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Up until about a couple of weeks ago I would log found TB's and found a link to print out a sheet with their goal and related info, stuck some 100% rag grade paper (so water won't ruin it so fast) in the laser printer, and printed them. These were dutifully paired with the TB's that were given brand new freezer rated (extra thick) ziplock bags before sending them on their way. However, today I got around to processing another TB or two and the "TB sheet" seems to have just lost its link. So I'm thinking - maybe that isn't a default thing, so I went back to some older bugs on the watch list that I'd already printed sheets for in the past, and couldn't find where to re-print those either - even with the tracking number to pull up the page. Does anyone know what happened? It was a VERY handy feature for travel bugs found with no attached information on where they wanted to go, especially for the next person to find it. I like to know if a TB is eastbound or westbound (or some other direction like just log me into a lot of caches for mileage) so it doesn't go in the wrong direction. This sheet was SO much better than printing out the web page, or copy/pasting into Word to get it onto a single page. Or have they moved the link? I've got 2 TB's sitting on my monitor right now that need new papers and a fresh bag that doesn't leak so they can move along this weekend.

Sounds like time for some toggle switches or rocker switches to install to disable these "helpful features". I have a Geo Metro with that handy automatic door lock feature, but it locks the doors when you start rolling about 10 mph. Fortunately I can kill the lights while the engine is running or going down the road. Of course in that Metro, since any collision will come out on the worst end (like being on a motorcycle, almost), I sort of get hyper-vigilant for any vehicle doing something unusual when on the road, and have been known to do pre-emptive evasive actions. I figure shoulders, ditches, medians, sidewalks, anything goes to avoid a collision. Maybe that's partly from flight training - where you constantly are looking for "OK, the engine just quit - where are you gonna manuver" kind of things - always looking for escape paths and trying to maintain more spacing than normal from other vehicles. I guess in a major city where there's traffic too dense to maintain safe spacing, I'd find me an Abrams tank - LOL.

Heck, everything causes cancer. Might as well enjoy living cause we're all gonna kick the bucket from something sooner or later, even if it's old age.

Talk about deja-vu. I was headed down a lonely 2 lane road to an oil well about 5 AM one morning several years back (I think 1998 for some reason) and did exactly that - turned off my headlights (and parking lights) when someone was headed straight at me in the wrong lane, and then went to the shoulder and finally into the grass. He shot past me so close it nearly clipped the sideview mirror, and somehow stayed on the road and just kept going. I was in an F-150 pickup but what went past in the dark looked like maybe an F-350 crew cab or something similar sized with a bunch of junk in the back. Still don't know how I managed to ge the presence of mind to kill the lights, unless it was from some defensive driving course I took to get out of a speeding ticket a few months before, where they said a drunk tends to home in on light sources because they get a sort of tunnel vision. Out away from the skyglow and light pollution of the cities, it gets really totally dark with no light. Turns out I came within maybe 50 feet of hitting a culvert at 65 mph. About 2 hours later someone else arrived at the well and said they'd seen a pickup that had missed a curve in the road, that was upside down and trailing about 300 feet of barbed wire fence into a pasture, with highway patrol and all working the scene.

I've been lucky so far, mostly thorns, a scorpion sting, a twisted ankle, a knee that felt like it was about to wear out, and a few yellow jacket stings (close encounter of the wasp nest kind - practically stuck my hand in the thing). There was a nasty crotch area puncture wound from almost crossing a barbed wire fence - just miscalculated and OUCH. Had a rattlesnake coil up and rattle but fortunately didn't strike, and got a really bad cut trying to CITO a piece of junk near a cache. But the mechanical equipment "injuries": Blown tires, failed alternator in the middle of nowhere, fuel pump, punctured muffler. (not all on the same trip) Lost the oil plug at 70 mph on a long deserted 2 lane road. Fortunately the wind whipped the escaping oil onto the muffler and catalytic converter to produce a big cloud of smoke so there was no engine damage from loss of lubrication. (I know people who would keep going until the idiot light comes on). I stopped and after diagnosing the problem (huge puddle spreading on road, oil pan drain plug completely gone), and many miles from rescue, I walked back about 1/2 mile along the highway following the oil slick on the pavement until reaching the spot it began, then guesstimated the likely trajectory and bounce / roll distance after it fell out. It took over an hour, but I did ultimately *find* the plug, 286 feet forward of the beginning of the oil slick and only 10 inches off the pavement in the gravel. Put the plug back in (and used 14mm wrench and cheater bar to be sure it wasn't going to come out again on its own), found a 5 quart jug of 5W30 in the large "remote area vehicle kit", re-filled the crankcase, stuck a new filter on and got underway again. I marked it down as an unexpected oil change.

