ecanderson

Is it just in our area, or are the rest of you also seeing an extraordinary number of bogus finds from 'cachers' with low (< 100 finds) counts this summer. It's as though people are downloading the app and just logging things. Some of these logs are on caches that aren't even there, some 'finds' occur after a long string of DNFs by experienced cachers, and none include any log signatures. Online logs are of the 3 letter "lol" sort, a short string of meaningless characters, or something equally unhelpful. None reply to queries about their finds at the message center. If you're not paying special attention to the counts of these 'finders', it's easy to be led into thinking a cache with a string of DNFs and a few recent 'finds' might be worth looking for after all. Hate to get into 'cache police' mode, but all of these finds on caches that aren't there to be found is getting pretty annoying. I really don't care if they claim ones that ARE there to be found but that they never visited. Time to start going back to the old practice of comparing online logs to those in the cache, I guess. I'm going to start doing it, and it would be good if my fellow COs would consider doing this, too. The process isn't very hard since once you see that the first half dozen you check have no signatures, or they've been logging caches that are disabled and truly MIA, you just delete all of the logs for your caches by those folks to clear things out.

To the latter -- Evidently! As to the former... The receiver takes the satellite signals and calculates its distance from each satellite by computing the difference between the time the signal was sent from GPS satellite and the time the GPS receiver received the signal, using time data previously obtained from one of the satellites (as you say) and backing out the 'time of flight'. Keeping accurate on-unit time derived from a satellite and the process of time differential calculation can induce errors in the result. I haven't found that consumer devices include electronics with tolerances tight enough to produce sub-0.001 fixes ... yet. Have played around a bit with selective use of the various constellations and the results have been interesting. Not seeing a great deal of variation in results.

First, it wouldn't matter if Galileo could generate timing signals capable of producing a good fix to 1cm on the ground. If the differential internal timing circuitry of the GPSr can't resolve a fix to better than 0.001 minutes, it really doesn't matter. Moreover, the timing signals of the birds aren't the only factor in obtaining a better fix on the ground. Even should a satellite own a timing signal good enough that the geometry could mathematically provide resolution to 1cm AGL, a MEO at 20,000+km up wouldn't actually produce a 1cm fix. That's why ground based references are always used to get a better idea of location when a tighter fix is needed. I'm not confusing precision and accuracy. In fact, that's the whole point of the exercise. Unless the direction and amplitude of the offset caused by a lack of accuracy in a high precision device is repeatable, the additional precision isn't of any value. In short, if the 4th digit after the decimal on a Garmin consumer device doesn't provide useful information, and I'm arguing that the device itself doesn't allow for this, then there's no point in displaying it, leading the owner to believe there's a level of accuracy involved that simply doesn't exist.

Excuse? The THIRD digit in a dd mm.mmm format defines a space (at my latitude) of about 6 feet x 8 feet. Are you claiming that the 64 is capable of an accurate fix of 0.6 feet by 0.8 feet??? If not, what is the point of displaying a 4th digit?

I consistently find that compass accuracy and calibration are VERY dependent upon battery voltage. Calibrate on a pair of 'hot' cells and wait until the voltage drops a bit, and the calibration is off. Calibrate on a half used pair of cells, charge them up, and the calibration is off. Was true for my 450, and is true for my 600. It appears to me that the 3-axis chip output is sensitive to input voltage differences, and that Garmin isn't using a constant voltage reference to power the chip in their devices. Have never been able to get anyone at Garmin to discuss it.

Other than the bugs in the 'au courant' version, I would have other reasons for preferring the old version as well. Every time a feature is taken away or made less convenient, I find another reason to use GSAK rather than whatever this web interface to gc.com is offering me. I find myself using the web site very rarely now. Aside: Is there ANY chance of having the GC code displayed along with the cache name on the Daffy Drafts page (the new one)? Some prefer to work to GC codes rather than cache names. Seems a pretty small ask.

My current favorite for USA use is http://www.gmaptool.eu/pl/content/usa-osm-topo-routable for their OSM topo routable maps.

Had an unusual situation pop up, and needed to add 7 new maps to my Oregon 700. None of them are particularly large. Got them at BBBike. After downloading all 7 of the *.img files, I placed them on the uSD card of the 700 in the Garmin folder (after first providing unique filenames, of course), Of the 7, only 3 of the new maps appeared. Understanding that the 700 would ignore any maps with duplicate Map IDs, I wondered if perhaps BBBike had assigned duplicate Map IDs to some of the maps. I went in and manually renumbered all 7 (from 4000 to 4006) with GMapTool. Still, only the same 3 of the 7 appeared in the list of available maps on the 700. Wondering if there was some bug/restriction on where they were placed on the 700, I moved the whole shootin' match over to the 700's own Garmin folder. No change whatsoever. What could be causing this? Never had issues like this on my 450.

