Geocaching with the PDA

This is quite a hobby for me and my family. Just taking a look at the gear list at the bottom of the page will give you a clue. Geocaching is great as a family hobby because it gets everyone out of the house and hiking in the outdoors. My wife enjoys being outdoors and getting exercise, I love playing with high-tech gadgets and the hiking to different and unexplored areas, and our daughter loves the treasure hunt and having a contest with me to find the cache.

My setup is the following: Magellan Meridian Platinum, Dell Axim X50v, BlueTooth Adapter and Serial cable for Meriplat. Since the Dell Axim X50v is so new on the market, there is no dongle listed to work with the PC-Mobile serial cable. They do have a BlueTooth adapter that conects to the MeriPlat. This allows the Axim to communicate with the GPSr without have a physical, wired connection. It is nice not only for Geocaching, but for door-to-door directions in the car.

Using the BT adapter to connect the Axim and GPSr, I can then use either GPXSonar or GPXView to handle all the cache information so I can go paperless into the wilds. The less paper I carry, the better, plus I can resort the cache list and when I have cleared an area, move on to the next cache-rich environment. GPX Sonar can export waypoints directly to a Magellan Meridian format file for use on the Meriplat. GPXView cannot do this. Both are free, and I am still evaluating each for their strengths and weaknesses.

My wife uses the Sony Clie TH55 and Cachemate. I have the serial cable that connects the TH55 to the Garmin Geko, but my daughter keeps a tight hold on the Geko. My wife usually acts as the CacheList intrepreter with Cachemate. We also have an older Clie model that will eventually move on to our daughter.

Apart from the hardware/software, we also carry some signature cache items we leave for trade. One is a golf pencil with our team name and web address stamped on it. This is usefull for those caches that have had their writing implements broken or pilfered. We will drop a couple in each cache, if we can. Also, we have a stamp made up for easy signing of the logs. Don't know how we made it without these items before we picked them up. For more information on the pencils, there is a link below for ordering your own. This company is owned and operated by a personal friend, and I highly recommend them.

Magellan Meridian Platinum (mine)
Garmin Geko 201 (my daughter's/wife's)
Dell Axim X50v (mine)
Sony Clie PEG-TH55 (my wife's)
Sony Clie PEG-SJ20 (a spare)
Sony Clie T/NR series to Magellan GPS cable (part: GMST6 $29 )

Magellan Cable (part: GMDC $16)
Sony Clie Dongle (part: GST6 $18)

BlueTooth Adapter (requires PCM GPS cable) (part: BTA01 $39)
Garmin Cable from PC Mobile (part: GEDC $15)
Serial connection Dongle from PC Mobile (part: G9PM $9.50)
GPXSonar for PocketPC (free)
GPXView for PocketPC (free>
CacheMate 3.5 on the PDAs ($7 x2)
Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (GSAK) on computer (Free)
Premium Account on Geocaching.com ($30 / year)

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If you have any questions, please contact me at my email address.

Geocaching with the PDA

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