the club

Sunday Feb 3rd 2008

I’ve been toying around with the idea of starting a Tampa waymarking club. I like GPS and I like photography. Geocaching, something I did do once, is cool and all that but I’m more into sightseeing than tromping thru the woods.

I have been out and about around Tampa Bay enough where I know good sightseeing spots that many locals don’t. In addition I’m also schooled enough in GPS where I know how to share locations easily.

So the plan, should it come to fruition, is this:

I pick out some spots.
I schedule one spot per week to visit by way of giving out the coordinates (more on that in a moment).
People show up at the scheduled time, we meet and take a few photos.

That’s basically it.

Here’s the long explanation:

Most people who have mobile GPS in their cars usually have a Garmin StreetPilot or nuvi. Almost all those units (even the ones made 3 years ago) have the ability to accept POIs (Point-Of-Interest).

POIs are almost identical to “Favorites” or “My Locations” in a Garmin GPS. The only difference is that instead of going to Favorites, you go to “Custom POI” or “Points of Interest”, which is simply another menu selection.

I can create POI databases and I’m darn good at it.

Using the free POI Loader software from Garmin, I can send people the locations and all they have to do is plug in the GPS to the computer, run the POI software and load up the Points of Interest.

In the waymarking club I would send an announcement once a week with a POI file attached. They take that file, load it up, then just show up whenever the meet is scheduled.

Easy.

I don’t know exactly when I’m going to start this and honestly speaking, I don’t know if anyone would even be interested.

But hey, I’ll give it a shot. Who knows, I might meet some cool new people.

I’ll notify it here once I have the thing all set up.

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