use the GC.com website to get a rough idea of the locale I want to visit and make a brief list of caches I want to hit before I go. It’s not required by any stretch, but I prefer having a small checklist of my own. If I don’t make the list, I’ll just load TomTom and look for a cache (identified by the beige asterisk in the left screenshot), and then tell TomTom to navigate me there with turn-by-turn directions. Before TomTom, I used Mapopolis—but they’ve since folded and are offering no support for purchasers of their original product (TomTom is still the better product in my opinion anyway, so despite the additional cash out that wasn’t so bad after all). The latest version of TomTom fetched about $150 USD at the time this article was written.

Once I get within the vicinity of the cache, I’ll close TomTom and open up a program called BeeLineGPS. This is my core geocaching program as it allows me to simply import my .gpx files and display them in the same way that most modern GPS geocaching devices do, with plenty of added features (more on those in another post). BeeLineGPS will take me within 2-4 feet of a cache, and will provide a track line so I can trace my way back out of a location the exact way I came. It’s a super-easy program to use, and runs automatically once loaded. I’ll usually highlight the cache I’m targeting in BeeLineGPS and ask it to draw a line between me and the cache (one tap) so I can keep an eye on the general location of the cache without being zoomed too far out. The latest version of BeeLineGPS fetched $29.95 at the time this article was written, and all future updates are provided free.

Once I’m satisfied with my location, I’ll close BeeLineGPS and load up Cachemate to learn more about the specific details of the cache and perhaps pry into the hint and the latest finds if I’m having trouble. Cachemate is essentially a portable database that allows geocachers to go into the field entirely paperless on the same PDA, with full access to the data contained within the .gpx files. The latest version of Cachemate fetched $10 USD at the time this article was penned. However, as an alternative to Cachemate users are more than welcome to try GPXview available at Geocaching.com’s website under the download section for free. It serves a similar purpose (with slightly fewer functions) as Cachemate, but it’s definitely a slower program to load—something that can be very tedious when you are out caching and switching quickly between programs. Cachemate is clearly the superior program despite the price tag.

Altogether, these programs are the totality of our geocaching toolkit, and they all operate on our Dell Axim X30 with a Holux bluetooth GPS puck (all circa 2004). I've recently acquired an iPod Touch, so I also carry along the Geocaching app (which serves mostly as an alternative to Cachemate for iPod Touch users).

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

The Return of TetrAmigos! Hooah!

The battery came in—the big extended 1700 mAh battery that doesn’t sit flush with the device—and I got the software loaded, so today when I finally had some time to grab a lunch break I decided to get out and geocache a little bit in the nearby area to clear my head. It was amazingly effective.

The first cache I set out to find was ingeniously hidden. The clue told me that it was on a fence and magnetic—pretty easy, right? Wrong. The cache owner had somehow located one of the bolts that was loose and pulled it out. He sanded off the end of it, and affixed a very small micro with a metal head and a small magnet. I almost didn’t believe I’d found it when I had, because I’d been looking for 15 minutes and just happened to stumle on the right one. GPS coordinates were off by about 7-10 feet (I know, I’m picky) but I eventually had her logged and was on my way smiling from ear to ear.

I nabbed a total of 5 caches today: Fencing 101, Wildwood Trail Troll (great view), Set Your Sites Low (smelled of urine and feces—everyone’s dream cache location), and Montclef Blvd P&G 1 & 2. The cache with the less-than-favorable odors wasn’t the safest spot to hide a cache, either. Sometimes you have to wonder why you’re the only one to A) notice it and B) actually say something about it. A few years ago I found a cache that was hidden behind a car safety rail—the kind they put up to deflect a car from going off a hill—at the end of a blind hill. Genius. To top it off, there was no safety margin of a sidewalk or obstacle to hide behind if one of the 50mph cars strayed. I wasn’t too quiet about that one.

All in all, it looks like team TetrAmigos is back in action, using an upgraded setup to boot! I’ll post more on the status of the geocaching tools later, but for now I’m going to bask in the glory of getting our cache count up a little higher and enjoying some spectacular and not-so-spectacular views along the way.

The Noid Retoins! ..and 100 reasons why I'm wearing the "dunce cap"

I’m fired. In the process of digging up my old geocaching gear and getting everything back up to snuff, I found something.. and now I feel about 2” tall.

I found the Noid Retoins. A few years ago I visited my first event cache—Farewell Blig—a fellow who was known in the local area for placing some of the most challenging caches known. He was moving off to Texas, so the local geocachers and I got together and celebrated over pizza and a couple of beers.

