hmarq

Example: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/gmnearest.a...mp;lng=-87.9121 There's an earthcache to the left side of this example, but all you see is the shadow.not the icon itself. I only have linux boxes handy and I"m running firefox 2.0.0.4 ... though the googlemaps interface is pretty cross platform ... all the other icons work/show as prescribed. I did a couple quick searches to see if this was reported and didn't see any obvious hits, but I apologize in advance if this is a known issue.

So I'm to find myself in LA Tue-Sat this week for a tradeshow ... in there I'll have perhaps a day of downtime (perhaps a little more, perhaps less) ... Is Topanga State Park the best target for me given that I'd like to combine a little wildlife viewing, caching and a nice hike? If not, other suggestions appreciated. What is a realistic travel time to TPS from downtown LA (I"m going to be at the Marriott on Figueroa to be exact)? Google maps says 35 miles, 47 minutes ... but i'm guessing that's at posted speed; how likely is that? ... I know it's short notice, but any info is appreciated! (and I'll have my puter with me to check while there)

Just tried for the first time ... Add me to the list of folks getting the Base64 lenght exception list when logging in ... I have a Moto E815

Was any mail lost? Or is it just slow ... I sent a few that were problem reports to cache owners and such that I don't want to have to do again, but are important enough to resend if they are lost ...

If they weren't so hard to come by and relatively expensive they'd make good night cache markers too ... "Follow the reflective tacks to point X ... OK, now turn out your lights, yes all of them and search for the final marker"

Official Wet Blanket Post ^tm For exactly the reasons in your first sentence, you'd need to modify the category to be ... Fishing Spots that Were Once Good, or Marginal Spots to Begin With ... Or you'll get jokers that will post "Lake Michigan" ...

GCPT23 (LSBT#10) is near Soldier's Field ... I'd do a zip search for Lake Bluff You might also want to stop by http://www.gonil.org .... that's the local folks hang out.

But it leaves a trail through potentially every mail server that handles the mail ... That's actually why I suggested a single account. I write a coded message and save it in my 'draft' folder. You sign into the same account and read the message. The message travels through cyberspace, but not through multiple email servers. The message is carefully coded so no one would know what it meens, even if it were intercepted. And that's probably done over great distances with great effectiveness, but for intracell communication in a limited geography why leave any footprints at all? Again, this is all conjecture and rumor, I was just playing devil's advocate that it's not as far fetched or unreasonable as many folks posted earlier.

But it leaves a trail through potentially every mail server that handles the mail ... and the traffic analysis provides at least as much info as the message themselves. That's been our intelligence problem for the last two decades, we've concentrated on signals instead of meatspace ... For some things meatspace is hard to beat ... in this instance the message only exists until picked up, then it is burned, eaten, whatever ... the ciphertext destroyed.

You could do that or use some other offset, but you'd still be using geocaching as your source for points ... a true dead drop might have advantages, but a cover story isn't one of them. As for secure, if the messages are short and encrypted the only real risk is that someone else would intercept the ciphertext. The big downside is that if the channel is discovered, surviellance can use the same cover story ... just some goecachers out for a walk. I'm just saying it's not as far fetched as all the "that's preposterous" posts above.

I disagree. The OP said used to communicate. Geocaches would be a terrific backchannel for covert communication. It provides a cover story ... "I'm geocaching" ... 2 parties could agree on a list of caches or even a PQ. Party 1 leaves an encrypted note in the back of logbook 1 Party 2 retreives (taking log page too) and acts on info ... leaves reply in next cache on list repeat as needed till the cache list is depleted. The protocol would have to have a signaling mechanism for noting when a message is waiting and would need to cover missing/archived caches from the list, but it otherwise is a legitimate dead drop, you have an excuse for being there and if you pick remote locations, identifying surveillance would be easier than a public dead drop. I'm not saying the rumor is true, I hadn't heard it till I saw this thread, but it seems perfectly plausible to me.

