Jump to content

Wreck Diver

+Premium Members
  • Posts

    204
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Wreck Diver

  1. I have been geocaching in the United States, Canada, Bermuda, Japan, Singapore, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. I had a Magellan Meridian Color that I used up until a recent EPROM upgrade issue and then I replaced it with a Magellan eXplorist 710. While caching in the continental United States, I am now using the iPhone for finding ALL of my geocaches and Wherigo caches. I will begrudgingly resort to the new Magellan eXplorist 710 outside of the continental United States because iPhones without prior Premium Pocket Query saves have roaming data billed at US $19.97 per megabyte. If you are staying continental United States, the iPhone app is all you need for FINDING local caches. When you decide to start HIDING caches later in your membership, you may want to use a dedicated GPS as the iPhone seems better adapted at finding than listing new coordinates.
  2. There is a wreck that I regularly dive in Nantucket Sound that has very visible and live 5 inch artillery shells present. Most divers leave the artillery shells alone and they recover the "safer" white phosphorous bricks. (Which brings up the reminder if you recover white wax bricks as souvenirs, bring a Nerf football to plug the hole in your hull when the wax melts in the sun and the brick burns through the bench and multiple decks...) To be fair, I visited multiple torpedoes, hedgehogs and depth charges at one of my caches but there haven't been too many cachers that visited the actual site 130 feet below the ocean surface.
  3. The Personal Cache Note is still available on each cache page between the Geocaching.com Disclaimer and the cache Short Description section. The Personal Cache Notes are also available in the Geocaching app using Post a Log/Field Note within the app.
  4. After several weeks of Geocaching using the Geocaching app on an iPhone 4, I wanted to add a few suggestions for consideration: 1.) Add the target name to the Compass screen. With the geocache or waypoint name appearing on the Compass screen, it makes it much easier to associate coordinates and distances when using the iPhone capture screen function. After a cache is found, I will leave the iPhone in Compass and continue averaging the coordinates for several minutes. After replacing the cache, I will capture the screen on the iPhone and save the screen so that the coordinates and distance error to the original coordinates can be added to the finder's log. This would be a tremendous assistance on days where multiple caches are found and multiple Compass screenshots have to be sorted and added. 2.) Add a Compass button to each title bar. When using the Compass it is easy to accidentally change screens, and returning back to the Compass screen can be difficult if you have returned to the Search screen or the Saved screen. In those cases, you are literally starting over from scratch by relocating the saved cache listing, selecting Navigate To Geocache And then recalculating covered distance. This can be time consuming when trying to return to Compass navigation on an additional waypoint. 3.) Add a Refresh All Cache Data button to the settings or to the Saved screen. Cachers often have several Saved Lists of caches and the caches in these lists can only be refreshed individually. These are locally saved lists and appear only on the device and where they are variable by nature, the Saved caches are not long term enough to warrant a Pocket Query. 4.) Add the ability to include coordinates when using the app to Post a Log. Keep up the great work on the Geocaching app... I'm now using the iPhone for caching much more often than my Magellan eXplorist 710!
  5. Paul, I have an eXplorist 710 and a Windows laptop so there are minor differences with the hardware but to transfer Pocket Queries to the Magellan GPS, I have to use Magellan's Vantage Point software: http://www.magellangps.com/VantagePoint
  6. As part of a regional technical rescue team and a dive rescue / recovery specialist, I hate to say that there are recent years that I found more drowning victims than geocaches. Glad to see that someone else understands what it's like doing in water recoveries... there is no explaining to civilians what it's like doing tow bar operations at night and getting dragged into a victim at three knots and nearly breaking the full face mask hitting the feeding snapping turtles. Thank God Stephen King wasn't a recovery diver.
  7. taboo8614, is your iPhone 4S a new upgrade from the iPhone 4 or from the iPhone 3gs? I have two iPhone 4's and while I will occasionally use them for unplanned geocaching, I am not willing to use them as a primary GPSr because of the battery drain on the device that I might need for emergency communications. Where my iPhone 4 was an upgrade, I still have the iPhone 3gs to use for geocaching. It is slightly complicated because the 3gs is no longer under a cellular or data plan, so I will have to upload Pocket Queries to the 3gs or I will have to use the Geocaching app with wifi to save the caches for offline use. I have a Magellan eXplorist 710 that I recently bought to replace a Magellan Meridian Color that bricked during a software upgrade. The dedicated GPSr is a nice option to have, particularly when travelling well out of your home area and there's some relief to know that the battery life might be upwards of sixteen hours while constantly calculating its location. If all of your caching is in NYC and you are never far from an electrical outlet for iPhone recharges, I wouldn't worry about the dedicated GPSr. The dedicated GPSr will have just as much trouble with the high buildings... unless you are doing The Empire Strikes Back.