Really? All 4 of them? Just curious. How did you plan to get there? East Coast Rotator? You won't be flying United Polaris class on Patriot Express, that's for sure. Have some equipment there for which I am responsible. REALLY don't look forward to that trip. https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104594/ground-based-electro-optical-deep-space-surveillance/

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=game+camera&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Hadn't visited the site in a long while. On a recent attempt, I noted "Sorry, due to server problems only country maps are currently available. You may need to refresh the browser cache first (CTRL-F5)." Does anyone know how long this has been going on, and any ideas on when the problem might be resolved. I was looking for a very small couple of map tiles in different locations, and can't handle several entire countries.

Announcement is hardly 'recent', and support still continues thanks to a great group of GSAK volunteers. Clyde is definitely still alive and kicking and is said to be enjoying his retirement, but is in regular contact with the crew supporting his baby.

FWIW: I always select No Logs, which may produce the same better result as your selection of some limited number of logs, and never have the GC code clipped. Could be why I've never seen this problem, and like you, I do still print a LOT of cache pages.

Maps not working again for me today. Small map within a cache page shows nothing but a partial map (half the 'tiles' missing) if produces anything at all. Choosing "View Larger Map" doesn't produce anything.

EXIF kann genaue Positionen für ein Puzzle- oder Multicache-Finale bereitstellen. Das wäre ein Problem. Außerdem konvertiert gc.com jetzt die meisten Dateien in ein bestimmtes Format. Informationen dazu finden Sie in anderen Bereichen hier in diesem Forum. Leider haben einige Leute die Metadaten verwendet, um Rätsel zu machen. Für sie ist es jetzt nicht möglich. EXIF can provide exact locations for a puzzle or multicache final. That would be a problem. Also, gc.com is now converting most files to a specific format. You will find information about that in other areas here in this forum. Unfortunately, some people used the metadata to make puzzles. For them it is now not possible.

Ditto here with Firefox (latest) and Win10. Just a big white nothing.

Back to geocaching with phones ... The S8 Active was a nice design as cell phones go for a bit more durability. I was bummed when Samsung decided NOT to continue the Active series. Having the glass back on the regular S8 was a bonehead move to begin with -- made it extra fragile. The S21Plus and S21Ultra have the same stupid glass back design. Hope the OP has the less expensive generic S21 with the plastic back. The S8 Active model did away with the glass back and provided better bezel area protection as well. As I say, I only use a phone for finding a cache in a spontaneous pinch when the Garmin isn't at hand, but have done well enough with it when I have.

Bummer. Can't say I ever had any issues with either Bluetooth or camera. In fact, for the price and era of that phone, I was fairly well impressed with the S8 camera. BT was connection of choice for the BYOC (Bring Your Own Connection) option for certain TomTom models, and kept paired and functioning throughout the time I had it. Sounds like they sent you a lemon.

Did you miss my caveat entirely?

What kind of issues are you having? I never ran into any serious firmware issues, and the GPS performance was quite adequate. My current S20 seems to do well enough. I don't often use it for caching unless something spontaneous when traveling, but it works well enough.

Good to know which phone you have. Knowing this might have taken the discussion in a better direction from the get-go. Your S21 has quite reasonable GPS performance, and is fully capable of taking advantage of satellite constellations other than just the U.S. GPS system. With a decent app, you should be able to do quite well with it. As others have noted, though, it's a pricey bit of gear, and not particularly robust. You'll want to use care in the field that you don't damage it while caching. My only gripe with Samsung (and I've had several, from the S8Active forward) is the frequent need to recalibrate the 3 axis compass.

IIRC, it was the antenna that made the iPhone3 a big dodgy for position accuracy. When finding, it may take some additional time, but we've seen placements that were quite a ways out when set with a 3. Your 11 is miles ahead of it in terms of technology. Wouldn't spend a ton of time looking for an app that's still able to run on the 3.

Throw us some approximate coordinates for your area and we'll look to see what we see from our end. Since you're only finding 5-10 per year, it may well not be worth it, but if you want to keep finding them 'in close', a few more may pop up.

Taking anything that unimportant seriously when caching is a different problem.

I just load those I've solved to the 'Solved Puzzles' database I have in GSAK, and if not automatically updated by the site's checker, I correct the coordinates. That database is later combined with the unfounds in my area as part of my own macro --- such that the ready-to-find puzzles are displayed on the map with the rest of the caches I need to find when I plan a cache day. Another win for GSAK.