JayFredMuggs

A few things that should always be done: 1) Carry an extra set of fresh batteries 2) Always mark the location of your car. It is easy to get turned around in a thick woods and forget which way you came in. 3) Bug spray with DEET is your friend.

Accuracy can also depend on whether you have WAAS enabled. I have noticed a slight difference in how close I can get with my Etrex Legend with WAAS turned on, but the decreased battery life isn't worth it. At times I've been within a foot or two, but usually it gets me within 20 feet and I'm pretty happy. When you get within this distance, it's time to start looking around for an obvious hiding place or something that looks out of place and don't rely on the GPSr. I keep WAAS turned off most of the time. I agree that if you are off by more than 20 meters or so maybe you should ask the owner to post new coordinates. I've only run into this once, and some previous posts also noted an accuracy problem, and the cache owner gladly revisited the cache and posted revised coordinates.

Try Gpscity.com

When I was a kid, I could hike in the woods and never have to worry about getting poison ivy. My brother and I would chase down errant baseballs in the woods next to our house, he would usually get covered with PI, I never got it... Until I turned 35 yrs. old. I guess as you get older your body chemistry changes, and I got a case on my hands and between my fingers from trimming a hedge that had a few vines in it. I'm very careful now when geocaching, that stuff is everywhere you go. As for chiggers, I was always under the impression that they would move to areas of the body where clothes fit tight, like your waistband. I've never had them that I know of.

I recently logged a DNF on a cache while on vacation. I will not be returning to the area for severals years, so I logged a DNF after only one attempt. I also went to a spot closer to home and ran out of daylight in the woods while searching. Even though I didn't find it on the first attempt, I will return in within a few days to resume my search. I didn't log this as a DNF since I am cnfident that I will find it when I have more time.

Sometimes you DO need to email the owner, especially if the cache you found is a virtual. Some virtual caches require that you answer a question or two by email to the owner to prove that you were there. You can still log the find, but if the owner doesn't have proof that you were actually at the site, he can delete your log.

I think that five-spot was mine. I remember losing one when I was a kid in the 60's. Did it have a picture of Abe Lincoln on it? I've been looking for it ever since. Thought a new GPS would help me find it, but so far all I've found are the ammo boxes and tupperware containers that other folks have been nice enough to hide for me. As for why I hunt for caches, I have always enjoyed the outdoors, and hiking in the woods is good exercise. I have seen more beautiful places very close to my home that I never knew existed before. It makes me appreciate nature more.

Ammo Box = "Am" "mo" "Bocks" Ah, just the way it sounds.

I don't think there is anything wrong with what you did. I don't think anyone will be offended by receiving an email. The geocaching community is a very honest and responsible group. If the cache was located in a state park, you may also want to contact the park ranger's office just in case it was lost by someone other than a geocacher. They may have a "lost & found" area. Also, thanks for being honest. It's people like you who help give geocaching a good name.

As for Lighthouses, does anyone have the coordinates for the old location of the Hatteras lighthouse? I was there about 8 years ago (before it was moved) and I would like to visit the new location during vacation this year. I followed the progress of the move on the internet, but it would be great to see the actual distance it was moved first hand. If anyone has the coordinates or can tell me where to find them I'd appreciate it.

I will be in the Corolla area the end of June as well and was wondering the same thing. Maybe we'll run into each other.

I have checked the speedometers on two of my cars against the Etrex Legend and found them to be extremely accurate. I usually find a road that is less traveled and set the cruise control so I am at a steady speed, and the GPSr usually is right on with the speedo. I would trust the accuracy of the GPSr over the speedo. Of course, there are times when my GPSr says that my maximum speed was 252 MPH when I know for a fact that I didn't exceed 60, but this is a rare occurence.

The Legend is an excellent unit. I would hold on to it. I have one and I love it. You could create a route that would get you back to your starting point but you would have to mark multiple waypoints along the way. Every time you make a turn onto a new street, mark the waypoint. After making a few turns and marking all of the waypoints, you can create a route that will get you back to your starting point. It is a lot of work, but it's worth playing with for a while to learn how to use it. On the way back, the pointer will tell you which direction to travel in. As you approach a turn (within 15 seconds) the pointer will change to tell you which direction to turn. It will continue to do this until you are arriving at your destination, at which time it will say "Arriving at destination". The owner's amnual explains this, but can be hard to read. I suggest taking the manual and just go out and experiment. Have fun. The base map only shows major roads and hiways. I don't have any of the other maps loaded in mine, I thought they were a bit pricey.

