2oldfarts (the rockhounders)

I export the GSAK database to Topo 9 (we have a DeLorme GPSr). This screenshot show part of Kane County, UT. The smilies are those that are in the all recoveries database and the benchmark disks are those that have not been found. We can zoom the map in on a particular mark as needed. Seems the quality of the screenshot went down when I uploaded it to GC, but it still give a good idea of what we use when we are out benchmarking. John

We use GSAK and have each of the counties in their own database and as we find the marks we move them to an "all recoveries" database. It includes all the marks that were destroyed, found, and the 'not found' that we finally give up on. This allows us to keep our GPSr (and laptop mapping program) updated by county with each file stored on the SD card in the GPSr. This helps with the impromptu hunting, since each county is on the GPSr card and can be loaded into active memory on a moments notice. John

Obviously a whole bunch of Germans and Austrians. What's funny is the guy that thinks that he visited Arizona instead of Arkansas. Many logs make statements such as this one I randomly pulled off the cache page: No clue where this virtual cache is though. There's none on a nearest caches search, and I don't really see it in the profiles of any of the benchmark "finders". Not that anyone cares, or will ever comment, since it's moved to the benchmark forum. This post is two minutes I'll never get back. There was one post that mentioned the virtual was in Germany. It even has a name for the virtual. I did a search, but came up empty due to the little words under the "cache name" search which I noticed after trying it, "U.S. only". It wouldn't matter even if you could see the virtual, nothing could be changed. We just have to put up with such things. Like you said, they buried the problem when this thread was moved to the benchmark forum, where no one there can do anything either. Shirley~

Don't forget "easy to hide". If there wasn't any restriction like the WOW factor, I would fully expect the maps to be cluttered with innumerable poor virtuals in very short order. Remember, the proximity guideline doesn't apply to virtuals. They could be placed anywhere, no matter how saturated an area may already be. As you mentioned, there are many people these days that are willing to put minimal effort, time, and expense into placing a micro. What if they then didn't need to put any effort/time/expense into placing caches? Do you really believe that people wouldn't jump all over a cache type with no restrictions? They put no effort, expense, time, and quality in micros now, so what is the difference? If they get archived, they are left as litter! Other sites allow virtuals and don't seem to have the "problems" you describe. John Because other sites have less than 5% the amount of users. So they must be the top 5% in intelligence? They are smart enough to think before placing caches. John Do you find yourself being incapable of staying in context often? OC.com is for the most part a partial mirror of here and half the time the true CO didn't upload them there. The Virts I bothered to look at there where weaker than the ones that made me dislike them here. The closest cache to me has been there since 2010 it has 2 logs. The first log is only there because the user uploaded their finds. Since 2010 that same cache has 46 logs here. Within 20 miles of my location there is still only 2 caches that aren't mirrors of my own and when a new cache does pop up within 40 miles, according to GSAK I have already done it as a GC. There seem to be 4 types of users there. Users who aren't using due to the severe lack of uniqueness. Users who have been banned from GC.com. Users who found out that they allow Virts and placed some. Users who found out that they allow Virts and either saw how lame they where or that they weren't being made fast enough. There are also zero virts in the state, so YUP YUP Michiganders on OC.com are doing it right. OC.us, when looking at the caches there, they tend to be more unique to the site, but they have even less than OC.com. When it comes to virts, they have 12 in Michigan with an average of 0.75 finds. TC is simply effete. None of the other sites have enough users to matter. When you only have 100 users in say 96,716 square miles on a given site they really cant inundate it with crap even if they produce 100% crap. I did NOT mention the name of any of the sites that do allow virtuals. You should not just pick and choose which site was not mentioned. There are several sites that do allow virtuals and none seem to be over-run by them. Gc.com promised the return of something that would replace the original virtuals, and what they have offered the players is a freaking joke. If they would have listened to what was offered in the thread on bringing them back, they could have saved themselves a lot of work and embarrassment. There were quite a few suggestions on how to control virtuals and they chose the worst of the bunch and then they promised to improve things. Sounds like that was a flat out lie to the customers! Nothing has been done to "improve" "Challenges", just promises that we are working on it. Challenges had the opportunity to have some really great virtuals created, but the way they are handled has made most folks feel that GC can't be bothered with correcting that which is screwed up, so you just have to live with it. NOT! We did 'create' several challenges, but nobody knows where they are (except us), so why waste more time and effort if GC will not correct the situation. The opportunity is there to have and control virtuals if GC would just listen to their customers. Thanks for the run down on OC, I won't bother wasting any of my time on those sites. It is nice to know that the minor sites can't do anything right. John

