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ALTHOUGH they may seem complicated at first, the method used for getting your Street Atlas USA 2004 Handheld Addition ready for geocaching only takes a few minutes once it is set up; and a few minutes, every time you grab a set of new waypoints for geocaching will keep your Palm up to date and ready to go with the locations of geocaches, ready for you to find them.

In order to take full advantage of Street Atlas USA 2004 Handheld Addition's (SAHH) features for geocaching (e.g. downloading large amounts of waypoints to a handheld such as a Palm), you, the user will also have to buy and install the "computer" version of Street Atlas USA 2004 (SAUSA). All total, about a $100 investment, give or take. This is annoying, but necessary; probably the biggest downside of using this system for Palm guided geocaching. Further, since SAHH does not have a compass pointer that you would find on a stand alone GPSR, you will also need to download and install a program for that. Cetus GPS will do just fine and is FREE. What is more, is that it also allows for downloading mass waypoints for Palm storage. Having these three components will create an all inclusive geocaching navigation system. For those who are interested, below is an attempt at step by step instructions for getting this onto a Palm OS handheld and hopefully getting everything to work.

Download Cetus GPS and install to the Palm. Not a particularly difficult path, it is done in the same way any other Palm program is installed.

Install SAUSA as well as SAHH. Note, both of these programs have components that reside on the computer but when I say "computer" version it has components needed to get mass waypoints onto the Palm. SAHH contains the Palm side programs as well as the ability to generate routable maps onto the Palm. Once both of these programs are installed onto your computer, once again sync your Palm to get the SAHH portions onto the Palm Pilot

First, open SAHH and create maps for download to the Palm. Since this really isn't he focus of this article, no in depth discussion or instructions are provided for it. Once completed, sync your maps to the Palm. One of the nice features of this system is that these maps can be stored and run from a memory card, not taking up precious memory on the Palm. Once completed. Close SAHH, you don't need it anymore right now.

The next step requires using a program called GPSBabel, a great program that converts waypoint information between different formats for uses on different GPSRs and in different programs. This program can be hard to use for the non-computer-geek such as myself, however, I am sure that if you follow these steps, you will at least be able to get it to work for this particular application.

Download the .exe (32-bit Windows) program from Sourceforge to your desktop and extract all files. Double click on the file called "GPSBabelfront" to start the program. This dialogue box is pretty easy but we will go through it step by step. The top line "Input File" would be where you would locate your pocket query or some other file of mass waypoints. Click on the little box at the far right of that line and another windows box pops up. Under file type, click "All files (*.*)". Find the file you're looking for and double click it, it is then automatically inserted into the GPSBabel box for you. Format type should be automatically changed in the box under it.

Next, go to the line called "output file". Type a name for the file that you want created (e.g. geocaches). Also, since we are going to create a file for SAHH, we want to include an extension to create the correct file type so also add ".txt". In the final box, "format" choose "Delorme XMap HH Native .WPT". The file will be saved in the same location that the original file you put in is located.

Now, under output file, change the name of the file to read ".pdb" and under "Format" use the pull down menu to choose "Cetus for Palm/OS". Once this is done, you can double click this file to sync to the Palm. Now, go to SAUSA and click on the "draw" tab, click on "Import". A dialogue box will open. Drag the newly created ".txt" file into that box and double click it. Click "OK" on the next box that pops up and the file is imported. At the bottom of the SAUSA screen, there is a box that displays all of your files, double click the file you just imported and the map should pan directly to the area of your caches.

Finally, click on the "Handheld Export" tab of SAUSA, click "Exchange". Ensure that the button "Send to Device" is highlighted. Under "Object Type" use the pull down menu to highlight "Draw Points" and click "Next". In the next dialogue box under "Draw File", use the pulldown menu to highlight the name of the file you have imported already and click "Prepare for Sync". Now, next time you sync your Palm, these files will be sent to the SAHH program on the Palm. You can now close SAHH.

Now if you open SAHH on your Palm and view a map, you should see little diamonds that indicate the location of the caches that you just sent to the Palm. You can view a waypoint directly also by highlighting it in the waypoint section of the Palm program. Since this program is sort of a hybrid Palm/pc program, it moves very slow so be patient. If you open Cetus, you will find all of your waypoints there as well.

One final word: since SAHH doesn't really have facilities for mass waypoints, you must use a workaround for deleting the waypoints on your Palm before you download a new file of the same waypoints; they are not overwritten but added so if you sync one file of 100 waypoints to the Palm and you sync another, updated file of 100 waypoints, you will have 200 waypoints, mostly duplicates on the Palm making for a cluttered screen. You need a file manager program (for this use a good free one is called FileZ. Install this to your Palm. Before you send a new set of waypoints to your Palm, open FileZ and look on the PALM CARD (aka Palm memory) for a file called "XMapWptsDB" and delete it. Then you can go ahead and put a new set of waypoints onto the Palm for SAHH.

Now, as you drive to your cache, you can see where it is on the map, once you get close, you will have to navigate the last feet with Cetus as a pointer.