  8. Labels and proper cache container markings are generally up to the geocacher to create on their own. Commercial labels are available from the Groundspeak store: http://shop.geocaching.com/default/cache-essentials/cache-labels The Cache Notes are readily available to be printed. If you go to the geocaching.com website toolbar, you can select "Play" and then "Hide & Seek a Cache" and the Cache Note .pdf files will be on the right side: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/default.aspx
  9. I have used my iPhone and the geocaching app in Singapore, Tokyo, Bermuda, Mexico, Canada and the Dominican Republic. As soon as you leave the continental United States, roaming data is billed at $19.97 a megabyte so make sure your data roaming is OFF. One major issue with the geocaching.com app is that it currently requires wifi access to display previously saved log pictures. You can use the phone for geocaching without data or wifi if you save the Pocket Queries to the device, but if you have any indication you may need photos from the cache pages or the cache logs, save them as screen shots on your device while you still have wifi available.
  10. You can install the Geocaching Toolkit from the App Store. The Geocaching Toolkit is a great app for projecting waypoints using the iPhone.
  11. I have a Magellan eXplorist 710 and I use Magellan's VantagePoint software to transfer the Pocket Query data to the GPS. If the Pocket Query shows the cache as previously Found, then it also appears as Found on my 710 so I'm not certain if your absence of indicated finds is a matter of Pocket Query settings, the transfer software, or in the limitations of the eXplorist GC.
  12. Some cachers with extensive travel bug or geocoin collections will virtually drop their trackables in the archived cache simply to remove them from their listed inventory. This is useful to trackable owners because when entering a new log on a cache page, the cacher is given a list of every trackable in their possession and the cacher has to select No Action / Visited / Dropped for EACH trackable in their possession before they submit the log.
  13. Geocaching.com would improve the reviewers work load, response time and overall cache quality if they would implement a requirement that geocachers have twenty five finds or more to submit a new geocache listing for review. I can understand a new geocacher's excitement at wanting to own a geocache and contribute to the community, but with little to no experience in the field, they are ultimately recreating all of the common knowledge mistakes such as using tennis ball cans, sandwich meat containers and ammo boxes marked with military markings. The faux pas is further complicated by grabbing "quick" coordinates without understanding that it may take several minutes for a GPS to settle and the coordinate numbers to become stable. All in all, I don't think that geocaching.com is doing themselves or the geocachers any favors by approving geocaches when the submitter hasn't had opportunity to see what makes a well planned geocache in a location worth visiting or to acquire the experience to submit a cache so that doesn't cause additional headache for the reviewers. There are far too many spontaneous and I'll-conceived caches listed that lead one to wonder what the owner was thinking when it was conceived and submitted. I've said it before and I'll say it again: guardrail magnets and lamppost micros every 512 feet is NOT the standard we should be presenting to upcoming and impressionable cachers. Maybe an administrative expectation of owner experience will help this exponential down slide of the quality of caches that are becoming synonymous with geocaching.com.
  14. Looks like the coordinates could have used some additional review by the owner?
  15. You do not need a service/data plan to uae the geocaching app on the device. I have a iPhone 3g and an iPhone 3gs that are not covered by a plan. I can download Pocket Queries to these devices using the home wifi network and then use them for geocaching while keeping my iPhone 4 reserved. The reason for this is because of the significant power drain the iPhones incur while constantly calculating location. I may use the iPhone 4 for geocaching if I happen to have time in a new area and I'm curious as to the closest cache, but I'd rather use an older device for extended caching.
  16. When I travel out of the continental United States, the data is billed at $19.97 a megabyte so I'll generally shut off the data roaming while I travel. To counter this, I will save the geocaches I intend to seek to the iPhone for offline use, or I will download the entire Pocket Query to the iPhone for the geographic area I will be in. Once the geocaches are saved to your iPhone for offline use, you won't need 3G or Wifi in order to search. This is a huge benefit if you have an old iPhone like a 3gs that is no longer under a cellular or data plan. You can use the older iPhone to search using the Geocaching app while reserving your iPhone 4 for phone calls.
