Amberel

It depends entirely on the cacher. We each have our own set of "rules" about what we log. It falls outside what my "rules" guide me to log as found, but it doesn't matter to me if your "rules" allow it - that's your business. It's like golf - if you add, e.g. an air shot, to you total or not only matters if you are competing with someone else - then you should try to keep to the same set of rules. If you are competing only against your own record then it doesn't matter what rules you use, provided they are consistent. With the possible exceptions of Church Micros and favourite points on hides, I'm not competing against other geocachers. I may sometimes find other people's "rules" incomprehensible, but it doesn't affect me. Rgds, Andy

Sorry HH, that one tickled me . Rgds, Andy

I think we just have to accept that there are folks who think in ways that might seem odd to you and me. I can't see any sense in it either, but it's their business and it doesn't affect me. Rgds, Andy

I think so too. Logging a webcam without a photo from the webcam itself sounds too much like logging a find if a cache is missing. Rgds, Andy

Ignoring the issue of whether back of a road sign really is a great hiding place for a cache, can I just concentrate on the "nano" bit. Rolling up nano logs with my fat fingers is a chore on a nice warm, sunny day. On a freezing cold winter's day, with my hands already cold from a motor-cycle ride, it is a total pain in the butt! I accept that nanos may have a place, but not where there is ANY chance to place anything larger. Rgds, Andy

Then there is at least one subject on which we are in complete agreement . This is part of the business about finding the right location. Right in front of someone's house (though I have to add, with certain exceptions :-) ) is usually a poor place for a cache. Finding the right location is very important, and it is not at all easy to do "by numbers". Rgds, Andy

You've missed off what is for me the most important - best of all I like to find good quality caches. That includes being in good locations, but that is only part of the story. I hope you don't think that people like me are such a minority that we don't even get classed as one of the main categories! Rgds, Andy

No caches were being condemned before they were looked at, the subject was the principle of having to hide a cache for every 10 found. A lot of people like hiding caches, and those who find them are putting something back into the community if they take care not to damage the cache location, trade even or up, rehide the cache carefully, pick up litter and put some thought and effort into their found it log (or even their DNF log). There is no need at all to put something back by hiding caches. There are 120 thousand caches in the UK, mostly listed on Groundspeak, and the number is growing at a furious rate without any quotas being imposed. Rgds, Andy

The principle of linking hides to finds is wholly unnecessary. There are so many caches now that there is no imperative to hide more. We can afford to forget about numbers and concentrate on quality. Any sort of pressure to hide higher numbers, even if self imposed, will not contribute to quality and could work against it. Rgds, Andy

I agree with the last 2 posters. Terrain is how physically hard it is to get to the area. Things that increase it might be a long hike, a steep hill, obstacles, tree climbing, abseiling, diving, caving, canoeing, etc. Difficulty is how well it is hidden and how difficult it is to find the way to GZ. If I may explain the latter, there is a cache near me where it is very hard to find the right way in to the patch of ground, but once you know the way it is quite short and not hard going. For me that increases difficulty, not terrain. Good camo, a tricky puzzle or multi-stages bump it up. Maybe think of terrain as a physical rating, difficulty as a mental rating. Rgds, Andy

Richard, it IS a friendly and pleasant pastime. These comments weren't unfriendly. You should be able to tell that the wording was tongue in cheek, but that the sentiment was trying to guide a new cacher towards thinking about quality. Rgds, Andy

It's about cache quality. Quality means different things to different people, but very few nanos or micros stuck on street furniture would be rated as high quality hides by most people. The quality of most things, and that includes caches, usually is proportional to the amount of thought and effort that has gone into them. Road sign caches are easy to do, rarely needing much thought or effort, and that reflects in the quality of the hide. For some folks numbers are everything, and quality isn't important. As a newbie you probably have yet to find which group you will tend towards. I really hope it is into a quality cacher. If you think that is the way you would prefer to play the game, giving some careful thought to your first placement is a good start. Rgds, Andy

I didn't say that much in my first reply, but I wholly agree with the sentiments . Rgds, Andy

It says "adequate permission" (or at least, it used to). For some things you will be asked to show explicit permission, e.g. SSSIs, churchyards, etc. For other things use your common sense, but do try to consider from the landowner's viewpoint too. Rgds, Andy

No assumptions made by me, if you think there were then please point them out, and also why you might think they are invalid. The only way that there would not be an improvement would be if there was a bug in the WAAS/EGNOS implementation in a specific device, and I have no reason to suppose that is the case for the eTrex 20. I do, of course, agree that GPSrs are mostly of adequate performance for caching purposes without the use of WAAS/EGNOS. And that for our purpose the improvement is, for MOST (but not ALL) of the time, small enough not to be a significant consideration. And also that, other than on moorland or other open country, use in the UK is restricted due to the elevation of the satellites. But then I've never suggested otherwise. Rgds, Andy

