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Which GPS should I get?


BoLynn

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Hello all! I am new to the world of geocaching and I finally convinced my husband to get a handheld GPS unit for hiking. We are planing to go do a short backpacking trip to the Boundary Waters next month and I thought it would be great to also do some geocaching and make it an even more awesome adventure. The problem is that he bought a Garmin Oregon 600 and even though the description says its good for geocaching I am having trouble getting the files from geocaching.com to go into the GPS. When I download the files its a .loc file instead of a .gpx.

 

I do have a premium on here so I am not sure why its doing this.

 

Short story is should I stick with the Oregon 600 or get the Oregon 700 or 750? If so why and if you have any other GPS units from different brands please let me know! I am all ears. I just want to make sure the device is reliable and a geocaching experience would be great!

 

Thank you ahead of time for the help. :)

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Your Oregon 600 is one of the best GPSr for geocaching. You must determine why you are getting LOC files instead of GPX files, that makes all the difference. Are you absolutely certain you are logged in with the proper account? How are you getting the LOC files? Make sure you clear ALL LOC files from your GPSr before you add any GPX files.

Edited by Atlas Cached
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LOC files aren't directly compatible with the GPS anyway. I'm really not sure why Groundspeak even supports the .loc file format anymore since it has to be passed through Basecamp or some other software just to get the waypoints on the GPS.

 

If you aren't using pocket queries, I highly recommend that you start as it's a much more efficient way to manage and load cache listings to your GPS. The last option when setting up a pocket query asks what format you want the results to be sent as. Make sure it's set to GPX and not LOC.

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Hello all! I am new to the world of geocaching and I finally convinced my husband to get a handheld GPS unit for hiking. We are planing to go do a short backpacking trip to the Boundary Waters next month and I thought it would be great to also do some geocaching and make it an even more awesome adventure. The problem is that he bought a Garmin Oregon 600 and even though the description says its good for geocaching I am having trouble getting the files from geocaching.com to go into the GPS. When I download the files its a .loc file instead of a .gpx.

 

I do have a premium on here so I am not sure why its doing this.

 

Short story is should I stick with the Oregon 600 or get the Oregon 700 or 750? If so why and if you have any other GPS units from different brands please let me know! I am all ears. I just want to make sure the device is reliable and a geocaching experience would be great!

 

Thank you ahead of time for the help. :)

 

I am selecting download all on the page for the area i am looking for. It just auto downloads as a .loc. As for my account, I am pretty sure I am using the right one. It shows as premium on my profile.

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Your Oregon 600 is one of the best GPSr for geocaching. You must determine why you are getting LOC files instead of GPX files, that makes all the difference. Are you absolutely certain you are logged in with the proper account? How are you getting the LOC files? Make sure you clear ALL LOC files from your GPSr before you add any GPX files.

 

Thank you for responding. I mentioned above that I have been getting the files from geocaching site. It says "download waypoints" at the bottom of the screen. There is no option for me to download them as a .gpx

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Your Oregon 600 is one of the best GPSr for geocaching. You must determine why you are getting LOC files instead of GPX files, that makes all the difference. Are you absolutely certain you are logged in with the proper account? How are you getting the LOC files? Make sure you clear ALL LOC files from your GPSr before you add any GPX files.

 

Thank you for responding. I mentioned above that I have been getting the files from geocaching site. It says "download waypoints" at the bottom of the screen. There is no option for me to download them as a .gpx

 

You're a Premium Member. Make the most of the fact, and use Pocket Queries.

 

The gpx file from a PQ will make the most of your GPS as well, as the cache page details are part of the gpx file.

 

You can load a PQ of 1,000 caches, and several of them, at a time!

 

(And make sure you have deleted any caching files loaded as a Basic Member, before adding new cache information)

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I have been getting the files from geocaching site. It says "download waypoints" at the bottom of the screen. There is no option for me to download them as a .gpx

You are doing it in a way that only downloads LOC files. As Bear and Ragged and others mentioned, Pocket Queries are the way to go. Most of my Pocket Queries are simply on a central point (a cache, usually), a distance (whatever suits me for any particular town), and I have the results selected to produce up to "1000" caches. Another option is to save choice caches in a Bookmark List, very similar to what you're doing, but when you make a PQ of that list, you again get a GPX file with all the info.

 

Be sure to first delete all the files in the Garmin/GPX folder (after doing a backup of that folder), because when Garmin GPSrs see a "LOC" file, they present a database that shows everything as if it was LOC files.

 

Your Garmin Oregon 600 is perfectly suited for Geocaching. Load a whole bunch of Pocket Query GPX cache files, and you're good to go.

Edited by kunarion
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A couple of note on Pocket queries that i found useful.

 

1) Select the option at the bottom of the page to add the query name in the file name. Makes it easier to keep track of them on the GPS and/or computer.

 

2) I found with my Garmin 62s that it worked better if I deleted the old GPX file, then did a power on/power off on the GPS before loading the new GPX file. It seemed to clean out the old waypoints better.

 

Good luck.

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