To celebrate the event, we all brought our favorite trackables to trade and log . I dropped off a bunch of the wooden nickels that I’d helped manufacture and picked up a travel bug. Well, between then and now the travel bug had disappeared and I was feeling sheepish as the responsible cacher who irresponsibly lost it.

Good news! I still feel 2” tall, but the Noid Retoins and will be placed in a cache as quickly as possible to get going again. To the owner “chaosmanor” I sincerely apologize. The next time we meet, the round is on me. Count on it.

Lesson to myself and others? If you loose a travel bug it’s generally considered good etiquette to replace the bug and apologize to the owner personally. I did non of these things, and for that I deserve the dunce cap of the month and the shame that comes with it. Chaosmanor had a ton of patience—more than I would have exhibited under the circumstances.

Geocaching Revival: Teaching an old dog (Axim X30) new tricks

Wow, another big gap. And my cache count has dropped. Wait, what? Dropped?! Yep. So much time away, and the slow decomposition of old finds has seen our find count drop to the 60s. Definitely not cool, and definitely time to get out there and get back to it. We’re done having kids and both kids are walking and always looking for excuses to get out. What better reason than treasure hunting?

So for the third time, we’re reinventing our little family team with a new name and improved technology. Always a stickler for making old dogs learn new tricks, I’ve decided to blow the dust off of the old Axim X30 and turn it back on again. In digging out the old trusty Axim and blowing the dust off of it’s various components (literally), I began the BDA (battle damage assessment for you non-military types).

As I suspected, the battery and the backup battery were near useless after 5 years of use and 2 years of inactivity. The internal emergency battery was drained and the portable USB cable was MIA. Oh and I’d cannibalized the SD card it once depended on, so that’s going to need replacement too. Here’s the good news. As far as hardware is concerned, larger higher-capacity batteries are now available for the Dell Axim series at a very low price. SD cards are also cheaper and much higher capacity. So I dropped about $20 at eBay and picked up a replacement oversize battery and a flush 900mAh battery. I put in a bid on an OEM replacement USB cable, and will likely head down to a local store for a cheap 2GB replacement SD card.

On the software front, there’s been a number of changes as well. After a quick trip to Dell and Microsoft’s websites for the latest ROM updates to my Axim X30, I began poking around at the software companies where I’d purchased my custom GPS and geocaching software packages previously.

Certainly they would have released more advanced versions of these programs, and with any luck these upgrades would be free! I can’t test them out yet until I get the SD card (all software will be installed on the SD card to keep plenty of operating memory available and free on the device) but a few tests proved that BeeLineGPS has been updated to fix bugs and provide new features. I still have my TomTom software package, so I’ll be using that as well.

Lastly, the Mrs. bought me an iPod Touch for my birthday so I’ll be looking to download the Geocaching app for that as well to enhance my multitasking paperless capabilities on the trails.

More to follow as our GPS geocaching hardware is updated and upgraded.

2 Caches Nabbed Today

I work in a pretty stressful sales environment for an aerospace company--things with the kind of numbers attached that we only read about in the Wall Street Journal--so it's no surprise that I found diving back into caching a highly relaxing activity today. After getting the PDA (see picture) set up again with the proper software, and firing up the GPX files, I grabbed two nearby caches that had spring up within a mile or two of my house. I half-expected to see them all over the place, but I suppose it's nice that many of the geocaches in my town are hidden in areas that are notable spots to stop and appreciate.

The first cache was somewhat irritating due to the haphazard placement (and likely shotgun GPS reading of the placer) and unhelpful clue. I was seeking an eclipse gum tin that was hidden behind a piece of old wood. Sounds fairly easy enough save that the area was littered with old wood. Having turned over almost every piece of wood and bark in the area, I was actually retreating back to my car when I spotted the cache.. at the bottom of a fencepost. After signing the log and replacing the cache, I snagged a small piece of wood and placed it somewhat over the little box. At least now the clue would be helpful to the next cacher.

On the way back to the house for dinner I dropped by a cache placed in the parking lot of a local pub.. and discovered one of the most remarkable camouflages yet. Someone had purchase an entire electrical conduit box, painted it, affixed magnets and placed it at the electrical box outside. Wow. So I only found two on this trip.. so what? :) No DNF's, and that second cache was worth 10 in my book.

Paperless Caching in 2008

What's it been.. 2 hours? I think I just set a record for reinstalling my geocaching tools on the PDA using the few upgrades that have taken place in the past few years in hardware and software. First, I am no longer using the 512mb SG cards that used to be the norm. With 2,4,6 and 8gb cards now on the market my problems with available space have virtually disappeared. I have swapped in a 2gb Mini-SD card (using a full-size sleeve) allowing me to be more flexible in what can read it (many devices now accept only Mini-SD cards).

