Zor

Does this feature only work in the US? Well, quite frankly, that sucks. Guess I'll have to wait til they getting the logging feature on the iphone. Would have loved to have been able to make notes that are accessible from the website.

Do you mean you can't access the site or the SMS stuff doesn't work? I can access the site fine, but when I tried to send a text message to 41411 with the GEOC in it, I did not get a response. Does this feature only work in the US?

See that's ultimately how I got around the restriction. I put up my own website for the race portion of the event (www.monctonsraceforcache.com) and then had a post-race party which is where we would award the prizes and such. That way, if folks didn't want to participate in the race, they could still come. I just wish I could have had the actual race itself listed as an event.

Recently I decided to try and put on an "Amazing Race" style geocaching race here in Moncton, NB Canada. It's an all-day event and teams of cachers would hit up various places in the city via coordinates to find clues and caches and at the end, someone would be crowned the winner. When I submitted the listing, it was denied saying that event caches cannot be "organized hunts". I read the details and the reviewer was in fact correct. What is the reasoning behind not allowing organized hunts (such as my race) to be published as an event cache? It is a gathering of geocachers is it not? The official publishing guidelines don't say why. They just say that organized hunts should be done through regional group message boards, etc. Anyone know why? I would have loved to have my actual race listed on GC.com but am unclear as to why it is not permitted.

I am not sure if this is the right forum, but I thought I would start here. Awhile back, I had a series of ceramic poker chips custom made with my own artwork and have been using these as a signature item in caches that I hide and many of the ones that I find. I have been emailed by some other cachers who have picked up my sig item chip wondering if it was in fact a special type of geocoin and whether or not it could be tracked. I always tell them that it's just a sig item and they are free to keep it or use it as a tradeable. My question is, is it possible to obtain GC tracking ID codes for items other than geocoins? Would I be able to obtain these numbers for my signature poker chips so that they could be tracked on GC.com? I would assume that I would use the same PCxxxx style tracking since it is a personal item. It's just a curiosity thing. I may turn around and just have coins made anyway but I wanted to know if I could in fact do it with what I have now. Anyone know?

Maybe it's a regional thing. In the area where I live, and places I have cached as well, it's pretty much a given that you see the veterans place more quality caches than the newbies. Ya, it does happen that veterans place crappy caches but at least here, it's far less likely. I've pretty much seen anyone who was a new cacher (less than 50 finds) place crappy hides. Bad locations, bad containers, poorly thought out contents, etc. It's more common for me to see that than to see a veteran cacher here place a bad cache.

I've been caching for awhile now and as many people have probably seen, there are sometimes newcomers to the game who get so excited about hiding caches, that they start hiding them before they have really had the opportunity to know what makes a good hide and what doesn't. This isn't always the case, but I'm sure we have all seen newcomer caches that could have been better if they had seen more caches. When I see a cache placed in my area by someone I don't recognize, I usually open up their profile and look at their hides/finds count to see if they are new or just not as active as other cachers. Just the other day I saw a new one posted and didn't recognize the name. When I saw how low their numbers were, I didn't think any less of them, but did wonder how good the cache was. I arrived at the cache and definitely saw the inexperience showing it's head. It would be nice that when a cache is listed, either beside their name or near it, contains a simple display of their finds vs hides. Something as simple as this: ^Zor^ (506/32) That way you would know immediately what their experience is based on counts. Now I know that counts do not mean a person is a good cacher as there are plenty of experienced cachers who place crap caches, but generally speaking, those numbers are reflective of how many caches a person has seen and are more likely to place a cache in a good location, or at least have a better idea of what makes a good container. Like I said, there's always exceptions.

I actually went to a Geocaching event that was all about how to use Gsak and I found it pretty useful. However, I gotta say that I do not use Gsak anywhere near like some other people do. I find that most people I know use Gsak for some of the same things that you can already do with GC.Com's PQ's. However, there have been a few things I've used it for which have been handy. It lets me upload the custom geocaching icons instead of the regular icons on my GPS It lets me filter out DNF's, disabled caches, and some that are archived that get put into PQ's somehow It lets me send data to Cachemate for paperless caching much easier than any other app Beyond that, I use it purely for uploading my GPX files to my GPS and that's about it.