So once you log one, someone said a new icon appears next to your name or something? Guess I'll find out in a minute or two. Picked one up at the Old Man Gulch-River Play-n-Meet-n-Eat today. Now researching the contest entry procedure - although actually winning a jeep might be more of a financial curse than a blessing due to the tax liabilities.

Last night I submitted a pair of caches around midnight to 1 AM, and this morning at 6:45 I realized I'd left the computer on-line, hit "refresh", and they were already approved and active.

Out here where we are somewhat cache poor, a CD of interesting stuff would probably be quite welcome to find. Sure beats the AOL mini-frisbees (although the cases make interesting micros However, everyone has a point about not wanting to stick something unknown in their computer. Certainly one burning a signature CD should NEVER use autorun. However it's not our place to teach computer security to novices. Maybe mark such a CD as "use at your own risk", and limit the content to pictures and other multimedia files rather than executables. Of course I'd be the type who'd want to share various nifty utilities and tools, such as waypoint management / GPS upload and download stuff, conversion programs, and such - or even some ham radio utilities and even a slide show program known to be free of spyware / adware / foistware. Worst case would be some would become CITO'ed eventually or just used as inert swag and never viewed.

One multi-cache in a cemetery near work took me 8 separate attempts spread out over a year, and then I stumbled on the actual cache by accident checking combinations and permutations of coordinates that were supposed to lead to the next clue. It was get numbers off a headstone, calculate coordinates for another headstone, get info off of it, figure new coordinates, and so on. Since then about 3 or 4 other people have "found, but not really solved". Nope, it wasn't "container is wooden box 6 feet long, 2 feet wide. Contents include logbook, pen, and decaying corpse" - Could just see such a log - "Took left arm with beautiful ring, two teeth with gold crowns. Left McToy. Signed log. Still can't get the adipocere stains out of pants knees." Another one (in a park) took 3 tries, and then I found remnants after it was vandalized or muggled on the 4th attempt about a month later. Never did figure out the true hiding place.

I've got an IBM Thinkpad with a similar problem - battery won't hold a charge. I'm using a 250 watt inverter, but according to the ammeter the computer is drawing maybe 1/10 of that, and less when idle. I know what you mean about Skywarn. I use mine running APRS. Also we're using it in an ARES exercise coming up. The real key is to use an inverter that has a very low idle input current. So while it might deliver 250 watts under full load, it only draws a very low current from the automotive electrical system when the 120 volt load is light. I modified my inverter, though. I cut the 12 volt power cord about midway, and installed a pair of Anderson Power Pole connectors, so the inverter can be directly plugged into the high current bus in the car (and also the truck) without fear of the cigarette lighter plug vibrating loose on pothole-infested oil field lease roads, whether it's closing in on a geocache or trying to see the inflow region beneath the rain-free base of a massive supercell. An oversized inverter, if it uses the class D (pulse width modulated) MOSFET driver circuitry generally is very efficient and doesn't draw excess current when idle - but gives you the extra punch to meet unexpected heavy loads, like to drag along the 13 inch TV/VCR combo when we're running 432 mhz or 2.4 ghz amateur television (like for Field Day for an extra 100 points).

Links??

I don't worry about a DNF, even though some of those I've posted were just a case of being "cache blind". However, I did find the remnants of a vandalized one - can't remember if I called it a find or not, but have been further down the learning curve now than then. That one, the owner replaced it a few weeks later and moved it about 50 feet, and I thought I'd be "first to find" the resurrected one. Alas, the muggles beat me to it, so for that one I posted a note and took some pictures. I think I said in the note something about CSI was who we needed with this one Anyway, it's now archived. I sat about a half block away after finding the 2nd remnants and observed muggles swarming over the likely hiding place like fire ants in a disturbed mound. But my opinion now is - indeed, log DNFs (and obvious vandalisms especially) promptly. When the price of gas shot thru the roof this past spring, failing to do that promptly, as someone else mentioned in the thread, isn't a "victimless crime". Even with my roller skate getting 50 mpg it's a disappointment to drive even 10 miles to discover a cache has been gone for a couple of weeks.

