Sending Geocache Files to Lowrance. (For Non- Premium Member's)

This post should help those who are not Premium Members (PM) of  Geocaching.com. As a non PM you cannot access more detailed data files containing Geocache info. But this does not mean you are stuck with entering waypoints manually, there is still a way to collect data, and send many Geocache waypoints to the GPS. 

 

Programs Needed:

• GPS Babel By Robert Lipe
• EasyGPS Companion By Thot

Both of these are available free of charge.

 

Works with:

• Any Lowrance unit with an SD card slot.
• The i-Finder Go and Go2 will not work with this method as shown.

 

First of all, you must go to the Geocaching.com (GC.com) search pages and find the caches you want to load. I recommend finding a starting point, entering it (A zipcode, coordinates, or cache ID code.) and finding a radius you will reasonably search around, for example 20 miles. From the search page, at the bottom of the page is a "Select All" button, this checkmarks all the caches on that page. Scan up the page and uncheck any caches that you may not want to hunt, be they disabled caches, or multis and puzzles you feel you will not be able to seek. After that, find and click the "Download to .loc" button. It is better if you have a Folder waiting to accept the file, as you will be accumulating a lot of them in a short time, and need a place to keep them separate. When Downloading, save the file as (Example) FileName001, because as you get more, you can name them in order, FileName002, FileName003, and so on. After you save the first Downloaded .loc file, go to the next page in your search, and repeat the process until you reach caches on the search page that are at your radius limit, in the example it was 20 miles.

 

Now that you have your files in a separate folder, you need to combine them. Personally I have had well over 50 files that needed to be combined, but as long as you search in a smaller area, you should have fewer files. Here is where we use EasyGPS Companion This program will assemble the multiple files into one big file. Go into the program, find your folder, choose an output file name, select all files, then hit combine. A new file will appear in your folder, it has all the other files rolled into one. You can now delete the files you accumulated, but wait until you are done so as not to loose them, in the event you need to re-combine.

 

Up till now, the above process would work with any brand of GPS, and still will, provided you translate into your units format, but for this guide, I will explain how to translate for Lowrance .usr files.

 

Now we use the other program, GPS Babel. This will turn our .loc. file into something Lowrance recognizes, .usr. In the GPS Babel window, select the top file type as "All Files", then find your folder, and select the file that contains all the info, the one you combined earlier. Now in the bottom, select, "Lowrance usr" as your output type, and type in your filename, and keep the suffix, .usr (Example: FileName.usr)

 

Now, place the GPS's SD card into your reader. Find the file you just created, which will be in the folder with all the other files you made in this process, and copy it. Go to your computers drive for the SD reader, on mine it is the E: Drive, but varies on different setups. Once inside the E: drive folder, Paste your file into it, thus placing it on the card. You may see other files on the card as well, like a Map file, or another waypoint file, this should let you know you are in the correct drive. Once you see your file appear, it is on the card. Wait a second, close out the window, and then you can remove the SD card, and place it back into your unit.

 

Now, turn your unit on, and use the following key entry to load the file to your units active memory. --Menu -->Menu--> System Setup--> Transfer my Data--> Load--. Select your file from the drop down menu, and hit --> Enter. A screen will appear confirming a successful load, now exit out of all the screens, go to the map page, and you should be able to find your waypoints. (Zooming out will let you see them faster, you must move your cursor to the area they are in, if you are not selecting caches in your immediate area.)

 

One more note: The caches should appear with the "Flag Buoy" Icon type, and the name should be the Geocaches waypoint ID # (Example GCQKDF = GC, followed by a four character ID code.) By using this code you can keep track of the caches you have visited.

 

Tip:

After finding a cache, enter the waypoint screen, and change the Icon to an "X" to mark it as found, and to be visible when you log at the computer. This way you can use the GPS itself to keep track of the caches you have found for the day.