Don't forget "easy to hide". If there wasn't any restriction like the WOW factor, I would fully expect the maps to be cluttered with innumerable poor virtuals in very short order. Remember, the proximity guideline doesn't apply to virtuals. They could be placed anywhere, no matter how saturated an area may already be. As you mentioned, there are many people these days that are willing to put minimal effort, time, and expense into placing a micro. What if they then didn't need to put any effort/time/expense into placing caches? Do you really believe that people wouldn't jump all over a cache type with no restrictions? They put no effort, expense, time, and quality in micros now, so what is the difference? If they get archived, they are left as litter! Other sites allow virtuals and don't seem to have the "problems" you describe. John Because other sites have less than 5% the amount of users. So they must be the top 5% in intelligence? They are smart enough to think before placing caches. John

Don't forget "easy to hide". If there wasn't any restriction like the WOW factor, I would fully expect the maps to be cluttered with innumerable poor virtuals in very short order. Remember, the proximity guideline doesn't apply to virtuals. They could be placed anywhere, no matter how saturated an area may already be. As you mentioned, there are many people these days that are willing to put minimal effort, time, and expense into placing a micro. What if they then didn't need to put any effort/time/expense into placing caches? Do you really believe that people wouldn't jump all over a cache type with no restrictions? They put no effort, expense, time, and quality in micros now, so what is the difference? If they get archived, they are left as litter! Other sites allow virtuals and don't seem to have the "problems" you describe. John

I do "say that virtuals wouldn't work by using this simple method." ;-) Virts would totally dominate the game in very short order. Easy to place, easy to find, and practically immortal. Not yes, but no! John (my hubby) just saw what I was posting and says, The "Virts would totally dominate the game in very short order" is just like the Micros Have totally dominated the game in very short order! When people log our cache and tell us that they finally found a regular size cache, it lets you know how bad it has gotten with micros. We have pretty much quit caching due to all of the micros and small caches (that are really micros). Shirley~

I do "say that virtuals wouldn't work by using this simple method." ;-) Virts would totally dominate the game in very short order. Easy to place, easy to find, and practically immortal. Not yes, but no! What is soooo wrong about "easy to find, and practically immortal"? Not NO, but YES! Shirley~

Pointless easy virts would thrive, they'd not be voted off the island. The Catch-22 on a voting system is that easy virts will attract the people who like easy smileys. The people who don't like 'em, won't do 'em - and then they don't have a vote. People will like the ones with "wow" better then those without, but they'll still be happy enough about the smiley. My reviewer account has dealt with NA logs on Virtuals on a few occasions. A virtual cache on a piece of statuary that had been removed when a shopping center was built; coords were now in the median at a shopping center entry. This was the situation for THREE YEARS before some one logged a NA. Everyone else (a lot of people) took the smiley for visiting the coords where there used to be something =;-) I think that's pretty much the definition of sucky. Aside from that, if you're going to allow low votes, why stop at virts? why not do it for all caches? OK, I would be willing for that also. Lets vote on all caches. I would like to see some of those that are placed in tacky/bad areas gone. But, just because it is a bad area is no reason to post a NA or NM...but people might vote it low enough to be gone. But, we were talking the possibility for virtuals to be able to make a comeback. So I suggested the voting down instead, due to the overload on the volunteer reviewers with having the WOW factor, that was the cause for stopping virtual cache in the first place. Do away with the WOW factor, no hassle for the reviewers, no need to say that virtuals wouldn't work by using this simple method. Yes? Shirley~