  17. "When you go to hide a geocache, think of the reason you are bringing people to that spot. If the only reason is for the geocache, then find a better spot." – briansnat (From the Geocache Listing Requirements / Guidelines)
  18. I tend to leave Cyalume chemical light sticks as stock in my caches and as trade items at someone else's cache.
  19. I have an eXplorist 710 and I will download all the caches as a Pocket Query and save the file to the desktop on the computer. After I have the PQ saved, I connect the eXplorist to the laptop and use Magellan's Vantage Point software to open the PQ and transfer all of the caches to the GPS at once. http://www.magellangps.com/VantagePoint
  20. I often use my iPhone for Geocaching while traveling and with data billed at $19.97 a megabyte anywhere outside the continental United States, I will generally turn data roaming off once I have reached my travel destination. The solution I have found for iPhone caching without data or wifi is to save the geocaches to the phone beforehand using pocket queries. Without a premium membership, you can still save the individual caches you are seeking to a Saved List in the app and then save the cache information in the list so that you can navigate without using data or wifi.
  21. I had a geocache hidden in a woodland conservation area and the cache was hidden about 50 feet off the main trail. There was very little reason for anyone to leave the main trail unless they were geocachers. I got off duty from the fire department and stopped at the cache to discover some of the travel bugs that had been dropped there. When I reached the cache hide, there were half a dozen cigarette butts laying amidst the pine needles and leaves, and there was actually a cigarette butt INSIDE the cache container! As a professional firefighter that deals with brush fires and as a member of a department that has lost firefighters and apparatus to brush fires, I have to admit that my subsequent owner's maintenance log generated a subsequent apology from the chain-smoking cacher that visited my cache, followed by a few months of humorous side stories at geomeets. To add to the growing list: 2.) Geocaches that resemble ANYTHING electrical in nature (switches, transformers, outlets, wiring, lamp posts, etc.) 3.) Geocache containers that still bear military munitions markings (20 MM INCENDIARY ROUNDS, HIGH EXPLOSIVE, etc.) 4.) Geocaches that hold multiple logbooks that span the entire life of the cache listing. 5.) Geocaches that are specifically designed to resemble roadside trash like discarded water bottles, crushed Pepsi cans, cigar tubes, etc. 6.) Geocachers that log travel bugs with vague logs that make post-loss tracking impossible ("Took five TBs, left two TBs!") 7.) Geocaches with vague hints in high visibility locations that are impossible to search for without generating unwanted attention. 8.) Pretty much each and every lamp post or guardrail cache that I ever wasted my time, effort, and Double A batteries on. I'm glad I started geocaching when it was about quality, not quantity.
  22. Having spent way too much time in shipwrecks, caves, collapsed buildings and dark places, I constantly carry chemical light sticks because no matter how new your flashlight is or how recently you bought those extra batteries, you'll be lucky if they actually work more than sixty minutes. Pre-printed Post-its might be a useful inclusion as well that list the cache name, location, coordinates or other geographical landmark info for caches they will be seeking. Adding the pre-printed Post-its to the geocaching kit will serve as a reminder for the geocacher to leave information for family members that come home to an empty house and wonder where their Geocaching brood has gone... and where to start looking if they are seriously overdue. Analog compass concludes my addendum to the other great ideas.
  23. J the Goat, I subscribe to the school of thought that if a cacher didn't sign the cache log then the "successful" find didn't occur, but there are occasions where I will make an exception. It's not uncommon for geocachers in New England to cache in cold weather and experience ink freezes that preclude a written log. There are some that find it the absolute last thought to even bring a writing implement. Successful finds without a written signature may be inherently suspect, but logs that indicate a problem with a writing implement are less of a concern when they left a trade item or a trackable that offers some means of visit verification to corroborate the find.
  24. Sinver, I have reduced geocachers successful finds on my caches for three reasons: 1.) The cacher posted pictures of themselves holding the final for a puzzle cache when the cache container clearly listed the final coordinates for all to see. 2.) The cacher logged a successful find of a virtual cache and then followed the find with answers that read "I have no idea" or "I forgot to look." 3.) The cacher logged a successful find and the cache container log book or cache contents did not corroborate their find. I wish that geocache owners had the ability to remove individual photographs from finder's logs, but the only way to remove said photographs is for the owner to remove the entire log.
  25. BBWolf+3Pigs, The Saratoga Museum Foundation and the Russian Submarine Museum were both interested in making an event out of the return of the cache container and a re-opening of the container, but with the loss of the Museum facilities and the decision to scrap the Juliett, there were some complications arranging the event location and an agreeable time frame. I will pass a query on to the Museum staff today and see if they wish to continue with a joint event or if they would just prefer to pass on the cache container without the publicity. I'm all for underwater caching, but that turn of events was such a disappointment.
×
×
  • Create New...