Need PDA Information

[Team SCR]

Hey guys I have not gone paperless yet geocaching (I have my fears). I was wondering what is a good cheap PDA to use to go paperless? Also if you buy a PDA is there any special software you have to purchase to be able to geocache with?

Thanks for any info,

Matt
Team SCR

[RonGerth]

Hi Matt

I tried to do the whole paperless thing using a Z71 from Palm. It is less than 100 and worked ok but not the slickest. Functional yes,............. I then went to a Palm TX and it works great. Of course you will pay a couple of hundred bucks for one. Software wise the only addional software that you need is Cachemate for $8 and it works very very good and it a peice of cake to use.

I think that the only way to go is paperless so if you are into caching I would spend the money and do it. A vast improvement in caching when you can take the hints and stuff with you.

Ron Gerth

[Rubiconlwb]

We have been doing paperless caching almost since we have been caching and would not do it any other way. We started out with a Handspring Visor which uses the Palm OS but stepped up to a Palm Tungsten and really enjoy using it and it's many features. A cheap Palm uses the same OS as the more expensive models and Cachemate works great so it all you intend to do with the PDA is use it as your paperless caching instrument, any Palm will do. If you want your PDA to do more things and have more features like MP3 player, bluetooth, etc, you might want to spend a little more and get a more sophisticated model. I would suggest e-bay as there are always a ton there for sale, a huge variety and if you are careful can get some great deals. Have fun and let us know how it goes once you go paperless.

[trail cachers]

We also have a Zire 71 that I have really liked however yesterday it quit. I did get another on ebay delivered for $49.00. Now I just need to get home to pick it up. Luckily Sandy also has one that I can use until then.

[OldWyo]

We have had our Palm Zire 71 for over five years. We use it not only for paperless caching but also as our address book, mp3 player, photo album, calculator, phone directory and a whole myriad of other uses. We even use it to download videos of the grand kids to so we can enjoy them when they are not around. We would feel lost without it.

As far as paperless caching goes, we use the "export to html" function under the files tab of GSAK. We then use "Plucker" (it's a free down load from http://www.plucker.com/ to convert the html files to the Palm OS. The only problem we have ran into is that "Plucker" and the Zire 71 modem software are not compatible with the Vista OS on our laptop so we have to use the old desktop with Windows 2000 in order to get the files into the Palm.

You can find more information about paperless caching on geocahing.com under their "resources" tab. The link you will want to look at is http://www.geocacher-u.com/.

Hope this helps.

Ellis

[RonGerth]

Just to ad info I use Cachemate which you can get for about $8 and it works great. It is supposed to be able to work backwards and upload a GPX file to GSAK but I have never done enough caches at one time to be able to need to be able to do that so I haven't checked it out.

Ron

[OldWyo]

Does anyone have the URL to "Cachemate"? I've gone to http://www.cachemate.com/ but all that site seems to have are links to other software, nothing about geocaching in particular. I would like to take a look at their software package and compare its features to "Plucker".

Thanks for the help.

Ellis

[trail cachers]

This is all we have ever used and really like it.

http://www.smittyware.com/

Wayne

[OldWyo]

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out later this evening.

Ellis