yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Psyberdude:
Hi and welcome to the wonderful world of geocaching.

This is more a general geocaching question and you'll find lots of useful "getting started" information on both the GC website and forums, but to briefly answer your questions.... Most commercially available GPS devices will have an accuracy of 3-4m with a clear view of the sky and no tall building or mountains nearby that might be blocking the signal from satellites closer to the horizon. As you may remember from science, in theory it only takes three satellites (or points) to triangulate your position. But in reality you need upwards of 10 good signals to achieve an accuracy of 3m. I'm excluding the effects of WAAS because we don't have it here and therefore I have no experience of how much difference it makes. The more obstacles that are around, and particularly over, you like trees, buildings, cliff faces etc, the less accuracy you will have. Once you get to within a 3-5m of the cache, the "think like a geocacher" part takes over. Unfortunately there is little I can say about this, it simply comes with practise and experience. The more you find and the more different types of hides you discover, the "easier" you will be able to spot potential hiding places.

In terms of the phones GPS accuracy, I don't know that phone personally, but my experience with mine and similar phones is that the GPS is accurate enough. The problem is that you need to walking at a good pace, which is a problem if you are walking around GZ rapidly changing direction, as you will find it does not work so well. To solve this I personally use a separate GPS and just use my phone to keep the information, log caches etc. My handheld GPS (which does not suffer any of these problems) is also more rugged than my phone, so I don't have to worry about dropping it. If you start to get serious about geocaching, you may want to consider getting handheld GPS.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Master Darko:
Interactive Radar Screen...

I support this idea. It would be great if the near caches in the current list are displayed on the radar screen. This would be overly useful with multicaches when you travel distance between waypoints. On several ocassions we drove right past traditional caches while completing some of the lengthy multis, simply for not paying enough attention or remembering too late to check.

Ultimately, this new radar view should be interactive, so we can click and open the nearby cache right from the radar screen.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
Yes, exactly... Particularly if I had several waypoints in an area or caches in a park or such I would just navigate from cache to cache using the 'radar' in GeoNiche, a PalmOS geocaching program. It'd be awesome if GCzII could also do that.

Another nice benefit would be able to follow yourself back out of the woods to by following your own trail. Always leave a waypoint at your car/trailhead/etc but sometimes you forget... About a year ago I was in a set of woods with many paths and I wound up bushwacking half a mile to my car not sure which direction to go.. The price we pay for caching ;-)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] :
@indigomontoya:

I encountered similar problems with my Touch Diamond 2, and i noticed sometimes good accuracy, sometimes not.

It is a problem of the Qualcomm GPSOne Chipset my phone has, maybe yours also? It works when you can walk directly to the cache, maintaining a minimum speed of a few kph, but when you go bushwhacking, you get to slow for the position information to be updated.

The only solution, as mentioned before, is a separate Bluetooth GPSr. I personally recommend one with SirfStarIII, because the mentioned behaviour called Static Navigation or StatNav can only be switched off on these. You need a program called MMSirf, Sirftech or APLSirf to achieve this.

Have Fun with your new Hobby!:D
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] indigomontoya:
Thanks for the replies. My phone set me back a pretty penny. Ill check around for some cheap handheld or external GPS devices but I may just have to keep it as a loose hobby and just hope one day I stumble across it. Maybe in the spring there will be fewer leaves on the ground and I'll notice something.

Thanks!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Psyberdude:
I'm prety sure that if you look around you'll pick up a handheld GPS at a good price. People are always upgrading. Try eBay, craigs list or your local clasifieds. You could also check out the GC "Garage Sale" forum here.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] indigomontoya:
not to go off subject too much, but can someone give me a link to the minimium GPS requirements I would need? Is a 50 dollar device a possibility?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Psyberdude:
I'm sure that if you look around you will find a good second hand entry level GPS, such as the Garmin eTrex yellow, for that price or maybe even less.

