SSO JOAT
-
Posts
430 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by SSO JOAT
-
-
Ha, maybe Garmin is planing to start hosting their own geocache listing service.
Anyone have a picture of this new Garmin cache icon?
-
One option may be to have a normal multicache route.. and a chirp route?
Why make it so complicated? Just one route, but the physical stages that have written coords for the cacher to use to get to the next spot are simply enhanced with the addition of chirp. Thus, the folks with chirp-enabled receivers don't have to stop and find the intermediate container (followed by typing them in manually). They get the coords beamed into the GPSr automatically and just continue navigating on to the next spot. It just cuts out all the time a standard GPSr user spends typing in coordinates at each physical stage of a multi.
-
I found the final of a multi was off by quite a bit and nearly every other finder had made the same comments. What I did, since it was a math problem on the cache listing that gave you the coordinates, was recompute the problem backwards from where I found the cache and came up with the needed adjustments for their starting numbers. I posted those in my log, stating that if people had problems finding the cache that they could change the 2 starting numbers to xxx & yyy to get to the coordinate where I found the cache at.
Got a note from the CO the next day thanking me for the rework and that they would check on the cache to make sure it was correct and see if they should adjust the listing. We'll see, but like most things in life approach dictates response. If you just drop a log complaining about problems, they tend to get ignored. If you do a little extra work and offer a real solution in a diplomatic way, you sometimes get a response.
-
I like the final word from GS on this and look forward to the beacon attribute as well as the ability to make a puzzle cache based on this "special tool". Not sure if I'll ever make a cache that where Chirp is the only way to get the cache, but I already have a dozen ideas on where I can improve some of my existing caches and use this device in parallel with future caches.
The easiest implementation of the Chirp is to add it alongside existing caches. I'm surprised that the actual sales pitch from the Garmin site and media reviews hasn't made it into this thread. They never talked about the Chirp being a stand-alone stage in a geocache. All literature suggested it as being added to the cache to give additional assistance to those who can receive the info from it. Since the device transmits a radio signal, there is NO way the company can restrict what devices receive that radio signal. If the Chirp devices start finding their way into the woods in significant numbers to help with caches, then you WILL see 3rd party devices (perhaps even home-built ones) that will be able to receive and read that signal. Garmin doesn't own the radio frequency, so it is silly to suggest that only a Garmin device (because it was the first one to the market) can receive the signal. It's a flippin' radio.
Multi-caches... you set them up normally, but any stage where you have a physical container with the coordinates to the next stage can be supplemented with the Chirp. The device is programmed with the next stage coords and any other extra hints the CO wants to add. The Chirp is then hidden very close to the stage cache. If you have a Chirp enabled device, when you get within 10m of the cache, you'll automatically get the coords and info. For everyone else, you have to find the container, read the coords/hints inside, and then enter them manually into your GPSr.
This can be easily added to any existing multi-cache. The Chirp just makes life easier on people who choose to use a certain device. Just like loading a PQ gpx directly to that device makes life so much easier.
For traditional caches, the device can be hidden near or securely attached to the final cache. When a Chirp-enabled device user gets within 10m of the cache, they get added hints about the cache. Other users still have the final coordinates and can find the cache normally.
I like the idea of hiding these things separate from the actual cache container. That should prevent them from being muggled along with the cache or stolen by that small percentage of evil cachers out there. It would also be pretty important that a Chirp isn't loose in the cache as 98% of cachers won't know what it is and might trade it for swag.
-
The CO's who frequently have bad coords will totally ignore anyone who goes out of their way to post the correct coords. Thus I never collect the coords with the CO in mind; I do it for cachers that will follow behind me.
If a cache has several old logs complaining about coords being off, I'll always record my own good set of coords and post them with my log. I find it very annoying when finders will make the effort to complain about bad coords, yet not do anything about providing a better set.
There are certain hiders that I automatically know I'll be hunting a larger circle and I know that there is a good chance I'll need to collect better coords and post them with the log.
-
I've used my BlackBerry to log TB picks & drops a few times just so I could do those in real time. I've only logged a find 1 time with it and that was because it was a FTF in a urban area, so I wanted to get the log in place quickly so that others wouldn't go through wasted effort in dashing out after a FTF ('cause I try to be considerate that way).
In these cases, I wrote an entire log. It's a tad more difficult to write a bunch with a BB, which is why I prefer to do it when I get home and have a real keyboard. But it is certainly possible to write a log with a "smart phone". (ironic that smart phones seem to dumb things down for most)
-
If live video streaming is a possibility, I'd love to carry it here on the West Coast.
If you're referring to our Geocache Alaska! sponsored events, I'm afraid that while developing the remote event concept, it was determined that we needed to stay within the state. That was a decision made by the club's board of directors in conjunction with input from reviewers and the Lillypad. While it may someday be possible to have satellite event locations linked into a far away hosting event, it appears that we are not there yet. But as with all things about the speed of technology, I expect that live-linked event sites will become a common occurrence in the near future. Also, there is expense involved in creating and running a live web feed that must be considered.
-
Make sure the GPSr has been turned on with a good, open-sky sat lock for at least 10-15 minutes. This gives it time down update the entire sat constellation data file, which changes daily.
At the cache location, check your sat signal strength and position the unit for the best reception.
Mark the location. If you have built-in averaging, turn that on. Hold the GPSr still and let it take about 10-12 readings. Stop averaging and look at the distance to waypoint number. If it is within 2-3 feet. Save the waypoint and you're done. If the distance is much further than that, restart the averaging and repeat.
When averaging, one or two readings that have a larger error will kill the average. Thus just letting the unit average for a long time won't get rid of those errors, which will remain part of the averaged point. When you restart the averaging function, it dumps the previous and starts over.
