Apparently the US military is planning some impressive updates to their existing satellite technology. In an attempt to maintain their dominance in the GPS arena they will be launching 8 new satellites bringing the total active ‘birds’ to 32. This new system, GPS III, is slated to have 500 times the transmitting power which promises to give greater reliability and higher resistance to jamming. It will also offer second and third frequencies to contain civilian signal, more robust signal transmissions and provide 1 meter accuracy.

This news comes on the heels of a recent announcement from the European Union that they have included 3.5 billion dollars in their budget for deployment of their Galileo project. Galileo is the global navigation system to be built by the European Union as an alternative to the US and Russian navigation systems. The system is to be operational by 2011-12.

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For the first time in a couple of weeks we got a chance to get out Geocaching. Once again it was a beautiful day and this time we found ourselves on the Heritage Trail.

The Heritage Trail is a 400 acre provincial park that was built on the site of the former Bisset Farm and is maintained by the Cole Harbour Parks and Trails Association, an all volunteer, not for profit community group.

There are 7 trails that interconnect through wooded areas, fields and shoreline. Points of interest along the trails include the Poor’s Farm Cemetery; the potter’s field for the area, the Poor’s farm; the county’s residence for the ‘harmlessly insane’, and George Bisset House.

Here is a photo of one of the trails through a wooded area:

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We have been asked several times about the rotating quotes on the bottom of the right-hand menu of Geocaching Online. We have to admit that we ’stole’ these from various t-shirts that we have come across in our travels both online and off. We think that they are cool so we included them onsite.

Here’s the full list of them so that you don’t have to keep reloading the page to see them all:

I used to have a life. Now I’m a Geocacher!

I use billion dollar satellites to find Tupperware in the woods!

If I can’t find it, it ain’t there!

It’s the most fun you can have with billions of dollars of military hardware!

Geocachers do it in the woods!

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While going through our bookmarks we came across this great video introduction to Geocaching by Sue from Team-Tiki that we would like to share with you today. Filmed as a Geocaching tutorial it features a hunt for “Koz’s Kliffside Kache” in the Hemlock Overlook of Clifton, Virginia. Combining instruction, humor and a great soundtrack it gives an excellent overview of a Geocaching hunt.

Although this was filmed almost a year ago it is a timeless piece that both experienced Geocachers and those new to the sport can identify with. So much so that we have added ‘Run Through The Jungle’ by Creedence Clearwater Revival to our iPod Cache Mix.

Keep on cachin’!

Trimble recently announced the release of the Geocache Navigator software application for the Blackberry. Now, by using Geocache Navigator, Blackberry users will be able to join in on the world-wide fun of Geocaching!

GeocacheNavigator is presently the only application that brings Geocaching capabilities to the mobile phone market and provides real time access to Geocaching.com

Developed by Trimble, a world leader in GPS technologies and a supporter of the international Cache In Trash Out Day, in partnership with Geocaching.com, Geocache Navigator lets you use your Blackberry to connect to the world’s largest cache database, select a Geocache to look for, view the Geocache location on an aerial, topographic or street map, home in on the cache and also mark your Geocaches as lost or found.

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Here’s a great way to keep in touch with your fellow Geocachers - The Geo-Post Office! This type of cache has been around since the spring of 2006 and the idea is to move postcards between Geo-Post Offices until they reach their destination. It sounds like a cool, fun way to exchange postcards between you and your Geocaching friends.

Geo-Post Office caches are specifically placed with the purpose to hold postcards. Each postcard is to have a short message and a forwarding address on it. The address is to include the name of the Geocacher that you are trying to send the postcard to, their home city, and a destination cache. Here’s an example:

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