dkwolf

There is a huge difference between CAN and SHOULD. I come to the forums to READ what people say, I could care less about an animated avatar. I use avatars to see who the poster is at a glance; most of the people I talk to in the forums, I know their avatars, and can recognize almost immediately. I do visit another forum where animated avatars are allowed, but the user group there is small enough--and sane enough (wait...is that right?) that it's not a problem. Things that look like they were created by a 14 year old japanese kid on speed do not show up there. They would here. Just because you CAN make an animated avatar (and I'm glad you can't here) does not mean that you SHOULD. Although the dancing purple hippo haunts my sleep...

What flask said. No.

Around my area, if a cache sits with a 'needs maintenance' log for too long before the owner takes care of it, local cachers will start to post notes and email the owner asking why it's taking so long, and if they need help fixing it. Same goes for temp. disabled. If it sits in that state too long, the locals will take care of it.

Socks, man. Socks.

I think Eastern Iowa would probably be just about right. Now, who do we know from there, somebody who can be trusted with a bunch of TBs? hmmmm. No no no no no...those eastern Iowa cachers can't be trusted at all. Western Iowa is the way to go.

Why? Odds are you already have all of the components of a PLBS, without the cost. The locator beacon works by, once activated, sending a signal to a satellite with your ROUGH location (to within some huge margin of error, just to get the approximate location) and then the location is relayed to a local emergency crew, which then has to triangulate your position based on signal from the locator. Take a cellphone with you. If you find yourself in a situation needing rescue, pick up the cellphone, dial 911 that you are lost/hurt in a general vicinity (Briggs Woods State Park, for example) and then tell them you are at GPS coordinates N XX.XXXX WXXX.XXXX. I have been few places where I have been unable to get any cell signal, and frankly, if you geocache in areas where getting lost and not finding your way out in the same day is a possibility, you should always go in prepared to spend a night or two finding your way back out. And, you should always let someone know where you're going anyway. Basic hiking/backpacking knowledge; always be prepared for the worst, and always leave a plan with someone so they know where to look for you if needed.

Look closely at the topic sub-title. "When you just can't bear to let the ORIGINAL go"

I'd like to see you confirm or deny the following statement: I (Familyof4) found a neat looking geocoin in the wild, as it's owner intended it to be. I found said coin to be an attractive work. Instead of releasing it back into the wild (again, as the owner intended) I, using skills I possess in the practice of metal forging, made a copy of the original coin, and duplicated the artwork and coloring to the best of my ability. After completing the forgery, I released my hand-made copy of the coin, while keeping the original, bought and paid for by the owner, in my own personal posession. The owner of the coin does not know about my work, and I did not persue other options to obtain a personal, legitimate copy of this coin before making my forgery. Please respond as to the truthfullness of this statement, and given any inaccuracies, let us know what is or is not true. If you released the copy you made, and kept the original, I think you will find yourself to be hugely unpopular, and it may be in your best interest to never reveal your identity to another cacher for fear of recieving the public shame you deserve.

Oh yeah, I agree. This method is not intended just to reach saturation, but I know my city pretty well, and I would like to know, for instance, where in Washington Square Park I'll be far enough away from other caches. I think that's where maps on your own computer come in. Using Delorme Topo you can plot circles of radius r at location x,y. Do so for all caches you have found in your ares, along with puzzle solutions, and multi parts, and you will see where there is free space. but I much prefer to actually find a site first. One could always become a volunteer reviewer for the state, but not really. Or, using Mapsource, get a PQ of all the local caches, transfer it into Mapsource, highlight all the waypoints, and set a proximity of 0.1 miles for them.

TB Hotel I can tolerate... But making it a PMOC, *AND* a terrain 5 cache is a little overboard.

Want to speed up your listing/approval time? Here's some tips: 1) Don't place your cache on a weekend. That's when everyone else does, and the reviewer gets swamped. 2) Check, double check, and triple check to make sure it meets ALL of the guidelines. 3) Post any and ALL pertinent information in reviewer notes on the cache page. 4) Ease up on the caffine and go find some caches while you wait.

Willow, I don't want to do the screenshot here at work, and in all honesty, the full pq setup page would require a couple screenshots to catch it all. But, what it boils down to, is an uber-search function. You have the options to specify almost every aspect of a cache when doing a search for them, such as: Cache type Cache size Difficulty Terrain Attributes (can search for specific ones) Distance from Coordinates, Zip Code, Waypoint -and much more. For example: Say I want to know all of the Traditional, Regular caches rated 2.5/3 or above, available at night and snake/tick free, within 200 miles of my house. I can set up the search on that page, and *usually* within 10 minutes I get an email with all of those caches in a single file that I can then load into Mapsource or GSAK and download onto my GPS (no manual entry required!) Or say I want to take a bunch of newbies out around their house, 300 miles away from my hometown. Simple. Set up another query, looking for Traditional caches, small regular or large, with d/t ratings 2/2 or below within 20 miles of their home zip code. *usually* 10 minutes, get the email, download onto the GPS and away we go. It really is a nice feature to have, and well worth the $30 annual (or even $3/month)

That right there is cause enough for concern in my book. If you could say boats NEVER get on this string of lakes/man made river, I'd say go for it, but since there is a chance of a random night fisherman coming along and seeing a box with a flashing light in it submerged just below the surface.... See where I'm going? Calling out the bomb squad is expensive. Bringing in a marine minesweeper? Can't be cheap. The second thing that concerns me is the 'string of lakes/man made river' bit. What exactly is this body of water? Water storage area behind a dam...cooling lake for a nuke plant...etc. Basically, is it somewhere that might cause problems for cachers seeking the cache?