Pocket queries are your friend. Bump the terrain rating, bump the difficulty, do puzzles .... lots of ways to find more interesting fare. While you're at it come visit us at Geocachers of Northeastern Illinois

So move the start of the night cache to some set of ambigous coors in the middle of nowhere (I use rock quarries and shopping malls myself) and say "To hunt this cache, seek out the power line micro for the starting coords" ... stick a clue inside your power micro and you're set. BTW, having made the same mistake myself many times, it isn't a mystery cache if the posted coords take you to a required point, it's then just a multi even though there might be some puzzle components .... granted mine have always been approved even when this definition was violated, but I've learned and moved on anyway.

You're all set Cache us Clay ... First time you login, check your profile and see if your email address is correct; that has been the problem for most folks that never received the registration email.

Well I guess the cat's out of the bag!! http://www.gonil.org is the successor to the old chitown cachers ... if you hadn't noticed, the chitown cachers site was about 2 year stale and required yahoo groups to maintain any functionality ... Same familiar faces, new web site and a new org (a real one) in the works. We announced the new site to the yahoo group people over the weekend and were going to wait for a bit to announce here to shake out any bugs, but since the cat is out, come by and say hi! ....

It's funny, I like to fish as much or gasp, more than geocaching and I've seen this conversation come up from the fishing side *many* times ... The problem is of course that an avid fisherman will both tell you "spend your time on the water and you'll learn where the fish are" (That's true and not Zen BS BTW) ... *and* even if there are regularly producing spots, they sure as heck aren't posting the coords on the internet so every yahoo with a pole and bucket can clean it out. A snide editorial comment ... most avid fishermen are catch and release guys; most folks trolling the internet for good fishing spots are what we call 'meat hogs' that will keep every freakin' thing they catch ... so it's not a suprise that group A doesn't encourage group B ... Sorry, that was more of a fishing answer than a geocaching one, but it's the core of why a *good* virtual of fishing spots is unlikely.

On our way to Not Quite Ice Box Canyon

Naw, not me ...

I just placed my first cache with a night componnt and I used the stealth fire tacks ... so far they've worked well. They aren't completely invisible during the day, but you're hard pressed to see them unless closer than about 20 ft and know they're there. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...46-baeea6ba5502 So far two folks have done the night track and had no problems ... one even illicited a "Oh Cool!" ... The ice white ones are much brighter, but they are also much more visible in daylight. They might be good agains a birch or white oak though ...

To me, this is far preferable to the gc.com approvers doing it on the front end; which is what they do now. They're the land manager, let them manage (and police) ...` It's sad, but in many areas we're going to join the Mountain Bikers and Paintballers on the list of undesireables ...

I wasn't aware of the storm till just now .. but I was out and about yesterday with the GPS in the late afternoon... had readings of 83m EPE while driving around and in a completely open area could only lock 6 sats for 12m EPE ... So it was definitely degraded from what I normally experience.

This cache uses trilateration, not triangulation ... triangulation would be if you provided a bearing to the final at each position. In this case you could also use SSS triangle math with the Law of Cosines to get an absolute waypoint ... true triangulation caches you can solve with just your gps by building a route so X marks the spot

fishing.

My kids are older now (almost 8 and 10) ... I kid you not, they have more fun now leaving things ... we carry a bag of swag and they try to find the biggest thing that will fit in the container mostly (we find a log of smalls/micros) ... sometimes they'll trade, but mostly they like to leave stuff. Granted when we stumble upon an ammo can with actual stuff in it, they lapse into trade mode, but that's OK ... now if I could just convince them to go caching more often! ... but that's a different problem

Micros can be done well and be kid friendly ... I hunted this geogolf series: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...07-fc341b1b9ae1 With my kids (7,9) for about half the stages and they were quite happy to trade small rubber snakes/frogs for mini matchbox, dice and polly pocket rings ... This was in film canisters ... it also helps all ages to have good coords.