Delorme PN date issues

Now that our beloved PN-60 dates have reverted nearly 20 years, uploading field notes/drafts to Geocaching can be a pain.

As it works out, the time is correct.

I hacked out a routine in bash (Macintosh, Linux) to correct the dates. The routine converts the date to current epoch time (seconds from the beginning of machine time), then adds an offset to forward the date to the actual day, then converts it back and updates the file.

The updated file is loaded into geocaching, where the dates are correct.

An initial hurtle was figuring out the encoding - the file wouldn't edit in vi. It took a bit to determine the file is encoded in utf16le. (little endian).

Once the format is converted to utf8, it can be edited. Geocaching seems to read either format, so it doesn't need to be re-converted back to utf16le.

I can post the code if there is any interest. Windows users will need to convert it to their OS; I don't do windows (as much as I can help it, anyway...)

0 CowboySlim over 4 years ago

OK, I have a method for correcting the dates on recorded tracks and waypoints on a PC with Windows OS. Two things, file name and internal data points.

File name: Very easy, right click on the icon, look to the bottom, and click on "Properties", go to the file name and change the year from the recorded to the current.

Internal data points: Each time point will have the point's time recorded with the incorrect year, open the file with MS Office Word, MS Notepad or MS Wordpad. then under the Edit header at the upper left select Find or Search and input the improper year value, then under Replace enter the current year and click on Replace All.