I use mine to fill up that one little spot on my belt that doesn't already have something clipped to it. It fits perfectly between my cell phone and FRS radio. One time I put it on the other side between my pager and my handcuffs, but when my pager went off, I grabbed the Leatherman and... well, that's another story. We'll save that for another day.

I was in Lancaster County PA on a tour of the Amish countryside and I noticed the electric lines running to the barns, but not the houses. I asked why, and here's the answer I was given. As the Amish farmers started getting mortgages to aquire farms, they were required to have hazard insurance the same way the rest of us who own homes have home owners insurance. Insurance companies would not allow oil lanterns in the farm buildings where hay and straw accumulate due to the fire hazard. Therefore, they are required (for insurance purposes) to have electric lights in the barns.

I have written TNLNSL a few times, usually when I decide to grab a quick cache at lunch time or on the way home from work. At these times I usually don't have anything meaningful to trade, so I prefer to trade nothing. I have also been to caches where the trade items in the cache were much better than anything I had to trade, so rather than leave something crappy in its place, I chose to TNLN. I would never say anyone's cache sucks. Most of the folks who play this game put a lot of thought and effort into their hides, and it wouldn't be fair to say something like that, especially since I have never hidden one. I'm thankful for every cache out there, it gives me a reason to get up off of the couch and get some outdoor exercise.

I'd like to buy a vowel. Give me an "o" edited for spelling

Ditto

I bought a Handspring Visor a few years ago with the same intention, to eventually buy a GPS module for it. I had the digital camera module, and I found that the color display on the Visor was almost useless in bright sunlight, so I decided against the GPS module for it. I still use my visor as a pda and would be lost without it. Cachemate is a great program and I use it for every cache. Here's the link http://www.smittyware.com/

I have an Etrex Legend, and for the most part, I leave WAAS turned off. I get very good accuracy without it. I used to geocache with it turned on all the time, but battery life really suffers. I usually get withing 25 feet or so and turn off the gpsr anyway. If you want to use it and get good battery life, leave it off until you are within maybe 50 feet and turn it on. I will give you better accuracy, and if you use it on a limited basis, you won't eat up batteries as quickly.

A voltmeter isn't a good tool to use to determine if a battery is dead. A voltmeter will measure 1.2 volts even on a totally useless NiMH battery. The battery must be under load to measure the voltage drop across the battery. The internal resistance of the meter is so small that it produces almost no voltage drop across the internal resistance, leaving the full voltage drop across the battery terminals, therefore giving you a good reading. It would be better to put the battery in an external battery holder, connect the voltmeter as an amp meter, (current running through the meter) and turn on your GPSR. As soon as you turn on the GPSR, the meter should measure zero amps telling you the battery is dead. It will still measure voltage. Ever stick your tongue on a 9 volt battery that you thought was dead? Try it sometime.

My Etrex Legend came first, bought as a back up unit for the boat and the car. I stumbled across geocaching while looking for waypoints on the internet. Shortly after discovering geocaching on the internet, our local paper ran an article on it.

I got skunked on my first, but I didn't give myself enough time. I went after work one day and only had about a half hour of daylight left. I went back the next afternoon and found it. Also, I knew the area pretty well and thought I knew where it was (or should be) before actually hunting for it. I wasted a lot of time looking where I thought it should be instead of where the GPSR was telling me it was.

OK, so I have a little too much time on my hands today. I created a spreadsheet using all of the data in this thread through 2:00 PM today, ran the numbers through Minitab (a statistics program) and here's what I got using the Anderson-Darling normality test: P value of 0.009 (meaning data is normal) Mean : 31.51 yrs Median: 33.0 yrs Std deviation: 17.66 yrs 1st quartile: 17 yrs 3rd quartile: 43 yrs 95% confidence level for mean 29.06 - 33.96 By the way, I'm 48. Oh heck, I didn't include my age in the data. Wait while I run it again....

One of my interests is fishing, both offshore and in the Chesapeake and Delaware bays. I bought mine mainly as a backup for the chartplotter on the boat, in case an electrical problem or other malfunction occurs, we could always use the handheld to get back to the dock. Geocaching happened by accident, and now I'm hooked. I used it once on a headboat fishing trip to mark a fishing hotspot, but the partyboat captain wasn't too happy. He didn't want anyone else to know where his hotspots were. Makes sense, he does make his living based on successful fishing trips, but he doesn't own the ocean. He didn't want a whole lot of smaller boats out there getting in his way. I think he has now posted a notice that GPS'rs aren't allowed on his boat.