15Tango

I've been trying to run a PQ for the last half hour, and it still has "Never" generated. I have double checked all the boxes, and I do have the appropriate boxes checked. And I'm not new at this - I normally run a PQ before I head out the door, but I'm just not getting one to generate today. Is anyone else having issues?

I know they are .loc instead of .gpx - but until my PQ generates (if ever), that's the best alternative I have right now. I can download 20 .loc waypoints at a time, or I can go to each of the 500 cache pages and download each .gpx one at a time.

I just found a work-around (and I don't know why I didn't think of this before) - I went to the "preview the search," then from that page, I just checked all the waypoints and downloaded them into GSAK. Of course, I had to do that 25 times in order to get all 500 caches, so it was a little tedious, but it was still easier than hand jamming each waypoint into the GPS, like we had to do back in the day.

I'm glad it isn't just me. I just tried two, and they haven't generated yet. It better come through in the next 1 1/2 hours - I'm headed to a breakfast event and plan to cache afterwards, and if I don't get my PQ, then I'll have to use the illegal android app.

Hi, and welcome to the Great White North! I'm in the Twin Cities, so I don't think I'd be the best caching buddy for you, but I might be able to help out. Quite a few Minnesota cachers do not look at the National Forums, but most of us do look at the MnGCA forums, located here.

My maps are still tiny as well - I'm using Mozilla Firefox (and I've been searching all over, but can't find out how to find out what version I'm running, but it just updated itself last week) and "Block Pop-up Windows" is unchecked. I'm running version 1.5.0.12, and I've looked all over tools and can not find out how to fix my maps on my end - SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP - THIS IS GETTING REALLY @#$%&* FRUSTRATING!!!! HOW COME EVERYONE ELSE CAN GET IT TO WORK, BUT NOT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????????

My maps are still tiny as well - I'm using Mozilla Firefox (and I've been searching all over, but can't find out how to find out what version I'm running, but it just updated itself last week) and "Block Pop-up Windows" is unchecked.

Yeah, this map is not too helpful... I take back my earlier assertion about a 'glitch'. I am on a different machine now (at home) and it happened again to me. Not sure why the animation hangs up... (I'm running Firefox 2.0.0.3) I'm also getting these little maps after the little grey spinner. Since I had to look forever to find mention of it, I'm assuming it's a problem on my end, so, how do I fix it? Both maps on the cache pages look like this - I click on the little one in the upper left, and I get a yahoo map of the area where the cache is, but when I click on the little one on the lower right, I get a google map of Seattle.

I've also enjoyed Garmin's customer service. I started off with a GPS III, and when the memory battery went bad out of warantee, I was able to send it in and get the part replaced and get the unit back in about a week or so. On my old Vista, the rubber band kept becoming unglued, and I sent the unit back 3 times out of warrantee and it came back to me, repaired, at no cost to me, again in a week or so in each case. When I bought my 60CSx last November, I sent in for the rebate, but when the check arrived at the house, I was serving in Afghanistan, and by the time I even saw the check with the rest of my mail, it was past the 90 days it was valid - a quick call to Garmin, and I had another rebate check on the way to me. Whenever I upgrade, I propably pay more for a Garmin than I do for a Magellan with the same features, but electronics break, and it's nice to know that I have good CS I can go to when I need it.

Carry a trash bag and pick up litter while you're looking for the cache - keeps the muggles from becoming suspicious, and also accomplishes a little CITO.

I just finished a tour in Afghanistan and did a few caches over there, but I don't have any of the cool geocaching war stories like what is already posted. I was assigned as a filler to an Army National Guard unit from another state, and geocaching was a great icebreaker with a couple of my fellow soldiers who were also geocachers. It was also a great icebreaker my boss's replacement who is a geocacher - the desktop picture on my laptop was a spirit plaza built as a 9/11 memorial that is also a virtual cache, and he spotted my GPS in the picture and had me pegged as a geocacher right away. Didn't find any cigars in any of the caches I visited, but I did find plenty of AAFES pogs.

My apologies to Eartha - I felt their original response to my initial post was too harsh, and I meant to reply in kind, but I guess I went a little overboard, and now I'm the bad guy and I'm probably going to get banned even though I've been an honest cacher for nearly 6 years. The phrase "the official global GPS cache hunt site" is not mine - I got it off the geocaching.com homepage. Why don't you people do a little research before you start shooting barbs at others?