I started geocaching on a tight budget myself and bought one of these. I've been very happy with it. It's simple, basic and does the job. It does not have maps, but I don't need that because I have Google Maps on my phone anyway.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zephxiii:
I bought a used motorola q9h on ebay for around 80 bucks. I have found the gps on it to be excellent with super fast gps locks (silver version only) and great accuracy. Battery life on it has generally been impressive so far. I honestly would not use any other standalone gps over it.

My TILT is isn't too bad either, but takes longer to get a lock and doesn't have as long of battery life.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Titus_Andronicus:
Feature Request:

I love how you can make a new waypoint by doing a projection. It would be great to have other calculations as well (eg. 2 circles intersecting, two heading sintersecting, two lines intersecting, waypoint average). I used to use an app called gatecacher before GCz had matured. Now I only use it for doing calculations like these.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] schiefersoft:
GUI Recommendation

Hi

i will give just a small recommendation for user of WinMob 6.1 or older

you can use FingerMenu for increasing the fingerfriendly of GCzII

see attached Screens

you can download this tool here

if you use WinMob 6.5 than you dont need this, because this have allready the bigger (more fingerfreindly) menus

it works fine on my Sony Ericsson XPERIA 1
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] :
On my MDA it looks exactly like your screen. Maybe from Manila, the HTC-UI?

It has the disadvantage of cropping some of the longer menu texts...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] del4:
+1 A size indication would help too, to remind us what we're looking for, e.g., a micro, small, regular, large or not specified
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] tk-germany:
Hi together,

i managed to solve my Western-Australia-all-caches-Problem, in downloading all 100Pages as Loc-Files.

Now i converted them to gpx-Files (see example attached)

When i now want to import them to gczii it tells me 0/20 caches imported, why that?

Is there a way, to import those files, make a "cachelist" of all caches and then download all information of the caches in gczii?

The steps "make a cachelist, download, etc" are obsolete, when i finaly got the gpx imported, right?

thanks a lot,

tk
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] tk-germany:
yay, i got it loaded.

I merged all my 102 loc-Files to one, then loaded them into gsak and created a gpx-file from.

When i load this into gczii, it successfully loads the first 500 entries, great!!!

Now i can see them, they have exact positions and correct cachecodes. in my eyes they are valid, but if i now want to download details for one single cache, it tells me, that the cache has not been found.

If i want to download details for the whole list, it tells me 0caches downloaded.

-> both see screenshot

Why does this happen? i got so far, and now stuck cause of the detailsdownload :(

edit1: my acount is valid, i allready use gczii successfully without problems.

and the 09_CacheDetail.html tells me the cache is unpublished, but that isn't true... the caches in my list are published and can be found.

Is there another ID gczii uses to find the caches on gc.com, beside the GC****-ID?

edit2: ok, the logout-button on the cachedetail.html gave me a little hint:

http://www.geocaching.com/login/def....geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=

looks like gczII looks for the cache-guid like: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=fe4148cc-5fa4-4784-857c-2ae9ba7d976c

and this one seems missing in the URL, and generally in the Data

and now... any idea how to enrich the gpx, the loc or the xml with this data?

can't gczII just look for the gc***-Code???

Can someone with a GC-Pro-Account please post an complete extract of any cache out of an gpx-file so I maybe know, what is written where and so maybe can build the file on my own!?

Many thanks for your help!!!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] tk-germany:
Ok, got a Pro-account now, in hope all my problems will fade away.

Sure it's hard to got a track with 4000km with 5 pq's and a maximum of 500miles radius and 500caches per pq grabbed, but that's not my problem.

The bigger Problem is, that i can load the gpx-files into gczII, but still cant update the caches and download the static maps.

It still keeps telling me that there is a problem with the login.html if i view the cachelist and click on "download all caches".

What is wrong with my pq-files??? Please help me...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
I'd say it's authentication or agreements... Make sure you've agreed to everything on the website.

Check here: http://www.geocaching.com/waypoints/

Also, clear cache/cookies in PIE and try again.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Phil82de:
hd2 Compass use?

