Geocaching

look here, may be you will find this usefull.
http://mapnav.spb.ru/site/page.php?15

hi,recently used w w w . viewranger. c o.u k in the lake district and i found it very usefull.maps are to buy,can buy national parks-your own chosen section or all of the uk.i bought the national park one in Ordnance Survey LandRanger 1:50,000 scale for �25.very good i thought..regards..simon

I'll second the viewranger app, its one of the best bits of software you can buy, especially as its so cheap. In fact the software is almost free, you only really paying for the maps.

Viewranger is fantastic, best of all that I have used.
Support is excellent by either phone (normal rates) or email.

Best part for me is the route logging which gives you track data to review later.

Best if used with a seperate GPS (Holux Slim for me) as it gives more accurate tracks than the built in, especially in wooded areas.

As bart said, terrific value.

Graham

N95 Viewranger, TT6

If you want to see how much it would cost to get the area you want, simply download the mapping tool they have.

Basically its a grid map of the UK that tells you how much they will charge you depending on how many gridsquares you use. You then save the file and send that off to them, and get the maps you wanted back.

However, if your after it in detail, Id suggest the 25000 maps rather than 50000.

They cost more and take up more space, but worth it I reckon.

Saving a track is simple and easily uploaded to google earth say.

It does support mulitple waypoints, and it will tell you what direction your going in (as long as your moving).

Hope this helps.

I know it might be fishing a bit, but I've already got OS Landranger map on DVD for memory map. S'pose they're not the same?

Well, viewranger is basically an OS map with various very handy functions builtin. I wont bother listing them all, the website www.viewranger.com will say better anyway.

However, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. And I'll post any screenshots you need.

I cant comment on landranger, as I havent used it. Just off to look up on what geocaching means.

Edit:

Thats cool! Sounds like a laugh. Understanding how you want to use it, Im not sure viewranger would be best. I cant even find the option to search via GPS.

You can create waypoints, but thats only by scrolling and clicking on the map, as far as I can tell. I reckon your best bet is to contact viewranger themselves, as they are very helpful. They would be able to answer much better than I can.

How about if you're not in Britain? Is there any software for just displaying your own position relative to a cache with the correct scale on the display?

I tried the MapNav software - link in second message in thread.

This worked fine for me - found my first cache - hooray a new way to waste time.

It was in the Lake District so lots of open sky to get fix. Took me to within a yard or two of cache.

BUT - used up battery - probably on for an hour constantly following a full battery charge - and empty about ten minutes after - so take a spare or only use intermittently. After all - you can get within 100 yards on OS grid reference - but it was nice seeing little tracks making their way over the Google map.

Seems ok providing you have a good data package.

With MapNav you can "cache" your route, browsing it using WiFi connection (up to 8mb map/sat image data on N95 afaik)
and then use this cache without data connection. Might save battery a little as well i guess.

Thanks Mwice

Will try that, meanwhile I used MapNav again today and I'm still impressed.

I'm trying to load a few waypoints into the Mapnav program. What file format does it use? There seem dozens of types fro what I'm slowly learning about GPS and many of them are incompatible. The manual refers to Ozi maps.

I've got a small .gpx file from Easy GPS and I can see it on my memory card using file manager, but browsing in MapNav doesn't show it.

I think I saw Mwice on the Mapnav site - can you help? - I am sure this MapNav is potentially a great little application - just needs to be made a bit easier for those of us with small brains.

Thanks

Ok, so trying viewranger now. It's very good.

Free trial covering parts of Lake District and Snowdonia but I decided to load down �25 worth of map areas covering places I know.

Panorama mode is quite cool.

Customer service was good - I ordered at 3.30 on Friday afternoon - too late for a posted CD to get to me on Saturday - so, without me asking, they emailed me and gave me a download link so I could get the software and my map selection to use over the weekend.

DUKW what format are the view ranger maps in? I have a DVD of OS landranger maps for all of southern UK. They're in .qct. I bought it for another application for my PDA. Wish I didn't have to buy a load more maps now I've got a symbian.

to: 8ball

ViewRanger formats are proprietary (I think) so you can't use Memory Map - which I've also bought - although only a �25 selection.

You get a free trial with ViewRanger including some extracts, but yes it's a pain having even more incompatible mapping. I almost bought a Garmin GPS just to get even more but thought I would play around with the phones first.

You can't print or use ViewRanger maps on PC so Memory map are better from that point.

However, at least for me, the ViewRanger thing worked first time. I wasted much of today trying to get my Windows mobile PDA phone to link to Bluetoooth GPS so I could try the Memory map- and failed

The MapNav program earlier in the thread uses Google and other maps that are free but you have download as you use them; though you can apparently cache them. I want a simple solution that I can use occasionally.

Having to remember incoming ot outgoing ports for Bluetooth etc is too much grief so for the time being I'm with ViewRanger.