Software-wise, I fell back on the same old setup, albeit with the newer versions which are now available. CacheMate for paperless .gpx data, BeeLineGPS for on-site cache locating, TomTom Navigator software for global view of nearby caches and driving to them, and GSAK for the PC data compilation required to edit my .gpx files and convert them into .ov2 files for TomTom. Lastly, of Google Earth is the at-home viewer for the at-a-glance pre-planning of caches I want to hit. I'm entirely paperless, though I admit this really is a somewhat complicated setup. Once it's installed, it's very simple. I guess I've never been one to shy away from complicated procedures.

Getting the TomTom to display the caches was super-simple.. I just copied the .ov2 file (and .bmp file) to the maps folder on my TomTom installation (I hear this works in the same way on OEM TomTom devices in addition to TomTom PDA installs) and then just selected POIs from my settings. Viola! I'm GeoCaching again in just a few hours, using the same software with the updated versions and new SD hard hardware.. frankly I think it all runs much faster now on my PDA.

Rejoining the World of Geocaching

What is this, my third time rejoining this wonderful hobby? Two things to say about Geocaching: 1) It's highly addictive 2) Its something that often comes with peaks and valleys.

When I joined geocaching.com, I was shocked when I discovered that my PDA+GPSr combo was an ideal geocaching tool. 5 years later and I still have the same PDA and GPSr combo, but I've replaced Mapopolis. Mapopolis has sadly folded along with many companies in this economic turmoil, so I switched to TomTom. Having also taken a new career path, I'm travelling all over the USA meeting customers and my 1GB SD card fits all streets and highways for the entire continental United States without having to move maps from the PC > card and visa versa. Additionally, I find TomTom to be much more user friendly when it comes to finding what I need and getting where I need to go.

So goal: Now that we've brought our 2nd kid into the picture and he's old enough to get out and about, we plan to rename our Geocaching team (TraceAmigos doesn't work now, as Trace was a play on words for "tres = three," and we are now four) and get back out there. Having Mapopolis to help me visually identify nearby caches was a MUST.. I'm praying that a similar capabilty exists for TomTom as well.

Our First Owned Geocaching.com Trackable Item

Three months ago one of our cousins in Alabama sent me a geocoin as a Christmas gift, so we sent him a handful of trackable California Wooden Nickels in return. The coin was so nice, we stashed it in a keepsake drawer for safe keeping. Today I opened that drawer, saw the coin and realized that geocoins don't belong in drawers – they belong in the wild traveling from cache to cache!

So we sat down this afternoon, thought long and hard about a mission for the coin, and logged it into the geocaching.com website. The name we chose was Remembering Decatur Alabama Geocoin in remembrance of Mark and Mary Harris – my grandparents on my mother's side – who both passed away in the past 4 years. We spent many a holiday in Decatur, AL visiting the other half of our family over the past 30 years and it's hard to think that they won't be around anymore to spend time with. Our goal is for this coin to visit all fifty (50) states in the USA before being “retired.” If we have any luck, it might happen sometime in the next 10 years!

We've handled a few travel bugs and wooden nickels, but this is our first official geocaching.com trackable item, so we are rather proud! Here's a picture of what the coin looked like before it went to mint:

First Event Geocache - Farewell BLIG

Wow, what a night. All week we were planning to visit the Farewell BLIG event in Newbury Park to say farewell to one of the most meticulous puzzle-placing cachers in the Conejo Valley. When Friday came, the wifey was feeling ill so I spent the day home looking after her and the little one. Unfortunately, she was still feeling too ill to go but insisted that I visit and say goodbye to BLIG. I begrudgingly yielded and drove off to Magoo's in Newbury Park to visit and drink a few beers.

I arrived at 6:30pm PST sharp (just as the event cache said it would start) only to find the entire rear of the restaurant JAMMED to the hilt. Surely it had to be the event, but I was shocked to see everyone already settled and enjoying the evening at the moment the event was set to kickoff! We slid into a booth, introduced ourselves to a few nearby cachers and ordered a beer.

An hour later I'd found myself completely immersed in the local group (known locally as the Conejo Cachers) telling tall tales and giving me tips on defeating some of the harder puzzle caches in the area. Mom and the little cacher were stuck home, so come 8:45pm I finally decided it was time to leave and said my goodbyes. We dropped a travel bug (our first ever) into the collective trading bin with 7 California trackable wooden nickels. All in all, it was a terrific event that introduced us to some of the most active local cachers. If there's an event cache in our area again, we'll certainly be doing our best to be there again! Farewell BLIG. See you in Texas!