"IF" we could have virtuals back in the original form, including anything - they now have the form of voting set up by using 'favorites' and they could just 'tweak' that by including the option to vote the cache low - so low it would be automatically archived. This would alleviate the problem caches without any intervention of humans having to tell the people who thought up the manhole covers, piles of horse dung, that they have a sucky cache. It just would disappear. People loved the ghosts on their finds and loved either the history or very interesting places and yes, even the tricky questions that could come with the virtuals. You could set them up with a complimentary multi-choice questions that could have the answer be OK'd by one click without going through an email and wait to log thingy. We could become the ultra new 'teckie' smart - automated - virtual site, with the ability to have our friendly ghost icons for finds back once more. Nice and easy - yes? Shirley~

I read the description and got the impression that the stone replaces the redwood posts with tacks. It doesn't specify that it holds a position, but the question is why drill a hole and fill it and put a triangle around the hole and closely describe its position, if it doesn't hold a position. We have found several marks that have surface stones with no markings that are used to cover and protect the marks (disks), but they are unmarked stones and not noted in the description. John

Actually, there were recovery reports, just not on the NGS site. Dave D. (one of the top honchos at the NGS) has collected coordinates from recovery logs on GC.com and used them to update the NGS datasheets. John

Hi Yeah_meoW, welcome to benchmark hunting! Those are beautiful pictures. I think the one of the Lighthouse is awesome! It is one of the best of all the logs for this mark. As for the other two marks you found, the DMA mark could be listed in the NGS database. We have found one of them... It is PID CZ1035 AM 50 Our find was in the middle of a concrete cross.... You just have to go to the "searching benchmarks" page link and type in either By Designation: or the coordinates and click Find Benchmarks. If it does not come up with your mark, it is not in the Geocaching database of the old NGS database that we use for our hobby. Always check any marks in this way, as it just might have made it into the database. But, the easier way is to either go to nearest benchmarks on any Geocache page or benchmark page and a list of nearby marks will be available for you to go find. If you get into this hobby enough, you might want to get GSAK and download the Geocaching Database into it for your local area. You can find the way to do that here in these forums. You have posted your first benchmark log, and I hope you log more and share them with us by posting more of your great pictures. Good hunting. Shirley~

This weekend we decided to go to Cedar City area to do some locationless caches and get outta Page. After getting our room we headed up through Minersville, Utah and then up through Milford and north to a rather unique sandstone post with the chiseled square and USBM surrounding it. We got a surprise with this one..... JO0203, M 5 Most of the stone posts we have found have been limestone and granite, but no sandstone. Looking east from the post is a line of huge windmills. It started with that line and there are lines north of this one...we did not travel to see just how many, but it was as far as we could see in that valley. Amazing. We also had great fun seeing a grouping of businesses. First in front was a Pharmacy and its neighbor to the rear was a mortuary and next to it, a Mattress store..... Something tells us not to use this pharmacy! If you do you will either need to use the services of the mattress store, since you will be bed-ridden, or you will need the services of the business right next door to the pharmacy. If the pharmacy messes up your prescription, your heirs can just walk next door to get your remains taken care of in a timely fashion. And then the mortuary and the mattress store for those that need a place to stretch-out and rest. We had a fun time all around. Shirley~

Great pictures everyone!! Thank you all for posting.... Shirley~

No, and I think that's what a lot of people don't understand and causes a lot of these problems. Other cachers may see your cache nailed to something and think it's okay for any cache to be nailed to something. The same goes for buried caches, drilling into something, etc. The guidelines are global, they don't make exceptions for your private property. Where did you find a rule against nailing something to your own property? Fundamental Placement Guidelines After you define damage, deface, or destroy, you must find out if the Land owner agrees with your assessment, before you can flat out say NO. If the property owner does not see a nail in his tree as damaging or defacing or destroying the tree, then You are left with The land/property owner having the last say. He owns the property and has given his permission for the cache. Of course the reviewer can deny the cache if he knows about the nail, but with the explicit permission, does he have the right to deny the cache? John If the cache owner put on the cache page that he has explicit permission from the owner to place the cache where it is located and How it is hidden, does it meet the guidelines or not? John

