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Which Vehicle GPS to purchase for caching & GPS


mamahilde

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There are no vehicle GPS that are directly geocaching friendly. You can add them as waypoints (favorites) but then they become a pain to delete. You can load them as custom POI, which is a little easier to deal with.

 

What's your handheld GPS? I've found that an Oregon 600 (or 700, or Montana) with routable maps does the job nicely. You can create a profile for driving that will give you road directions and then switch to your geocaching profile for direct navigation. These units have a Nuvi dashboard that make them adequate for vehicle navigation, at least while geocaching.

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My Nuvi 550 has been stolen. Need a new portable GPS for my car. I use it to navigate to the caches, then find tune with my Garmin GSMap handheld. What GPS's will allow pocket query downloads?

 

pocket queries are just a GPX file. if the unit can import gpx files, and display them, it will work fine. if it doesn't, poof. or you could use a smartphone, for all of it. I'm guessing that since you're asking about two devices to do one task though, youre not interested in one device to rule them all.

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pocket queries are just a GPX file. if the unit can import gpx files, and display them, it will work fine. if it doesn't, poof. or you could use a smartphone, for all of it. I'm guessing that since you're asking about two devices to do one task though, you're not interested in one device to rule them all.

 

Nuvis have limitations with direct import of GPX files in the number of waypoints and how they are managed. They are better imported as custom POIs. As long as it is a newer Nuvi, these show up and work well with no limitations.

 

Modern Nuvis are much better than phones for car navigation.

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There are no vehicle GPS that are directly geocaching friendly. You can add them as waypoints (favorites) but then they become a pain to delete. You can load them as custom POI, which is a little easier to deal with.

 

GSAK + Nuvi_GPX_v2 macro will put caches on a Nuvi as POI allowing you to read cache listings. As it also exports waypoint (I only use Parking). Won't use it for finding caches though.

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pocket queries are just a GPX file. if the unit can import gpx files, and display them, it will work fine. if it doesn't, poof. or you could use a smartphone, for all of it. I'm guessing that since you're asking about two devices to do one task though, you're not interested in one device to rule them all.

 

Nuvis have limitations with direct import of GPX files in the number of waypoints and how they are managed. They are better imported as custom POIs. As long as it is a newer Nuvi, these show up and work well with no limitations.

 

Modern Nuvis are much better than phones for car navigation.

 

 

hmm, sounds like that standalone has limitations with importing GPX , but then you say it doesn't?

 

if you prefer the nuvi, that's cool. the apps ape it pretty easily buy everyone had preferences.

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My Nuvi 550 has been stolen. Need a new portable GPS for my car. I use it to navigate to the caches, then find tune with my Garmin GSMap handheld. What GPS's will allow pocket query downloads?

Modern Garmin Nuvis (such as those that you may buy new) accept Pocket Query GPX files, and you place the GPX files into the same folder, "/Garmin/GPX", as you do on the handheld GPSr. As mentioned, there is limited memory for storage, and a limit on the number of waypoints. Here's an info sheet of a Nuvi just as an example (not a purchase suggestion, it's just an example for comparison). This model holds 1000 waypoints. One PQ can have that many. Also, a PQ "GPX" file has a bunch of extra data to load (which takes up space), that a Nuvi will not display.

 

If you're selecting a parking area for hunting groups of caches at a time (wise choice), you only need a few custom waypoints loaded. But if you load entire Pocket Queries, that can work, too. Keep track of the limits of the Nuvi.

 

A Nuvi tends to internally convert GPX files into "POIs", which means you may have to delete both the PQ and each POI later. As mentioned, there is software that might manage POIs more easily. You can save a whole mass of caches on the Nuvi, but the trick is removing them. :anicute:

Edited by kunarion
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There are no vehicle GPS that are directly geocaching friendly. You can add them as waypoints (favorites) but then they become a pain to delete. You can load them as custom POI, which is a little easier to deal with.

 

GSAK + Nuvi_GPX_v2 macro will put caches on a Nuvi as POI allowing you to read cache listings. As it also exports waypoint (I only use Parking). Won't use it for finding caches though.

