Review of the Oregon 600

A very thorough, detailed review of the Oregon 600 from our friends at GPSTracklog.

Cache On!

News You Can Use

AR GPS Compass Map 3D
This interesting android app sports a 3D Compass and Waypoint Finder with Map and Augmented Reality Display.


The Rand McNally Foris
Everyone recognizes the Rand McNally brand for their maps and atlases. But did you know they also have their own line of GPS devices? Neither did I.



And Speaking of Rand McNally...
They've teamed up with geocaching.com and Good Sam in search of the best small towns in America. This year's event features a new category: Best Town for Gecoaching. Read more about it here.

That's it for this week. Cache On!

Geocaching With Kids

There are plenty of good resources out there for beginning geocachers; especially now that our little hobby has become so popular. But one of my favorite go-to sites, not just for geocaching, but to learn about anything outdoors-related, is REI. Their "Expert Advice" section is excellent. And this post on "Geocaching with Kids" is no exception. Here's an excerpt:

This brief but helpful write-up contains all the essential information for parents wanting to start enjoying time outdoors with their kids.

 Cache On!

Hide a Cache, Win a Prize

Garmin is offering you a chance to win a new Oregon 650t device. The only catch is that you need to hide one or more caches and post them on opencaching.com during the months of June and July.

The Opencaching site has been around for a couple of years now, but it still doesn't seem to be gaining a lot of traction. In my neck of the woods, for example, there are about 30 total caches in about a 20-mile radius of my home; compared to the thousands of geocaching.com caches within the same area.

Who knows; maybe give-aways like this will help Garmin's fledgling caching site pick up some momentum.

Cache On!

Rogue Geocaching

Unfortunately, no, this post has nothing to do with caching along Oregon's beautiful Rogue River (although I did find a few hides there during a recent excursion up north). Instead, an apparent rogue geocaching website, called Muggled Dot Net, was recently shut down, as reported in this post on, It's Not About The Numbers. It's not clear if the site voluntarily went 404, or if it was due to certain legal pressure.

The site, before it was taken down, encouraged users to locate Geocaching.com and OpenCaching hides, sign the logbooks, then steal the containers and their contents. MDN members were then encouraged to either (1) hide their own muggled.net cache at the site in place of the original; (2) destroy the original cache and post photos of the cache's destruction; or (3) return the stolen cache after extorting $10 from the original cache owner. Pretty sleazy to say the least, and not surprising that the site has been taken off-line.

You'll also notice references to a seemingly-associated site in the post in the link above, called, Off The Grid Geocaching. This appears to be a home-made geocaching site that requires various levels of paid memberships to unlock certain features, where members can post hides and log finds. Currently, these OTGC caches are only available in Alabama, Florida and Georgia. The "Alamogul" of OTGC is someone named, barryd52, who has a total of six finds so far. 

As far as hiding geocaches, the only requirement is that the cache containers have the OTGC logo and website URL attached. Otherwise, "there are no basic rules", as stated on this page. You'll also notice this little contrast to the geocaching.com rules on the OTGC "Hiding Geocaches" page: "Feel free to partially bury geocaches, bury geocaches, sink geocaches, etc." So if you decide to become an OTGC member, be sure to add a shovel to your geocaching kit bag.

Suddenly, opencaching.com doesn't seem quite so rebellious any more.

Cache On!

Don't Be Afraid; It's Only Geocaching

Apologies for my blog posting tardiness, but I've spent the last couple of weeks (weekends, actually) grabbing the last few caches I needed to qualify for both the California DeLorme Challenge (Northern), and the Discovering & Logging California's 58 Counties challenge caches. This last trip took me in a big circle around the southern Sierra Nevada mountains, including my first time visiting the incredibly gorgeous Death Valley National Park. This is why geocaching never gets old, right?!

The Majestic Eastern Sierras

Speaking of Parks and Caching, if you have plans to be in or near Washoe Lake State Park in Nevada next Saturday, you may want to check out this introductory geocaching outing the State Parks Department is hosting. Now why can't more State Parks in California take this same approach to attract, instead of discourage, more visitors? After-all, it's only geocaching.

Cache On!

A Bandwidth of Gold

Well, the wireless startup, LightSquared, is back in the news again, and back from the dead apparently. After filing for bankruptcy a year ago following a losing battle against the GPS industry, which successfully lobbied to keep LightSquared from using part of the satellite spectrum, they're now testing the feasibility of sharing the spectrum with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  According to Maggie Reardon of CNET, the FCC recently gave approval for LightSquared to begin testing the use of 5MHz of spectrum in the 1675-1680 MHz band.

While it appears that our precious GPS satellite spectrum is still safe for the time being, we'll have to see how the shared bandwidth testing, not to mention LightSquared's emergence from bankruptcy, plays out over time, and whether or not they try again at some point to utilize the satellite bandwidth they were originally granted permission to use.

Cache On!