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Thanks for the helpful replies everyone. I continued trudging through datasheets and have found one rivet that is logged as Good by the NGS in the early 80's, and one abutment that has info from a Geocacher as found, though the rivet was not witnessed as it was overgrown, but was identified as being dated 1929, so it is likely still there. I know a benchmark near a railroad can lead a hard life, but most of the ones I'm looking at are located 10-50 feet away from the rails, some even appear by topo map to be located well off the roadbed in private land (description agrees there is considerable distance between the centerline and benchmark), so I'll be tracking down some land owners to see if they'll allow me to search for them. Also the two railroads with lots of bolts and rivets have long since been abandoned and most of the rails removed, this was not done until I believe sometime in the late 80's or early 90's, so many benches logged as NF in the 1960's and mid 70's I'm hoping may still be around. Ernmark, nice finds there, it's interesting how you have two that appear to be hiding in plain sight, though logged as NF. Although you have a different railroad and agency reporting NF's, the datasheets look similar to the ones I'm interested in, found one day and "NF" years afterwords. Thanks again for the helpful insight everyone.

Maybe this has been discussed before, but searching isn't turning up much. In short I'm wondering if anyone knows if NGS had a policy or at least habit of marking certain benchmarks as "Not found" for a reason. I've been looking at several counties around me, especially early benchmarks placed by the railroads in the early 1900's (mostly bolts and rivets), and I've noticed some patterns in the records that lead me to think this may have been done. Reasons: 1) Most of the benchmarks I'm looking at were placed by railroads, mostly ATSF at unknown dates (probably between 1910-1920 based on depot dates. 2) It appears NGS went around the area in 1933 and 1934, at that time they logged most of these bolts and rivets as "Found" and added their descriptions. During these same years they also placed their own standard discs, all stamped 1933 and 1934 as well. 3) During a few specific years, mostly 1964 and then in 1975 and 1976, NGS marked many of these bolts and rivets as "Not found", or there simply are no more logs after the initial 1933 & 1934 logs. This seems to apply to EVERY bolt and rivet I've read the data sheet for, encompassing several counties and probably 50+ bolts and rivets. Every one is either marked "Not found" in the years I mentioned above, or simply has no log after '33/34. So my theory is, NGS logged these initially, perhaps using them as a reference for their own discs, and then later marked many of them as "Not found" either so they wouldn't be used, or whatever other reason may exist. I know there are standard discs that were placed by the NGS in 1933 and 1934 have been marked as "Not found" by the NGS, but still are in existence, but I've yet to find a fellow Geocacher's log about finding a bolt or rivet so far. I still have some research and real hunting to do once it gets warmer, but I was seeing if anyone else has noticed a similar pattern or has any other input.

Dell Axim X30 Pocket PC, Hollux bluetooth GPSr and BeeLineGPS to manage caches/benchmarks. With an extended battery and a waterproof Otterbox PDA case it makes for a very useful and robust setup.

Most of the benchmarks I've found have been typically 25-75 feet off, but these have been scale-adjusted benchmarks, which like the links Black Dog posted above mentions can be 100-150 feet off, or more. Those are probably the type you're finding. The method I use to find benchmarks is to read the datasheet well (take it with you) and use the GPS to get in the right area, and from there use the datasheet directions to find it. Also note the date it was placed, it's a possibility it's been destroyed, stolen, covered up with dirt, paved over, and a slew of other things can happen to them over their lifetime making them harder or impossible to find.

I'm the type of person who despises ads, but the ads here are very unobtrusive and don't bother me at all. On the cache pages the ad is very small, and nestles right between the map and inventory, it's not as if it's taking up a whole column of the page as many sites implement. On the main site you have the little ad below the menu, but again it's not taking up it's own space, only utilizing what would be un-used. The ad here on the forum nestles up next to the Groundspeak logo, again not robbing us of any space. Most other large sites I frequent will have columns dedicated to ads, intermediate ad-splash pages shown when links are clicked, and those ads that start showing video/audio at inopportune times. Ads here are few and tastefully implemented. For $3 a month, consider how many endless hours of entertainment you get from this site. So long as the ads stay somewhat relevant and unobtrusive, and helps keep GC.com going, I'm happy.

I'm completely paperless with a Pocket PC. I use a Dell Axim X30h, Holux GPSlim 236 bluetooth GPSr, and BeelineGPS to load up cache and benchmark files, works very well for me so far.