This is how load my Nuvi 2595LMT.

 

I've loaded over 3000 caches as POI's without any issues.

When prompted if I want to copy the POI's from the external microSD to the internal memory, I select No.

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There are no vehicle GPS that are directly geocaching friendly. You can add them as waypoints (favorites) but then they become a pain to delete. You can load them as custom POI, which is a little easier to deal with.

 

GSAK + Nuvi_GPX_v2 macro will put caches on a Nuvi as POI allowing you to read cache listings. As it also exports waypoint (I only use Parking). Won't use it for finding caches though.

This is how load my Nuvi 2595LMT.

 

I've loaded over 3000 caches as POI's without any issues.

When prompted if I want to copy the POI's from the external microSD to the internal memory, I select No.

I don't recommend GSAK simply because I have approximately 3000 questions and have been working on question #1 for a very long time (I try to limit my Forum answers to steps that I'm familiar with, and can verify as working well). But if GSAK deletes POIs as easily as it adds them, it would be worth a look, if the OP is willing to pay for it and learn it.

 

I like the idea of placing Geocaching files onto a removable memory card, for GPSrs that support memory cards. That might make file management easy.

Edited by kunarion
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My Nuvi 550 has been stolen. Need a new portable GPS for my car. I use it to navigate to the caches, then find tune with my Garmin GSMap handheld. What GPS's will allow pocket query downloads?

 

pocket queries are just a GPX file. if the unit can import gpx files, and display them, it will work fine. if it doesn't, poof. or you could use a smartphone, for all of it. I'm guessing that since you're asking about two devices to do one task though, youre not interested in one device to rule them all.

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Hadn't tried using my smartphone for pocket queries before. Just did. It worked great for getting the cache info but when I went to use the map for navigation I get a screen that says "Map Quest - Developer. As of Juy 11, 2016 direct tile access has been discontinued. So it doesn't give me a map to follow. Any help with this?

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Hadn't tried using my smartphone for pocket queries before. Just did. It worked great for getting the cache info but when I went to use the map for navigation I get a screen that says "Map Quest - Developer. As of Juy 11, 2016 direct tile access has been discontinued. So it doesn't give me a map to follow. Any help with this?

 

there was just a thread referenced about this in the iPhone section. it only effects the gs applications. other applications are still (out were this morning) accessing tiles

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@wigglesworth

 

Indeed, the fact that all POI within a category do not appear in the driving view for newer (Nav4) TT units is a sore spot for some of us, especially geocachers who got good use of this feature on the older models! It's been requested many times since the Nav4 devices were released.

 

The bad news is that there's still no solid workaround for this for your 51 (or my 600) at the moment. The good news is that TT has taken notice of the request and when they do finally get NDS mapping working on their products, there's a VERY good chance that the new map renderer that goes along with NDS will allow us access to that feature again. Wish I could guess when that will be, though.

 

OK - a 'non-solid' workaround for the moment is available in a 2D view. If, while you're already navigating somewhere, you select a custom POI set to view while, and hit the little 'bubbles' icon (it's between the list icon on the left and keyboard icon on the right down in the lower right corner), you get a current 2D map view of your position and your current route, with all of the custom POI for the category shown at the same time. At least you can see if there are any POI along or near your current route as you move along. You can pan around the map and zoom in to check on what things are of interest, and you can even touch a POI (and hit the vertical dots) to add it to your current route if you like.

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Thanks for the tip _ we will give it a try next time we are out.

The other option is to get a garmin sat nav.

We are confident that the NUVI series shows caches on the map as you drive but these models have not been replaced by the DRIVE series. Asking at our local store was a waste of time as, to be expected, the staff are not trained on the details.

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Thanks for the tip _ we will give it a try next time we are out.

The other option is to get a garmin sat nav.

We are confident that the NUVI series shows caches on the map as you drive but these models have not been replaced by the DRIVE series. Asking at our local store was a waste of time as, to be expected, the staff are not trained on the details.

 

i could show you how to do all that (offline, no data needed) via my favorite application, if you aren't only considering stand alone devices.

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