Garmin etrex 20 and downloading caches

[+Tsegi Mike and Desert Viking]

Question:

 

Can anyone out there can give me step by step to how to properly download caches from this site onto my etrex 20 and how to find them on that device once it is downloaded?

 

Background to the question:

 

My old dinosaur of an etrex that has lasted us all our years of geocaching is starting to have issues. We decided to go to paperless caching and a new gps.

 

Magellan was a disaster. The explorist 310 has, according to the person at magellan, a "defect" that he wants me to copy and send to their software people to figure out. The device is getting returned for a full refund.

 

We got the garmin etrex 20 and decided to download caches. It only downloaded one cache that I can find on the etrex geocaching screen, yet if I try to download other caches again, it tells me they are already downloaded. The unhelpful help desk at garmin says it is the fault of the geocaching.com site. Uh huh. That somehow there is something on some cache pages that prevent it from loading. Uh huh. I told them they would lose a lot of customers based on this.

 

At least we can manually enter in cache coordinates and get to our destination with the etrex 20 but I would love to know if anyone out there can give me step by step to how to properly download caches from this site onto my etrex 20 and how to find them on that device once it is downloaded.

[+StoryCachers]

I have an etrex 20 and can give a shot at helping you out. My directions are based on the assumption that a) you are putting the caches on the etrex 20's internal memory

you have a premium membership w/ geocaching.com and can create pocket queries and c) You're working on a windows machine. Alternatives are that you could be using microSD cards and that you may not have a premium membership. Using or not using the microSD is no big deal. The premium membership is indispensable. Windows is what I'm familiar with...so if you're using something else, these steps won't be all that helpful.

 

Step 1) Build your pocket query to identify caches meeting desired criteria

Step 2) Download the pocket query results from the website to some known spot on your computer. It should come down as a .zip file.

Step 3) Plug the USB cable into the back of your etrex and then plug it into your PC

Step 4) Go to the 'My Computer' area -- where you typically see your C: drive, etc. Look for a new mounted drive representing your etrex. On Windows 7, mine typically comes up as 'Garmin'

Step 6) Click on 'Garmin' treating it as a disk drive and navigate to the garmin\gpx\ directory.

Step 7) Temporarily move the Garmin window aside and go to 'My Computer' again. Locate the .zip file you downloaded in step 2 and double click it. Assuming that you have Winzip or some other archival utility installed, it should expand into a folder with one or two files with a .gpx extension.

Step 8) Drag the .gpx files from their current location into the garmin's GPX folder

Step 9) Go back to 'My Computer' and do a right mouse click on the drive that represents your garmin device. Choose eject. -- You should get a message saying it's OK to remove.

Step 10) Unplug your garmin from the computer and then unplug the cable from the back of the garmin.

Step 11) Power up the garmin. As this happens, you should see a progress bar on the startup screen indicating that it's loading waypoints.

Step 12) Go somewhere that you can get a satellite signal. (this will allow the garmin to organize the caches in order of distance from current location) -- if you can't get a signal, they might be kind of jumbled for now.

Step 13) Go to the geocaches icon on the main menu and you should see all of the caches which were included in your pocket query results.

 

If I've made correct assumptions and these steps still aren't helping, feel free to message me and I'll do my best to help you out.

 

Happy caching,

Mark

Edited October 20, 2012 by StoryCachers

[+Tsegi Mike and Desert Viking]

Thank you. I have windows 7 and the ability to create PQs. I will give it a shot this weekend and see if it works.

[+Tsegi Mike and Desert Viking]

Ooops got hung up on step 2. I have no idea how to download the pq. I ran it. Never got anything sent to my email. I am lost on how to do that part.

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

Ooops got hung up on step 2. I have no idea how to download the pq. I ran it. Never got anything sent to my email. I am lost on how to do that part.

Pocket Queries of 501 or more are not emailed, they are available to download from the middle tab on your PQ page.