Hi Tom,

since a few weeks I have a htc hd2 with a real compass now. Is it posible to use it in one of the next versions of GCzII? So that the the north in the GPS monitor shows really up to north even when the GPS is not as fast as I am ;-)

Best Greetings

Phil
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
Nice. A real hardware compass would be an asset when caching, particularly coupled with a good GPS receiver. Make it easy to stop, let things settle, then get a bearing on the cache. I do this today with my trusty compass I keep in my pocket.

Just be sure to calibrate it often! Years ago I had an electronic compass and I found it went out of alignment really fast, nearly every time I went to use it I found it 15-20 degrees off. Typically talking weeks between usage, so not a huge deal in use. What I did was had a nice non-metal, non magnetic fixed surface which I drew a line on with a real compass and would just put the compass there and calibrate. I could do it in whatever time it took the device, no futzing.

I thought about getting a Bluetooth GPS with an electronic compass, which does exist, but it limited my selection and I prefer the one I got, Columbus V900. :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Bio-Toxic:
I use GCzII mainly for finding caches in the area then use my handheld GPS for the hunt, but I must say that GCz is a nice piece of kit to have on your WM phone and works great
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Master Darko:
Pocket PC with SirfStarIII chipset and static navigation off is what I use. Good caching program like GcZII, GoogleMaps (satellite view) and OziExplorer (off road maps) with a decent data plan gets me everything and takes me everywhere.

I contemplated getting handheld gps when I owned the Kaiser as the gps on that phone was pretty weak at the slow pace. I remember having to run around the GZ to get a reading. Instead I gave the Kaiser back to partner and got myself MWg ZincII. Caching is fun once again without having to run! :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
Could have just gotten a bluetooth GPS ;-)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zephxiii:
I have a SirfStarIII bluetooth device that I tried out once with my TILT, I found the TILT to actually be better lol.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
Seriously doubtful.. The Tilt's GPS is horrible except for at car speeds with a clear sky. A Sirf3 chipset is accurate, sensitive, fast, and isn't limited to calculating new positions based on speed. Sirf3 can have "Static Navigation" enabled but typically it was not default. However if you had such problems with yours I'd have to guess it was enabled.

Of course you didn't say how it was better, but overall there's no chance the Tilt's GPS is better than a Sirf3 chipset.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zephxiii:
Well I was in the woods looking for a cache once, tried out the BT gps device thinking it would be better, seemed to indicate less reception and wasn't really doing anything better, I gave up on it and switched back to the TILT's GPS.

I don't actually find it to be that bad at all, just annoyingly slow at getting a lock sometimes....and yes I often also have a Colorado 300 brought by someone else.

What I do find to be better than the TILT for caching, is my Moto Q9h. Mainly because it is s little more sensitive, aGPS gets a super fast lock, and battery life is superior.

I have so far found 101 caches, every single one using either my TILT or Q9h. I have also experimented with using a Garmin Colorado 300...which turned out to be a totally abysmal pain in the ass in comparison to using the TILT or Q9h....so after 1 or 2 tries...it now just dangles from my partner's caching bag.

Honestly, the TILT is more than enough to go geocaching with, and actually super handy. I don't see the point in using a standalone GPS unit as I found them to be a big pain in the ass to use and not worth the trouble. I think they are valuable in some cases, mainly for comparison reasons.

In the end though, the Motorola Q9h just kicks ass with GCzII, and that is what I primarily use...and I really don't want to use anything else...except for the little compass on my keychain :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] CouchPotato:
The drawback here could have been, that the Sirf-III-Chipset needs some time to refresh the satellite data (almanach and ephermeridis). This could be time around from one minute with clear sky till around 30 minutes with only partly available sky, rainy clouds trees and so on.

So if you have problems with your Tilt and try then in a troubled situation the Sirf-III-Bluetooth-GPS with a cold boot and not actual satellite data this Bluetooth-GPS could behave really like an underperformer!

