Amberel

Well, I didn't find anything suitable so I had to put something together myself. Artistic stuff really isn't my forte but I did what I could. If anyone else wants something similar, I've posted a PDF at http://62.24.214.171/geoposter.pdf. It's about 330KB. The original is in Corel Draw and anyone who wants it is welcome to that too. If anyone thinks I've missed off anything that really, really should be there, let me know, but I think it already is at least as long as is advisable. Rgds, Andy

Thanks, Bill, you're quite right, what they are looking for is something to put on the noticeboard, i.e. a small poster. I've found 3 different tri-fold brochures, but they aren't really suitable for several reasons. I could try knocking up an A4 poster myself but I'm a programmer rather than a graphic artist, and I think the results might be a bit "ordinary" :-) Rgds, Andy

Should I email them? Rgds, Andy

Thanks, I think they were thinking more about something to put on the noticeboard by the entrance, but I'll suggest they put it on their web site too. Rgds, Andy

Thanks, I'll look into that. Rgds, Andy

I have been looking for permission to place my first cache in a local suburban country park, and the response is very positive. > I'm really sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Geocaching seems like > a great way to promote our park and attract people who may not otherwise > have visited us. > It is definately something we would welcome in our park and would be keen > to promote it as well. Please let me know if there is any leaflets, posters or > events we can display or promote. Any suggestions about the promotional side? Rgds, Andy

Well, not a bike but a 300cc scooter. Had bikes, mostly big ones, all my life, but now I'm old and grey I find the scooter more convenient - it behaves much better than a big bike round London and has loads of space to stash all the kit I have to carry round with me. It's one of the several ways I go caching - scooter, car, pushbike and boat (and walking, of course). I often visit customers on the scooter, and may call in to a cache or two on the way there or back. The point someone else brought up about all the gear is well made, but with the scooter I can take it off and lock it up on the bike; not so bad. Now the weather is cooler I keep my jacket on, and it has the advantage of being very thornproof. Rgds, Andy

Hi Susan, I don't use it so I'm not certain, but I think although Memory-Map does use OS maps, you have to buy them separately. And they may cost (lots) more than the software itself. Rgds, Andy

I'm not sure there are so many locations that are suitable for a regular size cache and close enough to me (in a built up area) to maintain well. Or maybe I just lack sufficient imagination But there is good news, I did manage to get hold of the (second lot of) people again and they are positive, just busy. They hope to get back to me next week. Before I started I think I got the wrong impression of how easy it would be by several times seeing posts where people managed to get a cache listed within a week of getting the idea for it. Rgds, Andy

Hey, I'm also sitting on 99 wondering what to do for number 100. I wondered about doing a 5/5 cache, but I did a query to list them all and frightened myself half to death just reading the logs. So I put that idea back on the shelf . I'm not so far away (just south of Heathrow) so the ideas here should suit me too, thanks. Rgds, Andy

Good luck! For the last 10 weeks I've been trying to get permission to place my first caches. I have 2 sites in mind, separated by about 8 miles, with entirely different authorities involved. The one I've been talking to for longest sounds completely disinterested and has done nothing despite numerous emails and telephone calls. They have never even acknowledged any contact, and I only know they received them at all because I rang up and checked. The other one I contacted only 10 days ago and they sounded quite interested on the phone, so I followed it up with an email. That too was never acknowledged, and I've been unable to get an answer from them since. But I'm still trying. Rgds, Andy

Have you got your Etrex set to the correct datum? This will be WGS84 for geocaching, assuming you use the published lat/long directly. If you enter the OS grid references instead of the lat/long you might have to set it to the OSGB datum. Rgds, Andy

I'm considering placing my first cache on what I believe to be council land, and am finding that getting to the right person in the local council is a somewhat protracted process. Which of you is the local reviewer for Surrey? Rgds, Andy

Cloudy sky should be no problem. Tall buildings could be, especially if they are all around. They might obstruct the signal, or might reflect it, giving a false position. Are you doing anything wrong? No, not really. All I would suggest is that if you have trouble getting a lock, try standing still. Lot's of GPSrs don't get a lock so easily while moving, even at walking speed. Once you have a lock, no problem. Your basic model should be OK. The reason it took a long time when you first used it in Spain was because it was "looking" for the wrong satellites at the wrong frequencies. Your GPSr holds a thing called the "almanac", which tells it roughly where the satellites are. When you switch it on, it uses the last known position and the current time to work out which ones should be in view. If you've moved a long way since it was last used it will be looking for the satellites that would be visible at the location where you last switched it off It then has to do a search for all satellites, and it's pot luck how soon it hits the jackpot. A more expensive GPSr might be better than a cheap one here, as it might have more electronic "correlators" to search for lots of satellites at the same time. Once it has a lock it will update your "last known position". All satellites broadcast almanac data for themselves and all the other satellites. The almanac data gradually gets out of date, so if you've not used it for a few months it might have to search for all satellites as above. It takes several minutes to download a new almanac. As well as the almanac the satellites broadcast "ephemeris". This is highy accurate information about the position of the satellite, and it gets out of date very quickly, i.e. a few hours. Each satellite broadcasts only its own ephemeris. When you switch your GPSr on for the first time that day first it has to search for the satellites. Then you may see it has a signal from several satellites but still isn't giving you a position solution. That's because it is still downloading the ephemeris - as soon as it has the ephemeris for 3 or 4 satellites, it will tell you where you are. It takes half a minute or so to download the ephemeris, and this is where it's a good idea to keep still, so the ephemeris download isn't interrupted by you walking under a tree or something like that. If you turn your GPSr off and then on again within an hour, you should get a fix much more quickly because it can immediately use the ephemeris from when it was last on. Rgds, Andy

While never deliberately "trading down", when we first started we found it quite difficult to think of sufficient small and suitable items to leave in caches. Among other things, we left several small soft toys because they are the sort of thing our grandchildren like to find, only to realise later that these generally are despised by the community at large. So several of our early finds don't look so good. To solve the problem I thought I would try to find something I could buy in bulk, and decided on some attractive and decent quality anodised aluminium small torches that I fit with batteries. Hpefully these are of interest and useful to both adults and children. The downside is that if we visit several caches in one area and someone following us does the same, they might find the same item (except a different colour) in more than 1 cache. Rgds, Andy

I recently wrote one for PocketPC but I guess that's not going to help you much . Incidentally, the figures generated by Groundspeak on the cache listings are out by typically about 7 metres. It's not a datum issue as it's pretty constant over all the areas I've tried it, and in any case 7 metres would be a bit low for a WGS84/OSGB datum error for most parts of the country. As I use OS grid references and not lat/long in the software I use on my PDA (which is also my main GPSr), this is quite an issue. I've checked on the OS web site and the problem is definitely with the Groundspeak conversion and not mine. When you do find a convertor, might be an idea to check it against the OS site, which has a free online convertor. Good luck, Rgds, Andy

I think you're right, but I've only moved a half dozen TBs. The ones I currently hold I've "grabbed" from myself, the others I edited the original logs to explain what has happened, and I'm not much bothered about not having a record of them on our new acount. Rgds, Andy

No problem. I've been thinking for a little while that I should be doing one round this way, but my main concern with doing LQ is that there might be a certain degree of time pressure to get it set up. As a newbie I'm sure to take longer finding out how to go about things. Rgds, Andy (now posting under the new moniker )