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Cape Geckos

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Posts posted by Cape Geckos

    Notifications

    in South Africa

    Posted

    I have noticed that I am not receiving notifications for all the caches that are being published. Reading today's newsletter from Groundspeak I see that there is a large percentage that I did not receive.

     

    Is anyone else having this same problem?

    Geocaching app on an Android phone in South Africa

    in South Africa

    Posted

    You'll keep a kid happy for hours with the free games like angry birds. The metal detector is just plain cool too.

     

    I haven't spent anywhere near enough time in the market but watch out for the high data bill if you get carried away. I do everything through home adsl which takes a big edge off it.

     

    Have fun and let us know what you discover out there.

    Geocaching app on an Android phone in South Africa

    in South Africa

    Posted

    I dont believe you need to stay with Autopage. I had a bad experience with them in the past and moved away and have never regretted it. That being said, I know people who rave about them.

     

    MTN and Vodacom are your better service providers with Cell C and Virgin Mobile riding their backbones still. MTN is also huge further up into Africa while it seems Vodacom is focusing more on the local market and Southern Africa and rather partnering with others in North Africa like Zain etc. So MTN is not a bad choice in my opinion, especially if roaming in Africa.

    Geocaching app on an Android phone in South Africa

    in South Africa

    Posted

    Well I managed to find one work around - will test it later http://getsmartphone.net/2010/08/get-paid-apps-on-your-south-african-android-phone/

     

    I have c: geo and Geobeagle and they look Ok, but from what I can see they chew bandwidth. I'm looking at offline mapping apps as well.

     

    I tried the market enabler on my galaxy but all I get is a "We got a problem Houston" error message. I tried rebooting and got the same error on all networks. I am not someone who plays with these too much because i just get bored... ooo look a pony... but I owuld love to hear if it works on yours or if there is a setting I need to tweak.

     

    I'm going to the UK at the end of March and will try get onto their system that way if needs be.

     

    Have you noticed Skype doesn't work on the Galaxy yet either? There is lots of complaining on the Skype forums about it.

    Favourites and other things

    in South Africa

    Posted

    I quite like the favourites tool because it made me go through a list of all the caches I have found in the past and brought up some great memories of caches past. GCVote is also a nice idea and I thnk both have their place in this world of ours.

     

    What would be nice is a search option to list the caches in an area with the highest "favourite" hits. Or am I missing something?

    Are Micros in Remote places a bad idea?

    in South Africa

    Posted

    I tend to think that large caches in remote locations are a waste of time. If the spot is special enought to deserve a cache then I doubt anyone going to extra lengths to find it is going to care about the trading of bits and bobs. I think small is fine but micro is too small for these spots. MnCo hid one or two in Cape Point which I think were perfect - small enough to hide easily, big enough for a decent log book and if anyone felt the need to drop off a small trackable they could.

     

    I once found a very large cache in a rather remote spot which really wasn't worth the stop. I logged and left while my hiking buddies got irritated. Normally they are willing to hang around, have a cup of tea and let me do my thing.

    Best GPS options for SA?

    in South Africa

    Posted

    I use a little Dakota 20 which is perfect. Open street maps is a very usefull tool for the road navigation part but as CapeDoc says about the Oregon there is no voice instruction.

     

    I bought mine from iWarehouse. Check out http://www.iwarehouse.co.za/navigation-gps...armin-handhelds which will open up some additional options for you.

     

    It all depends on what you want out of your GPS. If you plan on going on long walks then battery life is important. The eTrex series and Dakota have great bettery life. I also recommend a waterproof option. The Nuvi's aren't waterproof as far as I know but that is nothing a jiffy bag can't solve <_<

     

    Some salespeople try and sell you stuff based on what the unit can do overseas so don't stress about the WAAS capabilities becasue we can't use that in SA. That being said I think all the Garmin units now have it.

    Caches and permission

    in South Africa

    Posted

    I received this contact via the website this morning:

     

    "You should be aware that geocaches are often located on private and public property without proper permission. Groundspeak has no way of verifying that proper permission has been obtained. Instead they rely on "adequate" permission asserted by the hider of the cache.