Normally it should have been much better!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Master Darko:
I have actually gone out and looked for caches with 2 separate GPSr at once (Kaiser with Qualcomm and Mio A701 with SirfStarIII chipset). Each time, Mio was more responsive and homed onto GZ easier and quicker. With Kaiser I often had to pace quickly in one direction in order to get to GZ.

From my experience, If you want a gps in your car, Qualcomm is just as good as the SiftStarIII, however, SirfStarIII is THE gps chipset for geocaching.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zephxiii:
It may have been that I didn't give it enough time as it had not been used in a long time...I kinda got tired of waiting and went back to the TILT as I was at GZ when i switched to it.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] kukuwaja:
In der Version 2.35.35 finden ich nicht den Menüpunkt um den Pfad zu Google Maps einzustellen.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Mashe:
target delete

hi, i would like to ask you for your help. in GPS monitor / menu / set target location

i have several saved targets, and I would like to delete some of them .. but can't find a way how to do it .. can you help, pls?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Phil82de:
here they use the compass-API: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=5058464
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] del4:
A few things....

Haven't been caching for several weeks, but after going out again this weekend, I remembered a few things I'd wanted to mention:

1 - Could a DNF indicator be added for Logged Caches as well as for Field Note/Quick Mark indications? Right now, when I DNF a cache, I'm having to Post a Log for my DNF entry and then do a DNF Quick Mark so that I have a visible indicator in my cache list that I didn't find the cache.

2 - Could we have an option to upload our FieldNotes.txt file to our account via the http://www.geocaching.com/my/uploadfieldnotes.aspx page? This would eliminate the step of having to manually sync our devices or otherwise transferring the file to our PC in order to then review our field notes to make our log entries.

3 - When making a fieldnote, I don't have the option of recording as part of my note any inventory changes that were made, i.e., any TBs I may have dropped off. The inventory button is greyed out, unlike when I have selected Post Log, so this should be changed to be consistent.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] derlbear:
Hmm, habs doch für die Version 2.35.35 beschrieben. Komisch.

Also von Anfang an:

1. Starte GCzII

2. Drücke unten rechts auf "Menü"

3. Drücke auf "Einstellungen"

4. Scroll in der Liste nach unten und drücke auf "Google Maps Einstellungen"

Hier ist das Menü :-)

Zum Ändern des Pfads klicke einfach auf "Datei" und suche dann die GoogleMaps.exe in dem Ordner, in dem Google Maps installiert ist.

Wie gesagt, bei mir ist es \Programme\GoogleMaps\GoogleMaps.exe auf dem internen Speicher.

Hoffe das funktioniert jetzt!

Schöne Grüße,

derlbear
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] bcwatson:
Tom,

Thank you so much for this app! I love it. Very useful functions like looking for geocaches near me and not showing those that I have found or own.

I'm a programmer, but have not been able to figure out how to configure Visual Studio 2008 to write programs for Windows Mobile 6.5. Is there a web site or book you can suggest or have any other advice?

Barry
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] cybmat:
Https

Hi,

Thanks you so much for your application, it's so amazing.

But unfortunately my 3G provider (in France SFR with wapsfr) seam to filter too much the http as the application is working perfectly on WIFI, but with 3G as always get an HTTP buffer is empty error.

Is there any way that you add an option making GCZII using the HTTPS (as crypted, the data can’t be filtered) version of geocaching.com?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: In fact after some tests it look like the problem may come from the User-Agent. (the 3G provider is filtering the user-agent. )

Is there a way that GCzII use the default pocket IE user agent? and not a generic one?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zzeitg:
Problem with GCzII menu "Options" on HTC HD2

Hi, first time trying to run GCzII - and this is how my menus look like.

Main screen:

Main menu:

Menu Options:

Menu Options (after click on the white strip above "Registry" on previous screen):

Obviously the menu options is not looking how it should. Main problem - "Login ID" is missing, i.e. I can not use the program at all.

I can't scroll in the menu (only click on the white strip above "Registry"). I tried to reinstall but it did not fix the problem.

