| There have been some recent advances at Geocaching.com regarding cache data that can be sent to you via email. If you are a charter member of Geocaching.com you can have files emailed to you that you can load onto your GPS and a Personal Data Assistant (PDA) by using a pocket query. The files for the PDA allow you to load cache descriptions to it and you can eliminate printing out cache pages! With waypoints for your GPS and files for your PDA, you can experience "Paperless Geocaching"! This four part section will explain the process.
First of all, we need to explain the types of files that a pocket query generates. They are:
- .loc files -- standard waypoint information for loading caches into your GPS using EasyGPS or ExpertGPS.
- .gpx files -- waypoint format with tremendous amounts of additional data including descriptions, hints, and cache logs. These files may be modifies using other programs to format the data for your GPS and your PDA.
- .prc files -- "ebook" format for use with Mobipocket Reader.
EasyGPS is a free program that allows you to take .loc files and .gpx files and load waypoints into your GPS with a data cable. Make sure you download the version 1.2.4 for .gpx files. The program is very easy to use. You can find the newest version here:
The .prc file is already formatted for Mobipocket Reader. Add this file to your PDA using the Palm OS Install Tool and the Mobipocket Reader will recognize it and display it in the library. Mobipocket is easy to use but does tend to "crash" the PDA. Geocachers were looking for another data format to get cache data to a PDA, and the Geocaching.com site responded with .gpx files.
The .gpx file has tons of data in it. It includes cache waypoints and the hider's nick, difficulties, descriptions, hints, logs and even whether the cache has a travel bug in it at the time the file was generated! This data must be extracted from the file, and then it has to be loaded into the PDA. This process is explained on these following pages:
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