Geocaching has become almost a mainstream hobby these days. So on a previous weekend, I gave it a try to find out what this is all about. As I don’t have a dedicated GPS device, I wanted to use my Nokia N95 with the built in GPS receiver for the purpose. With a quick search I found exactly what I needed for the purpose: "Geocache Navigator" by Trimble. The software is free if you can live which an occasional advertisement, of which I haven’t seen one yet, though.
Strangely enough, the Geocache Navigator is a Java based program but seems to have been specifically developed for Nokia Nseries phones with a built in GPS API. I tried the program both with the built in GPS receiver and my external GPS Bluetooth mouse and it just works fine.
A "cache" can be hunted in several ways with the program. Either you use the program to find starting points for caches around you including instructions what to do at each waypoint, or you use the PC to visit a geocaching web site such as www.geocaching.com, locate a cache and print out the instructions. I preferred printing out the instructions to downloading them to the program.
Despite the program requesting access to the network, it’s not required if the instructions are printed out beforehand. In this case, however, the GPS co-ordinates have to be typed in manually. As you can see in the second picture on the left, I managed to find my first cache 🙂
For a visual explanation of how the program works, have a look at Trimble’s video that shows how the program works. Very nice, it won’t be the last cache I’ve hunted 🙂