In my opinion this has to be a bug in the program, but is anybody else having same problem on HTC HD2 and any idea how to fix it???
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] cybmat:
zzeitg: On my HD2, with the last version I got the login/password menu. But not sure I have so many "settings" menu...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] adrianmak:
how to use this app ? and user guide ?

I found a settings of username and password, what is it for ?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] zzeitg:
And can you scroll in this "Options" menu? Because I obviously can not.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] cybmat:
Maybe try an older version. Cause on my HD2, I did'nt have so many "Settings" menus...

Edit: no I did'nt found any way to scroll inside the menu.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
Odd, because it shows similarly here, but scrolls just fine on my Tilt 2. Hopefully Tom will find a fix, although there haven't been many updates recently.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Phil82de:
on my HD2 (last official German ROM) it looks the same but I can easily scroll through the menus!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] depp2web:
Hi, maybe you can use the fingersuite

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=459125

to get your missing menus.

but don't know if it runs on WM 6.5
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] marrocco:
Google Maps installed on storage card

If I missed this being addressed in the forum, I apologize.

I have Google Maps installed on my storage card because of limited

device memory. GCzII seems to be hardwired to look for Google Maps in

device memory only. I tried creating a shortcut in the device's Program Files\GoogleMaps folder pointing to the actual installation on the storage card, but GCzII didn't follow it. It appears at the moment if I want to use Google Maps with this app I need to uninstall Google Maps from the storage card and reinstall it on the device itself.

Is this a known issue with a fix that I missed?

Thanks,

Keith
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
You can set the Google Maps location in the Options menu.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] marrocco:
Google Maps installed on storage card

Ok, thanks! I actually checked the Options menu before posting, but missed it. Got it now!
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Mashe:
anyone, pls?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] paulpille:
Choose:

Options -> Manage History -> Searchmode 4: Coordinate

There you can add / delete / edit ...

Cheers, Paul
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
Just thought I'd note that I'm using GCzII primarily these days, and I've found ~75 in the last couple of months with it, and 49 this month leading up to my 700th find to end out 2009. :)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] Lord.Nibbler:
Hi there, and Happy New Year !

Santa also brought to me an HD2 :) ... I must say that I miss my previous Sirf III chipset, but the compass is definitely a cool feature ... that you can BTW enable in GCzII even without bothering Tom :p Just have a look at Gps Mod Driver it allows to inject the compass data inside the gps lines so GCz can use compass without any modification :cool: (just set inside GCz GPS settings the GpsModDriver COM port instead of the previous COM port)

Yet Tom, even if I suppose you are quite busy now, when you'll have a few moments could you please add a little modification to the "Calculate Destination" screen ?

In the screen next to the "Calculate" button could you please add a "Set as Target" button ?

or a "Save as Destination" button which would allow to find the calculated coords in the "Set Target" combobox.

This way when you calculate a new point you can directly set it as a target without having to go through clipboard, then paste it somewhere, selecting the longitude to past it in the longitude field, then the latitude to paste it in latitude field, which is quite clumsy :rolleyes:

Cheers,

Nibbler.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
+1 on set target from calculation, I've been writing the results in my notebook then typing it back into GCzII.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] del4:
When you do a calculation, you get a new waypoint at the calculated coords. Can't you then just tap on the new waypoint and select Set Waypoint Location from the popup menu to navigate to it? I'm not seeing a set target menu item...

Note, I haven't used this feature in the field, just messing with it now to see how it works. Does this use true north or magnetic north for the projection?
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
It just does the calculation and gives you the coordinates. I think you can copy/paste with it but you can't really do it in one operation.

I'd have to guess it does true north, unless Tom was really sneaky and does some online lookups for Magdec. It's only 6 degrees here, so for fairly short distances it's not a big deal.
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] khaytsus:
Freaking 502 gateway crap caused a double post...
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] amir13:
need help - ? login id and password ?

app ask me to enter login id and password

isnt it free?

need help for this gps-app, i dont know how to use it:eek:
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] del4:
Well, if you're using it for geocaching, you have a geocaching.com login id and password, right? ;)
[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] amir13:
what is geocaching.com?