Urban Geocaching? Use your auto GPS.

If you ever go geocaching in an urban environment that you are unfamiliar with, you will quickly find that even with your handheld GPSr, you can find yourself a little lost in the city.  I found this out one day geocaching in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Luckily, I had a solution right under my nose…Uh…I mean in front of my eyes.  I had an automobile GPS receiver.  I am sure you have seen them.  Some popular units are TomTom, Garmin, and Magellan.  I have one called the Mio C230.  It is a basic unit, but, does help me get around unfamiliar areas.

Handheld GPS receivers are, by design, to function at its best while being carried while walking.  Automobile GPSr’s, on the other hand, don’t work very well in the woods, but, are great for getting you around town.  Most automotive GPSr’s will allow you to input coordinates.  You will have to adjust the way you input your geocache coordinates. 

We are all used to seeing a GPS coordinate in this format:

N 35° 37.017 W 081° 16.962

This is the standard format used on Geocaching.com and other geocaching listing services.  This format works great in your handheld GPSr, but, most automotive GPSr’s require the digital format like this:

35.61695 -81.2827

Both coordinates are exactly the same, but, in different formats.  Since your geocache coordinates will be loaded into your GPSr, you can simply tell your handheld GPSr to display the digital format.  I have had several handheld GPSr’s and all have allowed me to do this.  Here is how it looks on the Garmin GPSmap 60CSx:

The format highlighted in yellow is the decimal format.  Now when you view all of your waypoints on your handheld GPSr, it will show them in the format compatible with your automotive GPSr.  Don’t worry.  You can always change the format back.

Now all you have to do is look at the coordinates of the geocache you are trying to find and enter the decimal format into your automotive GPSr.  You can use your automotive GPSr to take you to the area of your geocache hunt!  It is easier and quicker than using your handheld unit.  This saves time and gasoline…And time and gas are money.

Garmin technical support. As good as the hype?

I have heard many say that the Garmin technical support is the best in the GPS industry.  You really don’t know whether this is hype or truth until you can see for yourself.  I had an opportunity to test this belief.

I use GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) along with my Garmin GPSmap 60CSx for geocaching.  In addition to loading waypoints, I use the GarminCsvPoiExport-v2 macro to load POI’s (points of interest).  Why POI’s?  Because you are limited to the number of waypoints that can be loaded.  POI’s are virtually unlimited to the number you can load to your GPSr (GPS receiver).   It is only limited by the memory space on your memory card.  Other features of the POI’s way of loading geocaches to your GPSr is you can have custom icons matching the ones on Geocaching.com and you can have information from the geocache page like the hint and description as well as notes you make…All available from your GPSr.

I have been doing this without a hiccup for years.  A few days ago  this changed!  While using Garmin’s POI loader, I received an error message.  The message said, “invalid string position”.  No matter what I did, I could not get rid of the message.  I tried only loading one POI thinking it may be some errant characters in a recent waypoint added.  The same error message was displayed.  I tried restoring my computer to a date that I knew the POI loader worked.  Still, the same problem appeared.

After doing as much as I could do, I called Garmin’s technical  support.  The wait time to talk to a real person was pretty short!  Usually, you have to wait a half hour or better for some technical support calls.  I spoke to a person and explained the problem.  I emailed them the entire error message to see if this would tell them anything.  After about seven minutes, I was basically told to reinstall the POI loader software and if that didn’t work quit using the POI feature of my Garmin GPSr. 

This is just unacceptable.  They were just admitting they either didn’t have the time to help me with the problem or they were unable to help me with the problem.  This didn’t match the hype.  Reality had just set in pertaining to my experience with the legendary Garmin technical support staff.

Unwilling to just give up, I searched the internet to see if anyone else had a similar problem.  Mr. Google is a fantastic tool.  After a few minutes of searching, I had a theory of what the problem was.  And this would explain why Garmin either wouldn’t or couldn’t help me.

I found another person having the same problem using another Garmin device.  When he was loading POI’s he got the exact same error I did.  The current version of Garmin POI loader is 2.5.4.  That is the version I have been using.  Apparently, there is a string of characters that this not recognized by the loader.  I also read an upgrade document for Garmin’s MapSource program version 4.13. One fix says, “Fixed an issue where MapSource would crash if the registry value that stored the user preference for distance units, which was set by MapSource 4.09 and older, contained an invalid value. Now, if an invalid string is encountered for this preference, MapSource will replace it with the default value.”  I think that the latest version of Garmin’s POI loader does not handle this error well.  It should basically ignore it or replace it with the “default value” and go along it’s merry way!  The fix the other person had was to install an older version of the POI loader.

I called Garmin’s technical support again and spoke to a different person.  He was a little more helpful and didn’t seem anxious to just finish the call.  I explained the “fix” I had discovered and asked him if he could send me a link to an older version of the POI loader.  I was surprised that he did.  Most companies don’t want to give you older software!  He sent me a link where I could download version 2.4.2.  I installed that version and it worked great!  Now I can load thousands of geocaching POI’s without a hiccup.

My conclusion based on my experience with Garmin’s technical support staff is it depends on who you get.  The first person I spoke with and the person helping him seemed to just want me gone.  Maybe it was because I had a problem they couldn’t solve or maybe they was busy on something else.  Either way, they should have spent more time with someone who has spent several hundred dollars with them.  The second person seemed clueless on how to solve my problem, too, but, at least he did help me with the fix I discovered.  I sent the technical service staff an email documenting the problem I had and the solution I discovered.  Maybe they can include it in their fix database.

I hope someone from Garmin reads this and will let their technical support staff they need to work with those who call.  Most geocachers are pretty electronics savvy.  Don’t assume they are just dumb users of their devices.  Listen to them.  Try fixes outside your database “box”.  Use internet search engines to see if anyone has had and solved this problem on their own!  It’s ok to admit that you don’t know how to fix it right now, but, at least assure the caller that you will work on the problem.  Telling us to just quit using the feature is totally unacceptable. 

You got a GPS for Christmas...Now what?

Santa brought you a brand new GPS receiver (GPSr). Now what?

If you have a friend who is into geocaching, he or she is the person that can be of most help. But if not, here are few tips.

Garmin has an interesting page, "What Is GPS?" This page is a little technical, but does explain how a GPSr works.

Garmin has also produced a good document, "GPS Beginner's Guide." It is not very specific, but is worth reading.

One of the best documents is provided on wikiHow. It is titled, "How To Go Geocaching" and should be read completely. Many questions can be answered there.

Take a while to become familiar with your new GPSr. Learn the basic functions, especially how to add waypoints. Most new GPSr's come with a USB cable that allows you to transfer coordinates, but if not, you will have to enter them manually. This can be time consuming and I don't recommend it unless you don't have any other means of entering the information.

Take your GPSr into the back yard or a nearby park and walk around with it. Switch to the compass screen. On most models, the compass screen doesn't work exactly like a compass. A real compass will point north even when standing still. Your GPSr changes only if you are actually moving. This is because the computer inside is looking at several coordinates and calculating where you are, what direction you are heading, and your speed.

Explore all of the features of you new toy. You will find it can be very useful for things other than geocaching!