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On Saturday, I went GeoCaching with an expert Geocacher (over 1000 caches found and logged). We went to a trail that I’ve hiked twice before, so I knew the terrain and was prepared for the effort required. At least I thought I was prepared. It turned out, I was not.

Equipment

I have a Nokia N800 that gets tethered via Bluetooth to a GoPass GPT800 Bluetooth GPS Receiver SiRF Star III. At the time of purchase, this was a highly regarded GPS receiver chip.

My sister had a hiking-specific GPS unit from Garman with a big antenna. I don’t know the exact model, but think it is a metal grey color with black and white screen. No color, since that uses too much energy.

My brother-in-law uses a few applications and scripts that he wrote to grab GPS point data for any geocaches near where we are planning to be. His scripts also grab hints and comments from other enthusiasts.

The Issues

So, we’re hiking on the path and we both have waypoints/POIs entered into our units marking the cache locations. I keep walking on the path, then my sister heads off into the brush. Not just a few feet off the path, but out of voice yelling range. We both have whistles, which is good hiking practice. My GPS was still telling me to continue on the path. She found it. I didn’t realize the cache locations wouldn’t be fairly near a trail. Since I’d already hiked these trails with my GPS tracking enabled, I had that prior track loaded into my map and could see approximately where the best place to take off into the bush would be.

GPS units appear to be designed for movement, somewhere around 10mph or faster seems ideal. I can’t walk that fast. When we stopped to get readings, mine jumped around a lot – hundreds of yards. Further, if the GPS signal gets lost due to trees, hills, whatever, then mine takes you back to a previous location as an initial guess. With tracking enabled, the map gets really busy with a pseudo-star pattern of lines.

Cockpit Error – i.e. user error ;)

On about the 3rd cache, I realized that the built-in compass for the GPS software wasn’t really working the way I thought. Fortunately, the same tool that my whistle is on has a compass, signal mirror, magnifying lens, thermometer and an LED flashlight . It is a really handy little plastic tool for hikers to have. I don’t mind that it is cheap, it does work. The compass was more than accurate enough for my needs, but sadly, the GPS location was still off. My sister kept making a beeline to the caches and found almost all of them in this area.

Final Result

I’ve decided that geocaching with my current setup isn’t fun. I get frustrated when technology doesn’t work as expected. To resolve the issue, wiping the original OS2008 included with the N800 will be needed. I’ve been unable to update the GPS mapping tool software since it was loaded due to some underlying libraries that couldn’t be updated too. A fresh OS install with the newer release will be good and get me out of Application Manager hell. Maemo 5, here I come. Then I’ll re-visit the same location and see whether the new software helps with the accuracy of the GPS. Knowing where some of the caches are located, will be helpful.

If this doesn’t work, perhaps it is time for a new bluetooth GPS receiver. The current receiver is really good for driving – seriously, so that $35 was well spent.