No, and I think that's what a lot of people don't understand and causes a lot of these problems. Other cachers may see your cache nailed to something and think it's okay for any cache to be nailed to something. The same goes for buried caches, drilling into something, etc. The guidelines are global, they don't make exceptions for your private property. Where did you find a rule against nailing something to your own property? Fundamental Placement Guidelines After you define damage, deface, or destroy, you must find out if the Land owner agrees with your assessment, before you can flat out say NO. If the property owner does not see a nail in his tree as damaging or defacing or destroying the tree, then You are left with The land/property owner having the last say. He owns the property and has given his permission for the cache. Of course the reviewer can deny the cache if he knows about the nail, but with the explicit permission, does he have the right to deny the cache? John

jxavierf, You have a problem, so you will have to bite that proverbial bullet and seek the help of those professionals that are there where you live. You have not let anyone here know where you live or what that benchmark that concerns you is. If you would get that info (the numbers and letters from the disk), more talk could be a little bit more helpful to you. But, still you need to get the help of those close to you to be of help with your insurance company. Here is a link to The American Surveyor Blog: that has this information that pertains to the age of your home..... You stated that your home was built in 1975, and then in the mid-1980's FEMA published a new flood insurance rate map. You definitely need to go talk with your insurance agent. They are there to help you and let you know what this all means to you. You probably do not want to hear that, but you just have to go and get help somewhere else than here. There are many places throughout the country that has flood plains and several have had housing developments built on them. One such development was in Bloomington, Utah. It was a flood plain for the Virgin River. Several years after they were built a hundred year flood went through and peoples places were flooded and damaged. They sued the people who built them but. their insurance rates for flood damage is now very high. I hope you go and get local help...... Shirley~

I looked closely at the picture on the log for that mark and looked at the datasheet. I would suggest that, that is the actual mark - MARKED BY SQUARE STONE POST, MARKED U.S.G.S. (UNITED PP2586''STATES GEODETIC SURVEY) ON TOP, SET FLUSH WITH SURFACE OF GROUND. Judging from the surrounding pavement, I would say that the parking area has been sealed several times and that would have filled in the lettering on the top of the post. I have yet to see one of those post with a disk set in it, concrete post, yes - stone post, no disk. Without cleaning off the top of that square, there is no way to make a firm decision on whether or not the station is destroyed. Clean off the top and you may well find the letters USBM cut into the stone post and a mark at the center that was the actual survey point. Anyone care to go and clean off the top of that post to see what is under the sealant? It is Way out of our range for benchmarking. John

How about opening up the search radius, so that challenges can be found? We "placed" some challenges early on and NO ONE knows there are out there since they are NOT near any city! They have never been done! They have become the same as whybother,marking! John