There was no disrespect intended on my part, besides, who was disrespectful to who in the first place? Being a legal resident of Minnesota, USA, I do meet the eligibility of the contest, but by the time I heard about the contest and clicked the link to get a Jeep sent to me, they were already out. There's also a chance that if one would have been available they would not have sent it to an APO address. Also, I thought gc.com was "the official GLOBAL GPS Cache Hunt Site" - why is this contest limited to less than 1 of the 222 countries with active caches?

Well Excuse me!!! I was planning to drop and retrieve it in a couple of caches over here, and then leave it in a cache in the United States when my deployment is over. With a simple glance at my profile, you will see that I do not hoard Travel Bugs or Geocoins. Thank you, Eartha, for your show of support for the United States Military and the Global War on Terrorism!!!

Hi--I'm deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, and I plan to be here for a while - long enough to miss out on this year's Jeep, at any rate. If someone is willing to hook me up, go ahead and PM me through my profile, and I can send you my APO address. I don't really have anything geocaching-ish to barter like coins or bugs, but you would be helping out a fellow cacher and a soldier in the Global War on Terrorism. Thank You. P.S. - the net here can sometimes be hit or miss - I will respond to PMs, but it can sometimes take a while.

CC--dachebo has already volunteered to watch them, but if you can help, it would be appreciated. I found out that DOIM Fort Benning blocks quite a few websites, and for some reason MnGCA is one of them. I've been trying to get my laptop up on wifi, but that's hit or miss down here, like the cell coverage. I suppose I can wait until I get in theater to check up on the happenings with MnGCA.

Is the MnGCA site down, or is it me? I've tried to get on the site a couple of times in the last couple of days from a couple of different computers without any luck. The bad thing is that I have an email that says I have a private message on MnGCA, and I can't get on the site to see the message. I'm out of the state, and will be for quite a while, and the MnGCA website is my only contact with the group.

I'm glad it's not just me!!! I don't schedule PQs, I'll just run them when I need them--looks like I won't get to go geocaching to enjoy the nice weather today!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm headed to OEF myself shortly--glad to see I'll have a few caches to look for while I'm there.

Geo Oil Change--I've hit quite a few caches on the way to and from a few nearby oil change places (I can do it myself, but you can't get rid of the old stuff anymore by pouring it down the storm sewer). Geo Traffic--As in "Honey, I would have been home from caching two hours ago, but with (whatever) going on at (Target Center, Convention Center, Xcel Center, Metradome, etc.) I've been parked on the freeway all afternoon". That also works by saying traffic was so bad that I decided to hit a couple more caches and let traffic die down a little before trying to get home.

Why can't everyone just SHUT UP and go geocaching? It's just a game, folks, and there are too many people who take it too seriously. The MnGCA board is doing the best they can with the resources they have available. There aren't any closed backroom board meetings--the Board meeting minutes are posted on the MnGCA website for all to read, and now that's not good enough for some people. Why doesn't everyone just download a couple hundred waypoints, shut your computers off, and just go geocaching, instead of bashing each other on the forums? People nit-picking everything through the forums is one of the reasons I took the opportunity to leave the MnGCA board when it presented itself, and I believe the MnGCA is a stronger organization with the direction it went after I left the board.

I volunteered for the Geoteaming folks when they did a corporate team-building thing here in the Twin Cities a couple years ago--what they did was place a few magnetic key holder caches and film canisters within a couple miles of the motel/convention center in downtown Minneapolis, and didn't even use any actual real caches. With your small group, you can go out and set something like this up ahead of time, and hopefully it'd be enough to get everyone hooked enough to start looking for real caches on their own.

St. Paul Minnesota--Brand new as of 12/21/00--just found 1000 about a month or so ago. There's lots of Minnesota cachers at Minnesota Geocaching Association.

After 5 DNFs in a row a couple of weeks ago, I think I put out my own personal magnetic field that interferes with anything electronic--seems to happen at work as well--someone will run a job all day without any trouble (punching sheet metal), then when I get there, I'll have material bunch up in the machine, my punches will shear off, etc.

Check out the Minnesota Geocaching Association for locally flavored forums, updates on local events, etc. at www.mngca.org--there is also a U of M geocaching club, but I don't know what their URL is, or if they are still even active.