Oh wow. I think some of us out here can find an 802.11b router or two in the "leftover" pile. There are also small modules with built-in TCP/IP stacks that essentially can serve up an HTML page with enough space to put map GIF files and even allow uploads of pictures and log submissions out there that don't require a full-blown PC. Speaking of caches near radio transmitters and high tension power lines, I've wondered about building something that can capture enough energy from the ambient electric and RF fields in such a place to be self-powered. Also thinking about the TV remote idea, and the IRDA to palm pilot idea, as well as infrared only "fire-tacks" - retroreflectors made of IR transparent, visible opaque resin (kind of like a Wratten 87A/B filter in front of a highway reflector) that are only visible with self-illuminating IR equipment. About 6 months ago I had a problem with raccoons raiding the cat feeder at night, so I stuck a pair of these $29.95 cameras with IR illuminators out there. Then I went to WalMart and got some reflectorized tape (red), and put little dots and strips to outline the shape of the feeder. Last was to rig up a beam type sensor, and bolt the whole feeder on some high voltage insulators, and rig up an electric fence charger between feeder and ground. At 3 AM when the raccoons would show up, they'd trip the beam sensor. I'd roll over in bed, turn on the TV, and verify it was raccoons and not just a cat for a midnight snack. If it was a raccoon, I'd cue up a videotape (for America's Funniest Videos of course ) and push the button to energize the fence charger for a second or two. There would be a loud noise and raccoons would flee the feeder. I'd shut off the TV and go back to sleep. My cat food bill went from $60 a week, to $12 a month. But essentially - retroreflectors are awesome with self-illuminating infrared gear.

I like the garden lights idea - just replace the existing light inside with a PIC and an infrared LED or two to pulse. But some other nifty things that could be mixed in once a microcontroller is involved, could be make it react to turning a light on and off within a certain timing window, something that had to be deliberate, and unlikely to be accidentally done by muggles out doing the nasty in the woods We turn on our runway lights by having someone key their mike 3 times within 3 seconds on 122.850 mhz. Something like that with a flashlight ought to work to trigger a cache beacon. I'm thinking, turn flashlight on, off, on, off, on, off - kind of like sending a VERY slow "S" (...) in Morse code, or maybe 3 T's with inter-word spacing. Require the on and off intervals to meet a certain timing window - say, minimum of 500 millliseconds on or off, maximum 1.5 seconds on or off. Anything too long or too short would be ignored. Set the phototransistor circuit where it doesn't take too much light to cross the logic threshold, and give it a timeout so once triggered it only flashes for maybe a minute or so. I just thought of another wicked circuit. Use both a visible and an infrared LED. The infrared winks intermittently all the time after dark, but if you wink a light back between the IR flashes (and synchronized to them), it turns on the visible LED for a minute or so.

The "hair splitting" answer is - maybe. Depends on the wavelength of the infrared source. I have a night vision scope I acquired at Sam's Club about 4 years ago. It comes with an infrared illuminator. But I can actually see it dimly when looking into the thing from several feet away. I suspect it is centered around 750 nanometers. It cannot see an 880 nm LED, but my assorted black and white solid state TV cameras see 880 nm and 960 nm VERY well. The two most common wavelengths of infrared LEDs are 880 nanometers and 960 nanometers. Some people can perceive a very faint (VERY faint) red glow in the 880 nm LEDS with some security cameras that see in the dark. However, I have yet to hear of anyone able to see anything at all at 960 nanometers. I also suspect strongly that people really don't see 880nm light, but some of the shorter "out of band" portions of the light, somewhat shorter than 800 nm. Someone mentioned digital cameras seeing near infrared. I've got some IR LEDs back in the shop, so some experiments are about to be done with the HP 620 camera. OK - it can see an 880 nm LED as a faint blue "firefly" with the room light on. I wonder if it's "frequency doubling" - since 440nm is a rather deep blue-violet. Half of 960nm would be 480nm, which is also quite blue. Oh, to have an infrared spectrometer handy to test unknown infrared LEDs in the junk drawer So that means the digital camera might be an effective way to spot infrared sources in the dark, even though it might not be that sensitive. Nice. Got to check with a TV remote when I get my hands on one.