To keep power to either a programmable LCD, or even a old Palm or other PDA, you could get a small sealed lead acid battery and 5-10 watt solar panel to charge it during the day.

You should be able to just copy the actual .gpx files onto the Pocket PC, thats how I get them to my Axim X30. if you're connecting the Axim from the cradle via USB, you should get a "My Mobile Device" showing up in My Computer on your desktop PC. You can just navigate to the location on your Axim and copy the files, then open them with whichever application you prefer to view them.

Looks good. Probably tastes better than real benchmarks too, bronze is just so tough to chew

Virtual caches are no longer submitted to geocaching.com, they are waypoints on Waymarking.com

OK, who's hiding caches in the railroad ties again?

This looks like fun, I'll definitely try to keep that weekend clear for this.

There is really no "best" PDA, what will work best for you boils down to your specific needs/wants. I personally went with a Dell Axim X30h PDA, because it works well for both geocaching and car navigation. It has a color touchscreen, much more internal memory than other units in its price range & a faster processor, and tons of aftermarket parts like extended batteries, metal cases, etc. that are very useful with geocaching. It also runs Windows Mobile 2003, which has tons of software available. They're typically between $75-$100 for the unit & accessories, and then a decent bluetooth GPSr can be had for about $50.

Also have the headstone cast out of fresh cement, so that a surveyor can place a benchmark into the top of it

I have some ammo cans in the backyard that got damaged after falling off my truck years ago, it's been about 5 years and they're pretty rusty now, but they only cost about $3-4 or so from a local farm supply store. At that cost it'd be pretty easy to just replace as needed every couple of years.

http://www.history.noaa.gov/tools/surveytech.html has a wealth of information about how they placed bench marks in various time periods. http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/cgs/index.html is the photo archive for CGS, so you can "see" how they did it, lots of great pics there.

One thing I've found about most GPSr's is that they work better when there is at least some movement. My Holux 236, when stationary in my living room, will literally track all over the place, up to 50' away from my actual location, the altitude will bounce +/- 60 feet off the correct alt. but if I walk around in the same living room, it'll be <5 feet off of actual co-ords and the altitude will be +/- 10 feet or so. It sounds odd, but seems to be normal

Nope, different frequency and division scheme than your receiver will pick up.

Yes, it won't support cards larger than 2 GB, and sometimes even 2 GB cards will be problematic, though typically only high-speed versions of certain cards (i.e. Sandisk Ultra's). This is not necessarily a Garmin issue, it is more SD card inherent. I have a Dell Axim PDA that has the same limitation. Some people have been able to get around this by formatting and putting data on the cards on a PC, then transferring the card to the device. But what happens is if you write a file to the card while in the device with said limitations, even though it may show the card as being 4 GB with space free, it'll immediately say it's full and can show a reduced capacity like you're seeing.

Go to http://www.geocaching.com/mark/#pocket and follow that to roll your own GPX files for benchmarks. I just grab the archives from NGS for each county I'm interested in benchmarking at, convert them, load them on my Pocket PC and away I go. It'd be handy if they were available in the same manner as regular caches though.

I don't see any issue with church, military, or whatever kind of swag (within the rules and common decency) so long as the cache isn't being used to fulfill some sort of personal agenda. The fun is in the hunt, not so much finding neat things to trade. Now if someone was filling my caches with some sort of themed propaganda, I'd probably remove some, but otherwise who cares?

No problems caching with my kids, the youngest being 2. It requires bringing lots of extra things that kids may need, and we're usually limited to about 4-6 hours or so until they're tired. My kids love it, walking around, exploring, getting dirty and playing hard, and they even have a tendency of finding some caches that I can't even find due to their small stature.

Actually I figured out what's causing it. When logging into the forum, after typing the password, if I hit the enter button it gives me the error page stating the password is blank. If I actually click the "GO" button with the mouse it works fine. Using the enter button works fine on the main geocaching.com site login, and on the error page for the forum, but the main forum page is somehow not receiving the password if you hit enter to login. I can replicate this every time with Firefox 2.0.0.11, but using enter to login works fine with IE6, so this must be some weird bug between Firefox and that particular forum front page.

It was the correct password and correct case for both the main site and this forum. Whatever it was, the issue seems to have either resolved itself through my tinkering, or an admin saw this post and fixed the issue. It's working just fine now without giving me the error page as it had done ever since I created the account a month ago.

No, it is letters and numbers with caps thrown in, no special characters.