The Delorme's file management abilities are a pretty cool feature, and the PN-60 can use 1500 points per GPX file, and topographic maps apparently being included is awesome. But it doesn't have GLONASS or stand-alone TTS & voice navigation support. Would be nice if a GPS existed that had all of those features. As far as number of benchmarks vs how many I might be able to do, the downside to limiting the number of benchmarks put on the device is that you could end up somewhere with an unexpected chance to do benchmark hunting and not have any data on local benchmarks. I had previously passed over the arc/poly filter settings to the point that I'd forgotten about it, and until now never really looked into it and how it works. At first glance it seems like it would take a lot of work (and internet access) to setup a line or whatever that follows a Google Maps route, but I found a way to export a route from Google Maps and import it into GSAK, so I will be using that a lot for my phone in the future. It still requires internet access though which will limit it's usability. I don't understand the need for GLONASS, since my GPSr will normally put me at 6 feet or less from an adjusted mark and scaled marks need the description to find (unless you see a witness post). Why do you need internet access for GSAK? Once the county or state file is loaded into GSAK all other search functions are there to use. If the internet goes down, I have all the information needed to hunt benchmark in all of AZ,southern UT, and southern NV, plus San Bernardino Co, CA. All these counties are on the GPSr in their individual county files and in GSAK. I also have a few counties in GSAK that are not on the GPSr because I might get a chance to take a vacation/trip there and can load them to the GPSr if needed. If this is what you enjoy, by all means keep doing it. Hope you don't end up like my bass fishing friend, though. He used to catch quite a few bass when he went fishing in his old rowboat. He went and got himself a nice new bassboat with a big engine that would cruise at 60+ miles an hour. The number of fish he caught drop significantly from that point on. He became so involved with running all over the lake and watching the charts and gadgets, that he spent less time fishing and more time playing with the new boat and gadgets. Good hunting John

The Nuvi is not a phone, just a portable GPS you would normally use to navigate in a car, so cell phone coverage doesn't mean anything. (It is a Nuvi 1300LM to be specific.) Since it has a pedestrian mode that I configured for off-road navigation (aka straight line navigation) it works alright for actually finding Geocaches/Benchmarks. (It is what I started Geocaching with.) It also has a Star III high sensitivity receiver, which is likely better then the GPS receiver in my AT&T Tilt. (My Tilt, when Geocaching/Benchmarking, isn't bothered by lack of cell phone service since the app I use loads Pocket Queries and I pre-load maps via a couple different methods.) There are multiple reasons why I preload a whole state's worth of Benchmarks on the Nuvi. 1. I don't actually own the Nuvi, and thus don't have access to it most of the time. So I can't just load stuff on it whenever I want to. 2. On trips I am usually a passenger and not the one who decides what way to go to get there. (For example, for one place that we go to fairly often about 3 hours away, there are multiple ways we use to get there, and I don't think they usually decide what method to use till we're in the car leaving.) On one occasion we decided to check out a certain museum on the way and, after we were done with the museum, I checked on the Nuvi and there happened to be a benchmark just across the street. If I hadn't preloaded the state wide file before hand, I wouldn't have had any data on it. (I don't think I had my Tilt then, but even if I did I wouldn't have had it loaded on the Tilt and also would not have had detailed maps loaded on the tilt for that area, unless there happened to be a Geocache nearby.) 3. Loading the statewide file, using athe Nuvi macro and the method I use, it's easier and quicker to just do it once. (At the moment I only have one state's worth loaded, which for my state is about 20,000. (Which is a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of POIs that come with City Navigator.) Because of the way I have my Benchmarks setup for my phone in GSAK, and the fact that I sometimes load Geocaches on the Nuvi too, I do some file renaming after creating the POI Loader ready GPX files but before turning them into a POI GPI file. (Though now I've got a batch file to automate that.) 4. NDS>GPX and GSAK do not have anything similar to the "Caches on a route" feature of Geocaching.com, so to do something similar would require doing a whole bunch of filters specific points along the route and either combining all those results into one filter/databa ose to turn into a GPI file or make multiple GPI files. That would take a lot more time, and would be hard to do if going somewhere on short notice. (Especially since at the most likely area I'd be doing benchmark hunting, I have no internet access.) I think I know GSAK pretty well and actually do make smaller search areas for places I expect to be which I load onto my phone, but once I'm out of the areas they cover I don't have anything. (I know trying to load the entire state file into my phone won't work, and even if I could get it all in there it would take forever to open that database.) I also use custom macros to set things like cache type, size, and difficulty to values that provide useful info and which my phone's app can handle. (Cachebox for Windows Mobile doesn't know what a "Benchmark" type is or what "Adjusted" or "Scaled" mean, and it doesn't really like stuff it doesn't understand.) I've also got a macro I use to extract interesting info (Stamping, Setting code/description, Marker type code/description) into custom data fields for sorting/mfilter use. While I don't know much about Delorne GPS units, I know that the Garmin units are limited in the amount of Geocaches they can store in the normal Geocaching mode database. (Loading GPX files into the paperless Geocaching mode, the Etrex 30 can load 2000 caches.) But there is no known limit on the number of POIs that can be loaded. (The City Navigator maps come with 8.5 Million POIs.) Also, for the Nuvi, (which doesn't have a paperless Geocaching mode) loading as POIs via the Nuvi macro is the only way to get the full datasheet. The Delorme holds 1000 caches/benchmarks in active memory, with an additional 32GB of space on an SD card for other files and USGS topo maps. With each file holding about 750 marks/caches I can change files in a matter of just a couple of minutes and have all the benchmarks in that area showing on the GPSr (complete with datasheet descriptions). Each file has ALL the benchmark for its area. When you see a benchmark on the GPSr you can view the map and description, and then decide if you want to try for it or pass on it at that time and try for it at a later date. Gsak allows you to do arc/poly filters similar to caches along a route, slice and dice the information in the database according to your whims. If you wish to only search for pre-1950 benchmarks or only chiseled squares, or only bolts, it is all available. With the 4 northern counties of our state there are still over 4000 benchmarks that we haven't found and if you add in the rest of the state it totals 17000 marks. I'd have to be dreaming to believe that I would ever recover that many benchmarks, so I break it down to a sizable file that can be loaded quickly into the active memory of the GPSr, and have all the marks for those areas where we are traveling to. Quick easy and simple. John