I have a Legend HCx and I love it. It will hold as much map data as you can jam the card full of depending on what kind of card you have, and what maps you have. Maps are not an issue as far as getting them on the GPS. As for the cache information, that's a different story. There's a very basic geocaching function in the HCx which lets you see the basic description, and mark it as found (which then changes the waypoint symbol). It does not give the hint, size, owner, etc. Just the basics. You can use GSAK to manipulate the name of the cache to give you more information, but if you are trying to use the Legend for paperless caching, good luck. You're better off with a Colorado or an Oregon. The actual WAYPOINT memory on the HCx is 1000 points, but you can get around the by using the POI loader. You simply import your GPX query (either from a PQ or from Gsak) into the POI Loader, and send the custom POI's to the unit. I had over 5000 caches loaded on my HCx when I went to my last mega event. Instead of looking for a geocache, you say look for a custom POI (which is really a geocache) and then you can "save" the custom POI as a waypoint, which is then recognized as a geocache and can be marked as "found". Personally, I found using the POI functionality to get more than 1000 caches on my HCx annoying. I'd rather just have PQ's loaded for the area I am in. Hope this helps.

At first, I used to think DNF's were a failure on my part somehow. Now that I've got a few hundred finds under my belt, I don't see it that way. I also don't feel the need to log all of my DNF's because of the way I might have gone looking for something. If I'm going out on a caching run and intend on really trying to find a cache, I'll log a DNF if I didn't find it. But if I happen upon an area where a cache is and I casually look for it (5 mins max) and I don't find it, I won't log it as a DNF because I really did not try my best to find it. I don't feel the need to log a DNF on a cache if I was just being lazy and didn't really try too hard. For me, DNF's are when you looked hard for a cache and did not find it.

My sig is what you see as my avatar but as a ceramic poker chip. I had them custom made here in Canada and ordered a pile of them. I leave them in regular size cache containers and any caches I hide.

Well for now, I've placed a rubber band around the edges and the band I got was a little thinner than the one shown above, but it still holds it together nicely and I can fit it on one side of each of the buttons so that it doesn't cover them. Awesome idea. Thank you very much. And yes, Garmin should get this fixed.

I've actually pondered trying krazy glue or something else, but the rubber band idea is not too bad but still kind of a pain in the butt. It's my first GPS and having not had it for even a year, it's a bit annoying.

I have had my Etrex Legend HCx GPS for about 6 months now and I have started to notice that the rubber sides are starting to separate from the plastic part of the unit. It started on the top and now is slowly working itself to the side of the unit and I am wondering if anyone else has had the same problem, and if so, how have you fixed or dealt with it? I am concerned that since the rubber is separating, it may affect the water resistance of the unit.

Yes the #1 answer.. and for me the amount of time will vary according to the environment the cache is in. Micro in a muggle zone... 10 minutes max; but last week, 2 miles from the road, near a stream and nice waterfall, I had a 90 minute DNF. I am of the same opinion. I look until I'm irritated by the cache and not enjoying the hunt anymore, then I look for another 5 minutes and call it quits. A lot of times if I find it's a micro/nano in a thick tree, I don't even bother because I get more frustrated by those then any and I want to ENJOY the hides. Not be annoyed by them. My rule on DNF's is not a rule. I log them when I feel the need to. If I have looked HARD for a cache and had no luck, I'll DNF it. If I didn't give it my best hunt, I won't DNF but I will likely be back. I've DNF'd this cache several times and the owner is a friend of mine.

Interesting that this topic would come up now. I hit my personal best by doing some power caching with Funky Nassau this week. Left Moncton, NB at around 10:30ish and finished caching around 4pm. Did 43 caches along this route. That is definitely my personal best. Ya, we didn't get to SEE a lot but we did see plenty while snagging caches.

I'd don't bother filtering any of my PQ's. My PQ's have all caches listed on them and I fire them into Gsak, send them to my GPS & Cachemate on my PDA and then I head out. Sometimes I have an area that I want to hit up for caches and I usually look at the descriptions in cachemate to see if it tells me more about the caches. For me, I enjoy looking for the caches, micros, nanos, regulars, whatever. Doesn't matter to me.

You took the words out of my mouth. Exactly what is it that people are scared of losing on GC.com? And how many people are going to try and hack your GC account and steal your finds or your caches? I suspect that's the reason GC has never implemented a higher security model than they have. If they stored other info, it would be a different story. IMO

I have a blog that I do for a lot more than geocaching. But once I started caching, I added a geocache category to my cat's on my blog so if I wanted to find posts about it, it would be a little easier. Check it out. www.bobsroom.com P.S. My name isn't Bob

I started in January of this year and have hit 254 finds thus far but the first few were brutal. In fact, a week after I got my GPS, I decided I was going to go out and "grab a bunch of easy micros" from within the city. I spent somewhere between 2-4 hours looking for I'd say about a dozen or so different caches. When I was done that night, I had found ONE STINKING CACHE! It became very apparent to me that night that following the GPS to the spot was not all it was about. There was a lot of trying to find the item, and hunting for the item, all a part of the game. Now that I'm where I'm at, I have a pretty good handle on things to expect, but I either read the cache pages before I leave, or I download them to my PDA so when I'm on the trail, or on an urban hunt, I have more info about what I am looking for. Sometimes you can look and look and look and then once you know WHAT you are looking for, it's easy.

