mortonfox: (Robot)
happyhallow-3

The new GPS can optionally use a microSD card to store maps and tracks. I didn't have a spare microSD card, so I checked prices online at a number of websites and discovered that a 2GB microSD card was on sale at Micro Center. I just happened to have a Micro Center gift card that I got from a cache a while ago. So this evening, I went to their store in Paterson. This is a dangerous store to go to if you don't like spending money. After getting the memory card, I took a look around and saw that the memory upgrade for my desktop computer was on sale too! So I got that as well. Then I also picked up an inexpensive cigarette lighter power adapter for the GPS since it wouldn't be that much cheaper to order that from Amazon.

Dinner break at Quiznos in Paramus since I had coupons. I got a special chicken carbonara sub with egg in it. I had no idea you could request additions to a sandwich. I like egg on everything. :)

Got home and popped the memory into the computer. It's actually a bit more involved than that because I had to unplug everything and bring the computer case out to the living room where I had more space to work on it. Amazingly, that extra memory, even though it was only a bump up from 768MB to 1GB, helped a lot. I guess it was just a little short of memory before, especially when running Photoshop Elements. The rest of the evening was spent installing Garmin USB drivers, upgrading MapSource and EasyGPS, loading map data onto the GPS / microSD card, and making sure everything still works after that. I may need newer map data, however. Routing isn't very good with this data. For example, it told me to get onto the Garden State Parkway just to go to the Chinese restaurant down the street from home. Of course, I didn't expect the initial part of the route to make sense as I was doing a Go To from my bedroom (I'm amazed that it can get satellite lock in here), but still!
mortonfox: (gps)
Jordan Creek

There was a mascot gig today in Connecticut, but I chose instead to go to the Covered Bridge Park Fall Picnic at Covered Bridge Park in Allentown, PA. In the end, that proved to be a good choice. I didn't know how good it was until later in the day.

Made an earlier-than-usual start although I still wasn't early enough to make the actual start time for the event. I did 4 geocaches in New Jersey along the way before heading over to the Lehigh Valley. Got some Wawa food and continued onwards to another quick geocache and then the picnic. Had a good time at the picnic. But here's where the problem happened: During the event, I went for Just Log It...BYOP, a geocache that had been placed within the same park for the event. It was then when I saw that my GPS had started malfunctioning. I was on top of the cache site but the GPS was still reading 160 feet. Previously, although the GPS had been broken or flaky, it still at least gave readings that were good enough. Now, it was broken, flaky, and inaccurate. I had a spare GPS receiver, so I started setting it up. But then CinderBankers came along, so I joined them for this cache and two others before heading back to the picnic.

Back at the picnic, the Chinese auction and raffle had begun. I only had a ticket in the raffle, which was for a new eTrex Legend HCx GPS. Every attendee got a free ticket in that raffle. Listened in on the auction, although I wasn't really paying attention. When Linda of the Caching Nuts called the raffle number, I thought it sounded close to my number. So I checked and it WAS my number! I won the new GPS! And it was just in time to replace my malfunctioning eTrex Legend, so that was an amazing bit of luck!

Of course, I had to take the new GPS out for a spin. So I took it out of the box and put in some batteries. Did 11 more geocaches. (4 of those were after dark.) The color display was very nice. The Legend HCx also got satellite lock amazingly quickly every time and had solid GPS reception even under trees and near buildings. All in all, it's a great upgrade to the eTrex Legend.

The caches... )

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Morton Fox

May 2020

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