Hi Nat, The Waymarker is someone who either catalogs interesting places around the world or goes and finds those Waymarks that others have posted. Waymarking.com was intended to appease the people who loved the locationless and virtual caches that used to be prevalent on GC.com. There is an area where disks are that are not in the GC database. Benchmarkers are avid hobbyists who love going out and finding disks/chiseled marks/drill holes/bolts/nails/etc. that are listed in the GC database that GC got from the NGS many moons ago. Some even send in reports to the NGS also. Others of us are completely happy to have the surveyors come to this site to see our logs and pictures. Also, Dave D (who is the Head Surveyor of the NGS comes to get pictures from our logs to place on their site. I hope that clarifies things a little. You can go to the Waymarking site and see what you think of it. Shirley - the other half of the 2oldfarts.

The Nuvi is great for drive by benchmarking, but how does it actually work where the marks are off the road and where there is no cell service for a phone? How does it do when navigating cross country? I have in excess of 10,000 marks on my Delorme GPSr with each file limited to about 700 - 750 datasheets, all the counties that we normally venture to on weekends and vacations even. No need to go to excess and load every mark if you are not going to be in that area. Why have 50,000 marks loaded if you will never go there to hunt them? Look at the areas you want to find benchmarks in and you will actually visit and use that as your guide as to how many marks to load into GSAK and your GPSr. Start close to home and learn to read the terrain and how it ties into the datasheet description. Don't go overboard getting all that unneeded information for marks that you will never hunt. Instead learn to use GSAK and the mapping programs available (Delorme has a good program that we have used for a couple of years now) and the GPSr. Once you learn these things then move on to other areas where you may wish to vacation (if you are married, hopefully your partner will also enjoy benchmarking). Don't try to get to much info and get burnt-out from overload. John

I prefer to save each county as a separate database. You can do this by clicking the 'Database' button at the top and selecting the 'Save As' choice and give the database the name of the county you are saving. Less hassle when it is time to load the GPSr, since you can often load a whole county as a single file in the GPSr. A large file will require splitting a database (I normally split it North and South) because the GPSr limits how many marks can be in a single file in its active memory. If you just drag and drop the GPX file onto GSAK when a database is open it will add the new GPX file to the existing database. I prefer to keep the default database empty and drag and drop the new GPX file there and then decide if I want to combine it with another database or just save it as its own database. John