I think the idea is neat, but I don't think it would fly to well. I have encountered a USB stick TB where it's mission was the have photos of the cachers who found it placed on the stick. Neat idea, but if you're worried about a virus, keep the stick out. Recently, I started working on a new cache that doesn't have a log book/sheet. Instead, it's a large board (4'x2') that each visitor signs with a permanent marker of their choice, which is located in the ammo container attached to the board. Kind of like a graffiti wall but in the middle of the woods. It's not a conventional log, but it is something different.

I don't always log a DNF if I don't find a cache. It depends for me. If I tried real hard to find a cache but had no luck, I'll DNF, but if am just casually looking (not in the mood to search HARD) I won't bother DNF'ing because I didn't try my best to find the cache.

I don't like that at all. I preferred being able to just click the mpa and it bring it up. Oh well. Thanks for the tip. Glad I can still see the map

The maps pop up on my pages, but I can't click on the map to bring up the larger view of Google Maps with all of the caches for an area. Am I missing something?

WOW. It's no wonder flame wars get started on these boards. One wrong comment and [edited]. My intention was to comment on the fact that the players who answer posts with entries like "[edit] what everyone else thinks. it's my cache and I'll do what I want with it and I shouldn't give a crap what anyone else thinks of what I do" are the ones who tend to make the game a bit more annoying at times. I wasn't telling them how to play the game, I was simply voicing my opinion. I don't think people should let other cachers criticisms bring them down, but if someone says something about a cache, or things you are doing, that may have a valid point, then maybe you should consider it. I hid a cache recently where I had a couple of people say they weren't keen on where I placed it. Ya ok, I respect their opinion, but I'm not moving it. If I thought what they had said was valid, I may have moved it, but for me, I was fine with it. All I said was that people who insist on logging their own caches to jack up their find count don't get what the purpose of a find count is for. They don't have to care if I don't like it, I'm just saying that I don't think it's right, thats all folks. Am I telling you how to play the game? No, I'm not. I'm stating an opinion that I think logging your own caches that you have hidden yourself is in poor taste. I didn't sit down and call you a frakking idiot because of it. I said that I think it's in poor spirit of what the game is about. Do I really care how others play the game? Do you? Can you honestly sit there and tell me that the actions of other players, regardless of what it is, don't bother you in some fashion? I know there are people who just don't give a crap what anyone else thinks, and for them, that's fine. But for me, there are some things about this game that would bother me. Logging finds on caches that you yourself have hidden wouldn't bother me so much, as it would just irritate me. If I'm trying to get my count up because it's important to me, it would aggrevate the frig out of me to see someone else rack their own count up by logging a dozen finds on their own cache. Other people may then turn around and have some sort of respect for this person because they have a high count, when in fact they may have only found half of the caches that made up the high number. Maybe it is a new player thing, but when I see a player with more than 2000 finds, I'm thinking to myself that they have probably done a LOT of caching, and have a LOT of experience. That's what the number means to me, and I suspect that there are plenty of other players who see it the same way. Sure, if you don't care about a find count, then that's your right and I respect that. But I am sure many others see it like I do as a sort of gauge of experience. Maybe that's wrong, and if it is, maybe we should just get rid of the count entirely. That's really what the purpose of this thread was for. I wanted to try and understand WHY that option exists since to me, that find count is a measure of experience for cachers. Maybe that's a wrong perception but right now, that's what I'm using. Are you now going to try and tell me I should think differently? If so, you're doing exactly what apparently I was several posts ago. Think about how you reply. I'm not flaming anyone, and really, all I was looking for was some reasoning behind why the option is there, which thanks to you folks, I have. I had not thought of the events, or the adoption thing, and I am glad that you guys brought it up because to me, those are valid reasons to log finds on your own caches. It was not my intention to start having people insult me and claim that at 6 months, I'm trying to tell you how to play. If that's how you read my posts, please go back and re-read them as that was not what I was trying to accomplish. Regardless, I have my answers from here. I'll post this on my own local board where there's a bit less hostility. Thanks anyway. [Edited by moderator to remove wording that was less than family friendly]