My thoughts there, too, Stu. As for the all-caps bit, I am an AutoCAD draftsman for an engineering company. Guess what? My keyboard is almost always in CAPS LOCK because everything on our plans, as stated by RK and several others, is in all caps. I usually try to turn it off before posing in the forums, but if you IM me, you're likely going to get caps. Caps are used on plans because they are easier to read, especially on a jobsite. And they are easier to read for the sight impaired. Just something to get used to. As for the profanity....it really doesn't have a place here.

I'm going to bet that the lake is a man-made lake; as such, if it was built after the last updates to the USGS topo maps (again; 20-30 years ago) it would not show on the GPS topo. There is a very good fishing lake about one hour west of me that was built in 1998; they dammed off a creek flowing through the park and created a 2.5 mile x 1.5 mile lake, over 100' deep at the dam. That lake does not show on any USGS contour map. However, that fact is also VERY nice, as a copy of the USGS contour map will show you what the bottom contour of the lake is and aides in finding fishing structure such as old bridges--they left them all in place when they flooded the area.

I'm in the 'finding parking is part of the adventure' crowd. Heck, getting TO the cache area is part of the adventure. I have a 60CSx with autorouting and all of the maps, but when I'm on a cache run, I won't let it autoroute. I'll pull up the compass and strictly follow the arrow. Well, not strictly...rural roads here are on a 1 mile grid, so I pick a paved road and head out on that until the arrow is almost perpendicular to my current line of travel, then turn that way on the next closest road. Most caches around here are hidden in county or town parks, and parking is fairly obvious. However, there have been times where I have parked within 0.7 of the cache, hiked 0.5 in, realized that there was no way I was on the correct route, hiked BACK to the truck, driven around to the other side and parked 20 feet away from the cache. Or this last weekend, parked 0.15 from the cache, bushwacked 400 feet only to find a river nearly out of it's banks. Bushwacked another 300 ft to the highway (with a dog, mind you), crossed the road bridge to find the parking lot I SHOULD have parked at on the other side of the river. 120 feet from the cache. (and 50 feet below the cache). Found the cache, and enjoyed the nice quarter-mile hike back to the truck-on the road this time. It's all part of the adventure.

The city navigator maps, especially in rapidly developing areas, it's more important to have updated maps. The topo maps....let's face it, most people that look at a topo map are doing so for ground contours or stream locations. And, that has not changed much at all in the last 10 years. Yes, trails may relocate, but someone with a good working knowledge of topo maps doesn't need a trail map; and also, anyone going out into the woods any considerable distance at all should NEVER rely solely on their GPS. If there is ANY risk at all of getting lost or stranded, a paper map and compass should be with you anyway. If you ordered a USGS map of an area, the odds are quite good that the data you will see on the paper map is at least 20-30 years old. 99% of the time it still applies.

I'm not certified in anything, but I carry Duck Tape. Honestly, to the firefighters, emt's first responders, police officers, and last but most certainly not least, Military...thank you.

TC, I like the idea. In fact, I'm doing something similar this weekend. There was a cache near here in a beautiful little county park, but the cache wasn't particularily well done. It had major maintenance issues, and the owner has not logged into the site in a year and a half. The cache was archived 6+ months ago, and had a string of DNF's before that indicating it (once again) had gone missing. I plan to visit the park, search the old location to verify the cache is gone, and then using what I know about the problems, rehide a new cache in the general vicinity. The new cache will be named entirely different, but on the same theme. (some of the maintenance issues on the old cache were, it was a folgers coffee can in an area prone to high water in the spring, and was not camo'd at all. The new cache will be a painted ammo can hidden securely above the high water line)

I'm guessing if they have descriptionless waypoints loaded into their GPSr's, they are likely a premium member, and as such, if they wish to avoid certain types of caches or be warned about a certain type...GSAK is quite easy to set up to do that filtering for you, and you can customize how it names the waypoints on the gps. For instance, on my 60CSx, the note field contains 4 single characters. One for Cache Type, one for Cache Size, one for Difficulty, one for Terrain. A quick glance at the note field tells me what I can expect. Yes, you have to remember what the codes MEAN, but it's not that hard.

Oke, point taken. I am new to any forum. I will ask the cache owner. Thx It's all good. We all have to learn somewhere. Good luck, and happy caching!

It's also considered bad form. If you need a hint, the accepted procedure is to contact the cache owner first, and if they are unwilling to help, spend more time working on it yourself. If that fails, contact a recent finder of the cache and explain why you need help. This keeps any hints private between you and your helpers, instead of broadcasting them for the (forum) world to see, and possibly compromise the puzzle the hider worked to put in place.

Every experienced cacher on here will tell you, once you get to within about 30-40' of the cache location, STOP looking at your gps and start looking and thinking about where YOU would hide something. Once you get to within 40' or so, the compounding errors between your gps and the hider's gps make it (usually) pointless to try and follow the arrow.

My legend would routinely display EPE of 7 ft, while my 60CSx the best I've seen is 9. No matter. If I'm that close, I'm happy.

Around here, they still do aerial speed/traffic enforcement, but the paint markers are a solid stripe covering 3/4 a lane of travel, or on the shoulder of the road. Usually 1/4, 1/2, or 1 mile apart, and the pilot has a special stopwatch that he starts when you pass the first mark, and stops when you pass the second. The readout on the face is calibrated to show your speed, not the time. And yes, friends of mine have been written up after being busted by the bear in the air.