virgo91967

I just want to point out that MMach's logic concerning MOC's in public taxpayer supported parks is faulty.. There are MANY private concerns that use public parks...model aircraft and rocketry clubs, Amature sports teams , I.E. Soccer , baseball,softball,ect.. , various forms of boy and girl scout troops not to mention parties, family reunions and the ocasional wedding. . . . Most of these activities are concidered 'members only' are they not? So why then should geocacging MOC's be at any more risk of 'legal hassels' than any of these other 'groups' I'm not completely sure about how all of these groups work. However I do know as a former board member of a local dog agility group and field commisioner for an adult soccer organization, that we had to pay the city to use public parks for private club functions. There are also certain restrictions and insurance concerns that must be addressed before the city will allow you to "reserve" part of the park for private use. (edit) The city also limits the amount of time that any part of the park can be reserved, (i.e.- "X Soccer Association has exclusive use of X Field #8 from 9:00pm until 11:00pm"). good going MMAch! you just set a precedent for local parks to require a fee for caching! Hope none of them saw it!

It seems to me that the general consensus on this matter is that placing 'expiration dates' is not needed and not wanted by most for it would not improve the quality of the sport but just add extra work ( not fun) to the cache owners with the only side benefit being higher numbers. It ahould the responsibliity of any cacher with hides to maintain them and to retire them on a case to case basis as determined by local conditions. There , how ya like dem apples? Told yall i ought been a politician I am KING of the run on sentence!!!

Yeah, I had one of my caches Possum Hollow Raided and scattered by a raccoon a few weeks back.. Somone had left a note on a business card in strawberry scented ink.. the tin was opened and scattered about with the logbook no where to be found. SCENTED ITEMS IN A CACHE ARE A NO NO!

I just want to point out that MMach's logic concerning MOC's in public taxpayer supported parks is faulty.. There are MANY private concerns that use public parks...model aircraft and rocketry clubs, Amature sports teams , I.E. Soccer , baseball,softball,ect.. , various forms of boy and girl scout troops not to mention parties, family reunions and the ocasional wedding. . . . Most of these activities are concidered 'members only' are they not? So why then should geocacging MOC's be at any more risk of 'legal hassels' than any of these other 'groups' jee I am proud of this response Ought become a politician

I would like to make the motion to replace the word "slacker" to the more polittically correct term 'finacially challenged'.. BTW--BUMP

Actually , the earth is not a true sphere, but an 'oblate spheroid' its radius at the equator is aseveral miles more than its radius at either pole. I suppose that is why the metric system unit of length is determined by distance from the north pole rather than as a fraction of the equator??? I do know that the US Coast Guard (keep up the good work ouys and girls) still requires learning and demonstrating the ability to plot a fix according to charts, dead reckoning, time and sextant as well as gps.

I would say, hilltopper, that you found some adolescent boy(s) ummm...'educational' materials that were being used to get him through the trials of adolesence. Oh! btw nice to see another GEOCKY member on these boards;)

well then, it seems to me that the cache owner should have tried to contact the land maager for maryland state parks, eh? Also seems to me that if you are going to place a cache somwhere were it would cause a run in with security forces then the cache location needs to be re-thought. I ALSO also suppose that this would be a situation where a clear container would be MUCH preferred over an ammo can or pvc pipe cache

Thank you Haraldin..good answer!

Oh for goodness YES! the further from a cache you are, the morew durable the cachetainer should be ( I am trying to get 'Cache-tainer' into common use LOL). and over time, even the best plastic becomes brittle with age and weathering

well, I wouldnt go so far as saying the world is flat so much as it is faceted If one is planning trans-oceanic or trans-continental journies, then I suppose I would have to concede to inadequacies over long distances. There is distortion of one form or another in ALL map projections to one or another degree and that would make either make north NOT 'true north' and East not 'true 'East' or distort apparent distances between distant points. I have not seen any 'bearing' errors while using UTM.. doesnt mean it doesn't exist, just that I havent personally experienced it yet. Would be something I would like to understand The biggest benifit I have derived from UTM is the ease of computing distances between points within each zone ... having to convert the locations from DMS into minutes then remember how many miles in a minute.. how many feet in a mile.then pump it all through the Distance=sqrt(((x2-x1)squared)+(y1-y2)squared)) then convert it all back up to the appropriate distance units UTM is simple, every thing pumps right through the equation without any conversions and out comes distance in meters. Of course, if you want imperial units, you still have to do intermediate conversions I still belive that, with all other things being equal, UTM is still more precise than lat/lon ( 3.3 feet=39in.=1.25yards) than lat/lon in Dec. Min (.001min=5.28ft) , more or less depoending of course on latitude click for more on UTM&GPS

Welll! I have heard in the national news that the state of california is considering doing a similar thing to stalkers and sex offenders using a tracking unit on the parolee/criminal to prevent them from coming within a certain distance from thier target. Location is transmitted by cell phone network to a local traqcking office who would then call the police if the offender gets too close. I do see room for a pricticle joke... just to mess with somone's head. Hide a tracker then post it as a moving cache?? LOL but dont tell the mark...

We all know how much eaiser UTM is and all of its benifits over Lat/lon but has anyone ever tried getting non utm geocachers to try it?

I think I am the mostt likely to havementioned plastic ammo cans... I found some at my local walmart in the sporting goods / hunting department. I would say that gunshops and sporting goods stores would be a good albeit more expensive alternative

I use UTM almost exclusivly... and it is dead easy to compute distances, too... none of that nasy degrees to distance in miles, just dont get your easting get confused with your northing

I am certian that "Oh Brother!" is in the list

Oh! and I just made the connection with 'Raising Arizona! the scene where they were arguing while HI was giving sterring directions?

Well there ya got then!, dontcha know!

Absoloutly... you have to match toss the word camofluage into a google search lots of good ideas

I submitted "Enigmatic" for revew and approvall... and if ya want a jump.,and live close enpugh to grab it...emailme and I will emaile the link.

Oh, belive me , I was very very careful to 'beta test' the enigma sim that I decided to use.. the page's webmaster did state that there was one enigma sim out there that did NOT return accurate results... it was more of a proof of concept sim written in javascript.

Oh .. it has a link to GET the decoder the encoded coordinates are posted on the cache page

Geez - that's not much of a stick! I cansee the ammo can quite easily! Ya just don't get it , do you ... the can is just a big ole red herring! the actual cache is a micro hidden in a hole drilled in the BASE of the stick! Actually, I hid mine rather well for being right out in the open ..sorta... invisible from 30 feet. Sorry, best photo I could get at the time LOL... Then again, i didn't want it to be too difficult for cachers to find.. Just sooo full of such good stuff!. As far as fear of muggles... believe me, muggles do NOT go randomly bushwackin' in this area. just deer and cachers Virgo's Mega-cache (gcjwnh)

Any chance that you might be able to scan that in and post it ? Sure would be good for a luagh or two

So if I took up drunken night caching in speedos, would take me of homeland securities 'scopes' ?? Of course , then there is that altogether different can of worms when the polizia show up