Geocaching with Nokia N82
30 Aug 2008 18:34
I wrote a blog entry about the N82 and Mac OS in
the PC/Mac section already. Today I wanted to
test the GPS capabilities of my new toy by
finding a geocache. You can read more about
geocaching here. In short, it’s
about finding hidden little (or sometimes
even big) “treasures”, so called Caches, via
GPS. There is a page www.geocaching.com where
all caches are collected with their GPS
coordinates and short description. So what I
did was, I downloaded a free geocaching
application called Geocachenavigator and
installed it on my cell phone. Then I went
to geocaching.com and looked for a cache in
my environment. I found one and started the
music player and then the geocaching
application on my phone to enter the Cache
id. Geocachenavigator is opening a
connection to geocaching.com then to get the
exact coordinates of the cache and told me
it’s about 2,8km away from my current
position. So I started to walk following the
compass the cell phone was showing me (the
photos are just examples and not real
screenshot of my cell phone).
When I came close to the cache I switched from Compass mode to Radar Mode, which is way better when you are close. It tells you with the precision of one or two meters where to go. When it showed 0m to me, I started to look around where it can be. I was standing on the side of a bridge
After looking around for about 20 minutes, interrupted by people asking me if I lost anything or so while I was crawling under that bridge, I finally found it! Yay! You can see a little movie of my success when you click on the photo above. The movie is taken with the cell phone too of course. This was my first cache at all as a geocacher with an own GPS andstupid unexperienced as I am, I had no pen
with me to sign the log that was in the cache ...
anyway, it was fun.
Maybe hardcore geocachers have a different opinion but from my point of view you can use the N82 for geocaching quite well. In my case I had no clouds and no big trees coverings the satellites though. Maybe it’s tougher for the built in GPS receiver with a covered sky but since I even have GPS in my living room when I’m close to the window, I think it should work in a forest too if you don’t have a totally covered sky.
When I came close to the cache I switched from Compass mode to Radar Mode, which is way better when you are close. It tells you with the precision of one or two meters where to go. When it showed 0m to me, I started to look around where it can be. I was standing on the side of a bridge
After looking around for about 20 minutes, interrupted by people asking me if I lost anything or so while I was crawling under that bridge, I finally found it! Yay! You can see a little movie of my success when you click on the photo above. The movie is taken with the cell phone too of course. This was my first cache at all as a geocacher with an own GPS and
Maybe hardcore geocachers have a different opinion but from my point of view you can use the N82 for geocaching quite well. In my case I had no clouds and no big trees coverings the satellites though. Maybe it’s tougher for the built in GPS receiver with a covered sky but since I even have GPS in my living room when I’m close to the window, I think it should work in a forest too if you don’t have a totally covered sky.