Anyone have any ideas where you might get one of these? And/or would they be affordable? And/or would it really work with like just like video cameras with infared and stufF? I went out to Gander Mountain the other day and bought a few boxes of generic fire tacks, but the whole idea seems lame and used (even though there aren't any night caches in my area) The whole infared idea sounds cool to me... You'd have to build one, I think. Really high brightness infrared LED that can be pulsed, microcontroller (like the PIC12F series - 8 pin part, internal oscillator, timer sleep mode) and a circuit that will give a really high current pulse for only a few milliseconds with a very low duty cycle. Look down the aisles in some supermarkets - they have things like that flashing visible red LEDs to draw attention to some display or other - it blinks every few seconds. But they use something like a 555 timer - way too much power for something that needs to be sealed and kept alive for months. Just thought of another idea. Ditch the solar panel entirely - use a lithium battery like the BR2032 (or a pair for 6 volts). Use a phototransistor to hold one of the microcontroller pins low when it's light. When it gets dark, the transistor opens up, lets the pin voltage rise, and trigger a "wake up from sleep" interrupt. Then the microcontroller just pulses the infrared LED for a few milliseconds every few seconds, until it sees the "sleep" pin stay low during the LED off cycle - easy to write in the software - and it goes back to sleep until after it gets dark again. (been reading some application notes since last night) Getting some ideas for a little bitty circuit board that might be fairly economical for people to assemble, or even get a batch of them robotically assembled and tested (probably would have to sell about 200 to break even on the tooling costs). Might cost as little as $10 or so if enough were built.

Low enough power might make for an interesting foxhunt. Hmmm - RFID tags do that, only work at a few feet, and use the transmitted signal to ping them as a power source. I've seen some ordinary hidden transmitters that are truly wicked hides. Not to mention playing with the antenna and power levels to confuse folks once they get really close. Nastiest one I've read about was a barbed wire coil that snaked through the brush. It happened to have the right diameter and spacing to form a circularly polarized helical antenna that was aimed right at a mountainside a couple of miles across the canyon. People would home in on the distant mountainside, climb up there, and then get a solid bearing back the other direction. But an active geocache. Hmmm - ping it on 70cm, listen for a 1/2 milliwatt reply for 2 seconds on 2 meters.

Sounds like a great idea. I need to actually draw the schematic and try and size the battery and solar cell so it can charge enough in a short day to wink all night. Or, maybe only wink a few hours after sunset on December 21st or after an overcast day. Otherwise: Joe Spoiler found it "Easy find in daylight - just look for the solar panel poking out of the south side of the big tree, then follow the wires down to the fake stump." :-) --- Solar cells are kinda finicky - just the shadow of a branch falling on an array cuts the power by more than half. A solar charging system has to be sized to collect enough energy on an overcast day December 21st to power the equipment until after sunrise on the 22nd. However - since such a critter doesn't need to blink during the day, it can stay dormant and use 100% of the collected energy to charge the battery, and only once the solar cell output totally goes away it can start blinking. I'm thinking a 50 to 100 ms flash of the LED every 5 seconds would keep it challenging - someone would have to carefully move the night vision scope only a few degrees and wait to finally acquire the signal. 50 milliseconds would permit a video camera to complete just over 3 full frame scans while the LED was on. Or the pulses could be made even shorter, so one might have to wait a minute or two before capturing a good one.

(digging in electronics junk drawer) Hmmm - 880nm LEDs, 4.7K surface mount resistors, 8 pin microcontroller that runs for months on a hearing aid battery, NiMH pack, several loose solar cells... (evil grin) How about a pigment that fluoresces under UV light but emits only at about 820 nanometers and just absorbs everything else.. Hmmm - a wavelength doubler / frequency halving substance - 400 nanometers in, 800 nanometers out. And make a retroreflector out of the stuff...

Yep, did my first cache ever on Sunday, Feb 2nd 2003, an 80 deg F afternoon in West Texas, ducks swimming on the pond, some of the more tropical trees had shed their leaves - LOL. Not quite like Southern California or South Florida - it DOES get cold on occasion. Easier to find many really difficult summer caches when everything is brown rather than green <grin>. But same thing happens in summer during a drought. Great for night caches because it gets dark at 6 PM, so one can start right after work. Planning a winter cache trip or two, though. Best time to travel because all the muggles' kids are in school, and it's not a blast furnace in the day.