 

It does everything once you click that particular PQ. It will default download into your computer's download file.

[+Tsegi Mike and Desert Viking]

Any pocket query I have done in all these years has been less than 500 caches. They were never emailed to me.

 

In this case, I just did a few caches as a pocket query. I have found the button to download it now. Thank you for your help.

 

I feel like I just became my parents. Old people and technology lol.

[+Tsegi Mike and Desert Viking]

Sigh

 

Ok I found the "pocket queries ready for download" button, but it shows 0 queries are ready for downloading. Despite having 3 queries available. How do I get them ready for downloading?

[+Tsegi Mike and Desert Viking]

I managed to download caches without a pocket query. One cache at a time. Not so bad since I look at the cache pages anyway before we go out. I would like to know how to get the pocket query thing to download properly.

 

Thank you all for your help. I never would have been able to do this without your assistance. Certainly garmin was of no help lol.

 

What is the story behind garmin and this site anyway? I tried searching the forums but was not able to find anything.

[jholly]

Any pocket query I have done in all these years has been less than 500 caches. They were never emailed to me.

 

In this case, I just did a few caches as a pocket query. I have found the button to download it now. Thank you for your help.

 

I feel like I just became my parents. Old people and technology lol.

They always were and still are emailed. Didn't you wonder what that attachment was? But maybe you have a nanny ISP and it strips any and all .zip files from your email.

[jholly]

Sigh

 

Ok I found the "pocket queries ready for download" button, but it shows 0 queries are ready for downloading. Despite having 3 queries available. How do I get them ready for downloading?

By selecting a day and waiting for the email. Then you can use the attachment if the query is less than 500 caches, or download them from PQ page.

[jholly]

I managed to download caches without a pocket query. One cache at a time. Not so bad since I look at the cache pages anyway before we go out. I would like to know how to get the pocket query thing to download properly.

 

Thank you all for your help. I never would have been able to do this without your assistance. Certainly garmin was of no help lol.

 

What is the story behind garmin and this site anyway? I tried searching the forums but was not able to find anything.

Are you downloading from the preview page? That is a bit painful. Choose a day for the PQ to run and you will get a .zip file of the PQ.

 

Garmin has an issue with Groundspeak. For some reason they un-friended Groundspeak.

[+Tsegi Mike and Desert Viking]

My pq page shows that I have zero pq's ready to download even though it shows I have several pqs. I never have gotten a pq email in all the years I have used pocket queries. Since I use the queries to search for caches rather than downloading caches it was not a concern until now.

[jholly]

My pq page shows that I have zero pq's ready to download even though it shows I have several pqs. I never have gotten a pq email in all the years I have used pocket queries. Since I use the queries to search for caches rather than downloading caches it was not a concern until now.

The only way I know that you can not get an email about a PQ is *never* running the PQ. You have to select a day for the PQ to run before it will run. You can define a PQ and look at the preview page of what the PQ would be, but that is not the final result. The final result is the .zip file containing the one or two .gpx files for the caches in the PQ. It sounds like you have only been looking at the preview page for years.

[+dolphinpower37]

Ok I read how to load to internal memory on my garmin etrex20. Got it

 

How do you read on the mini chip after you have downloaded and in your garmin? Garmin had nothing. Not very helpful

 

I have also downloaded and then when I go out in the field nothing is on the garmin.

 

Please help.

[+GeoTrekker26]

Ok I read how to load to internal memory on my garmin etrex20. Got it

 

How do you read on the mini chip after you have downloaded and in your garmin? Garmin had nothing. Not very helpful

 

I have also downloaded and then when I go out in the field nothing is on the garmin.

 

Please help.

 

On the microSD card you must create a Garmin directory and then it it, a GPX directory. So it would be [GPS Disk Letter]/Garmin/GPX when viewed via the computer. Put your GPX files (cache files) into the GPX directory and the Garmin will read it just like it is the internal memory.