     

    There have been a number of instances where geocachers have been detained by law enforcement. Recently there have been several of instances where property owners have come to the forums to alert geocachers to caches placed on their property without their permission.

     

    Before you continue in this hobby you should question the legalities of this activity.

     

    User's Profile:

    http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid=ed...d3-f9599e16b51e "

     

    Does anyone know who Fuzzbuket is? They appear to have a brand new profile and ahve not responded to my response contact via the website.

     

    Has anyone recently found one of my caches and been approached by anyone? In which case, which cache was it?

    Google street view available in SA

    in South Africa

    Posted

    In order to see how easy/difficult this would be to utilise, I attempted to do an entire cache with Streetview this weekend and actually got pretty far.

     

    I attempted it with Bo-kaap Mosques by Discombob seeing as it uses some fairly obvious landmark types in a relatively small area and I have yet to do it so could not cheat.

     

    After a decent amount of searching and panning around I got 4 out of the 6 required answers with streetview. One of the remaining clues was blocked by trees and the last I didn't find because I knew I now couldn't get them all and will still do this manually one day (I even deleted the answers so I have to do them all again).

     

    My verdict is as follows:

    1. I really love playing with Google Earth and Streetview is awesome

    2. It is possible to find all the clues for a cache if the clues are large enough.

     

    This said, it is no fun at all and anyone who caches this way is completely missing the point!

    The Fynbos Finders

    in South Africa

    Posted

    I'm of the opinion that if someone wants to cheat their way through a cache that's their loss so don't let it spoil a new one. The whole point of caching in my opinion is to take people places they wouldn't normally go, don't know about or to show them something interesting/appealing and I don't think we should let street view get in the way of this. Just my thoughts on the matter...

    Geocaching 101

    in South Africa

    Posted

    When searching under poor accuracy conditions (like under trees) try the following:

     

    1. approach the GZ from three or more different directions and some way back and try and locate the GZ visually from quite a distance away. Even with poor GPS accuracy you will narrow down your search area.

     

    2. remember that the accuracy of the owners co-ordinates would also have been out and you could be way off the mark. Read the hint, stop, look around and think.

     

    3. start looking for things that are slightly out of place from some way away... like unnatural small rock piles blocking a hole under a larger rock :)

    Don't Cache The Train

    in South Africa

    Posted

    Wow, ok, you go offline for a few days (ok a week or so) and this is what happens! Trevor, good on you for creating this thread and sparking some interest in a CITO event, I am more than willing to help organise the whole thing.

     

    Being a Harfield resident I have noticed that we have lots of parks in need of maintenance but quite a few that are well maintained. In fact for a while I was contemplating creating a multi to show the nicer ones off. I then thought that would be boring (as I am sure most of you will agree) so never did it.

     

    I have been working on a new cache to try and make people more aware of Harfield's history (which has some interesting bits and some old buildings still in place) and make a cache that might bring people to the area and they can pick up Dont Cache the Train on their way through. We are also one of the only suburbs who have a carnival every year - oh, and a Da Vincis (great pizza and you can draw on the tables).

     

    Trevor, let me know when and how I can help, I owe it to my community.

    South African (Off-Topic) Quiz

    in South Africa

    Posted

    I haven't had internet access for a while. Of course all the questions I could answer had to appear in that time! (;

     

    I just have a comment about the Einstein & Toblerone: it's almost certainly a myth that Einstein signed the patent for Toblerone. It's true that Einstein worked in the Swiss patent office during the time that the patent for Toblerone was signed, but that's where it ends. Unfortunately the story attached to the myth is so pleasant that it's unlikely to die anytime soon...

     

    I read that too but loved the story and seeing as no one seems able to proove or dis-prove it, I stuck it in. It was a question in Trivial Persuit. I wonder if anyone has taken it up with them? Don't they offer an award if they have a wrong answer? :(

    Paperless - which phone

    in South Africa

    Posted · Edited by Cape Geckos

    Have been playing with Geocaching Live but dont find it as user friendly as Voldercaching ("the software that shall not be named") doesnt want to connect right now and I cant figure out why... I just get a "cache not found" error message.

     

    Geocaching Live is a lot faster to react to motion that Voldercaching which makes it easier to cache with but I miss the logging facility and easy searching ability the Voldercaching gives you.

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