I've got things set up for some experiments tonight. While there's not enough time to finish a good latex mold by Saturday with other things (like making a living) in the way, I'm thinking of just using a hemispherical mixing bowl as the mold, then cratering with an air chisel and adding other rock to make the outline more irregular, and hand-texturing that with a fresh batch of concrete later. We've got real rocks that sort of look like that.

Another idea on night caches - night vision goggles are now amazingly affordable. Infrared sources work well with any retroreflector markers, and can be seen for amazing distances with the image intensifier.

Just reading this (and the older threads linked earlier) gives me some ideas, maybe one in time for Saturday's meet and greet. There's no caches anywhere like this near here. Maybe it's time to place a few. I've used reflective safety tape like used to mark the sides of an 18 wheeler in the brush before, but I really like the FireTack idea. Reading between the lines on the site, these seem like they are small corner prism retroreflectors with the incredible brightness and contamination resistance but without Edmund Optics' prices. I'd bet a laser pen pointer could light one up several miles away (if you can hit it). Looks like a toy to acquire a handful of, and not just for geocaching. Great swag "trade-up" idea too - LOL. On the UV light sources - Several electronic surplus places have ultraviolet LEDs with wavelengths in the low 400 nanometer to upper 300 nanometer. Thanks to gallium nitride which gave us the blue LEDs, fairly powerful handheld UV sources are now available. They take about 4 volts forward voltage and current regulation to make them work, and they ARE static sensitive, so you have to wear an ESD grounding wrist strap and use a grounded soldering iron to assemble anything that uses them. For those of us electronics geeks who like to build stuff, here's some catalog sources: All Electronics Corp BG Micro Alltronics Electronic Goldmine MPJA In the past I used to hunt scorpions at night (they fluoresce) with an 18 inch UV tube in a 120 volt fixture mounted on a piece of 2x6, with a 200 watt AC inverter duct-taped to the back, and a 7 ampere-hour gel cell to power the inverter in a fanny pack. I cut some coffee cans lengthwise to make a reflector so the UV was projected forward. It was heavy and bulky, but it worked. So a solid state UV flashlight is something on the "projects to build" list (might be next winter before it happens) An avid spelunker showed me a nifty headlamp at Field Day. It has 7 white LEDs and performed as well as my 3 cell Mag-Lite.

I would consider going down to the local nursery and picking up bag of peralite. If you do a bigger "rock" use this instead of sand and rock to keep the weight down. The styrofoam beads from bean bags work well too. OK - I wrote it down. Got a trip to Home Desperate this evening for a few materials. I'm thinking vermiculite as another lightweight filler. What about the lighter stuff floating and causing the concrete aggregate to stratify? Has that ever been a problem? Come to think of it, I think I have a rather deceased beanbag out in the pump house.

I've been wondering about peanut butter jars, since I found several apparently unmolested caches that looked like they were made from 24 to 48 ounce jars. So last night I did some experimenting with a jar of really rancid peanut butter after scooping out and discarding the contents. I've been reading about bleach and other ways to kill residual odor, and so looked around at various industrial solvents and other chemicals around the house to experiment with. I am pleased to report that xylene breaks down peanut butter oil and liquefies the residue, and does not seem to attack the PETE plastic or the stuff the screw-on lid is made of. It also breaks down the adhesive on the label, making that easy to remove. After the initial cleanout with xylene, we filled it with water and a generous amount of Dawn dishwashing liquid and brought it to a near boil in the microwave, carefully transferred this scalding mess to the sink, and scrubbed with a large bottle brush. Final cleaning / rinsing was with 91% isopropyl alcohol. I'm baking it at about 160 deg F in a chamber we use to dessicate integrated circuits prior to reflow soldering. Stopping at Home Depot for some dark green flat paint to go with the brown and black and we'll see what happens after a week in the brush full of sand for ballast. ---- A second rancid jar was heated in the microwave, which liquefied the contents so over 95% of it could be poured. I tried 91% rubbing alcohol to see if that breaks down the peanut butter residue. It seems to have decomposed it quite a bit in 2 hours (used about 1/4 cup - the stuff, like xylene, methanol, acetone, MEK, is expen$ive). One of these might go in an artificial rock if I can get it all poured and done in time for the Saturday meet n greet. If it works, I'll post some pictures on-line.