Errm, did you see the bit where he said "it may be assumed"? He doesn't actually know. As an assumption it is questionable. And in my user manual and on the WAAS page on their web site, Garmin do NOT recommend it is switched off! Entirely depends on what you are asking to "agree to disagree" on. If it is that you are free to choose, then there never was any disgreement in the first place! And I can agree that you have never noticed an improvement. But I can't agree that there isn't an improvement. Rgds, Andy

I do understand that was said tongue in cheek, but I want to clarify that it absolutely is not so . The awards are for the cache, and any difference of opinion I have with anyone has not the slightest effect on how I rate their caches. Then I challenge you set a top quality cache . It looks like you're not local to me, but in a lovely part of the country, and I do travel for good caches . Rgds, Andy

I know you delight in taking every opportunity you can to snipe at me, but all I'm doing is explaining to you that it DOES improve accuracy (and reliability), even though you haven't noticed it. I'm not trying to persuade you to use it, just trying to understand why you don't (which you still haven't explained logically). Depending on the circumstances at the time the improvement may be very small or it may be quite large, but it does exist. Rgds, Andy

But most devices these days have minimum 12 channels. Given that 4 satellites give you a 3D solution, 11 satellites means you have a massively over-determined solution. The difference between a 12 channel over-determined solution and an 11 channel overdetermined solution would be VERY hard to detect - FAR harder than detecting the difference between EGNOS/no EGNOS. The error when looking for a cache is the vector sum of the errors for the setter and the searcher. If you do the maths you will find there is something to be gained even if WAAS/EGNOS is used on only one of those devices. I think you will find that none of us are actually getting worked up over it . Rgds, Andy

Ah, but that is approximately 50% the point of WAAS/EGNOS - it actually makes LESS to go wrong. WAAS/EGNOS gives you 2 significant advantages. One is the ionospheric map, which helps to improve accuracy by allowing the receiver to factor in ionospheric signal distortion. The second thing is that it monitors the health of the satellites and warns your receiver not to use any that are transmitting poor quality data - and that does happen. If no satellites are transmitting bad data there won't be any improvement due to this function, but if any are bad, then there will. Whether it's noticeable or not also depends on the observer. Rgds, Andy

Does that mean you can see a point in NOT using it? If so I'd be interested to understand what that is? Using WAAS/EGNOS is a "may win, won't lose" situation. Rgds, Andy

Just Roger's reply is very good. Just to emphasize, when you put your GPS outside, put it somewhere there is an unimpeded view quite low to the south. You might find the EGNOS satellite is shown as #33 in your display. It may take a little while to download all the information, but the good news is that the improvements may remain for a while even after you lose the EGNOS signal. Re. the Patician's point that it is possible for the position using EGNOS to be less accurate than when not using it. This is only true if you take a very strange view of GPS accuracy. In exactly the same way it is possible to get a worse position using 12 satellites than it is using just 3. But both using more satellites, and using EGNOS, will result in an overall improvement in accuracy, and there is no logical reason not to use EGNOS if it is available. The accuracy figure reported by most Garmins is a 50% CEP figure. That means the unit estimates that your actual position will be within the stated figure for half the time. This is a horrible way to present an accuracy indication because it is so easily misundersood. Rgds, Andy

Yes, if you go to any Church Micro listing there should be a link to the bookmark list on the right hand side. You can make a PQ from the bookmark list. Due to the number of CMs there are half a dozen bookmark lists. Rgds, Andy

Depends on what you mean by "route". If you mean a good walking route with some caches on the way, they as John says, Dartmoor, Peak District and places that that are hard to beat. I live in London, but visit Dartmoor regularly. It's a long way, but if I leave at 04:30 on my scooter I am walking on the moors by 08:00. If you interpret in the sense of route to the cache rather than simply a walking route, then search for caches with a higher terrain rating. You could do worse than look at my TOP CACHE web page http://www.amberel.com/topcache.htm , obviously my view is subjective but I do like caches that are challenging to reach. Rgds, Andy

I was stopped on the riverbank at Kingston some years ago, and the policeman ended up looking for the cache with me (and finding it ). So my experience wasn't a bad one. But I'm pretty much sitting on the fence on this one. I do believe we should co-operate with the police, but I also think the police should respond proportionately to any situation. I think on the whole they do, but it doesn't mean we should accept everything they might do, without question. I don't think it is right to say that they should automatically investigate every single thing that is reported to them - they should first question the person who reports something suspicious, and determine if the suspicion has some foundation. I can't form a view on the particular case that started the thread - we have only one side of the story, and even that one side isn't at all clear. Sending the police round to someone's house for no reason other than that they sat for a while, in their car, in a public parking place, doing nothing out of the ordinary, sounds way over the top. But we don't know what else happened, and it seems clear from the OP that sitting in the car wasn't the only thing they did during the visit. Rgds, Andy