All the walking away and dancing stuff doesn't do much but delay your progress. If the cache is in a spot with poor coverage, you should test the coords by coming back several hours or a day later to verify that your recorded point is good. Walking away and coming right back is still using the same sat constellation, which will give you the same results. For that to work, you need to come back and recheck under a different sat sky.
-
You need to use full version Acrobat to get the links. So either send your PPT to someone who can convert it for you, or write out the whole URL of the places you've linked to. Better to have the URL than just an underlined word that isn't linked to anything.
-
None of this is convincing. But then I have absolutely no problem with micro caches and I consider myself to be really "into geocaching".
I'm not going to run out and change my micro puzzles into ammo cans that will get muggled or filled with water and trashy swag.
Did anyone consider that perhaps the micro that a CO placed behind his puzzle was chosen for a specific reason?
A puzzle that is "impossible to solve" that you build in 5 minutes fits the definition of a totally "lame puzzle" just as a film can under a wally lamp skirt fits the definition of a totally lame cache. A good puzzle takes hours of labor to build and it is symbiotic with the hide and container, even if that container happens to be a micro. It's not the size of the ship, it's the motion of the ocean.
-
IMHO, logging any cache (incl multi or event) more than one time is just wrong. The guidelines allow for a CO to delete these "duplicate" found it logs.
I find it ironic that when someone suggests that logging a find on their own Challenge cache puzzle listing is approprate once they've completed the challenge, most folks find that to be absolutely wrong. Yet all these people don't have a problem with numbers cachers posting a couple dozen attended logs at a single event in a deliberate attempt to rack up their stats?
Hey, maybe we should be logging 2 found its on every puzzle cache, too. After all, a puzzle is 2 hunts... one for the coordinates and the second for the cache. Not!
I wonder if they log a duplicate find for every change of direction on a night cache?
As CO, I would (and do) delete any duplicate found it logs, though I always message the cacher first and ask them to remove or note the duplicate finds. If they don't change it within a few days, I delete it myself.
-
Looking through my bookmark list of every local puzzle cache in my area...
http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.a...b1-095a64292485
... I count 38 micros, 4 regulars and a couple smalls of the 44 puzzles within 15 miles of our little "twin cities" area. Of those micros there are zero LPCs, one camo painted film canister (the clear Fuji type, not a single black/grey one to be found), 18 pill bottles (twist-on child-resistant waterproof cap style, nearly all of them camo'd with birch bark by a very crafty cache hider), 1 nearly-nano lab sample tube, 2 MHKs, and the rest are commercial Bisons. The vast majority of these cache finals are in the woods or next to the woods on road shoulder ROWs. None are on commercial parking lot properties. One is on a guard rail on a winding roadway thorugh a rural subdivision that most would consider a nice area to drive through. A whole bunch of them are on roadside greenbelt around the University property and several more are on public recreation and sports-related fields (baseball fields, rodeo grounds, ice rink facility, small city parks, etc).
My sampling is a such a very small slice of the geocaching pie that it means nothing compared to what else is out there in the world, but the complaint about puzzles being krappy film can LPC hides is completely off the mark 'round here.
-
... the general consensus of the finders is we prefer swag size caches in nice locations as a reward for solving a puzzle. We make the extra effort, we want a nice reward.
I'd like to see the study and data that supports your assertation that there is a concensus amongst puzzle finders that they want "swag sized" caches as a "reward". I have to play the BS card on this "invented statistic".
The "extra effort" is most certainly put out by the puzzle maker, not the finder. It's not nearly as difficult to solve a puzzle as it is to put one together.
Your reward is the "aha" moment while solving the puzzle and the overwhelming sense of satisfaction you get when you've got a GPS coordinate and a "success" message on the geocheck. That is followed by getting to write a "nice log" about how great the puzzle was. If the fact that the logsheet was in a bison tube disguised as a pine cone in a plain spruce tree on the shoulder of a little dirt road that doesn't have some kind of "spectacular" view of anything is enough to ruin the puzzle experience... well, sorry.
-
If you cache with a GPS (and who doesn't?), you shouldn't be getting lost. I'm just sayin...
-
As a self-proclaimed puzzle meister... there is no point in placing a big trading cache at the end of a puzzle. Very, very few people bother to hunt down puzzle caches anyhow. So using a small or micro hide is a preferred final as the only real purpose of the puzzle final is to prove that you solved the puzzle.
Of my many puzzles, I believe that only 2 of them are regular sized caches. Of the maybe 8 or 10 finds between both of those, no one has ever traded anything. They just sign the log and perhaps drop their sig item. I'm thoroughly convinced that an ammo can behind a puzzle is a waste of a perfectly good ammo can.
So, you can put a MKH on a guardrail and publish it as a traditional micro with 2 sentences on the cache page. All you have is a worthless numbers cache. Or, you can take that same spot and use it to hide the logbook for a really cool puzzle. When you ask why did the CO bring me here, the answer is to prove you solved the puzzle and to keep some knucklehead from putting a P&G traditional numbers cache in that spot.
A common puzzle theme 'round my area is that a very difficult puzzle is usually coupled with an easy access hide. A simple puzzle often has a more difficult hide. On a few puzzles, they are rated higher because you have a tough puzzle on top of a tough hide.
Sometimes it really is about the journey, not the destination.
-
According to another thread on 10/10 in re the souvies, once the log that generated the prize was deleted from the cache listing, the souvie disappeared along with it.
And the "all caches in an area" challenge we came up with was for a snapshot in time. Hence, the challenge is complete for the cacher for the date that he finds the last active & unfound cache on the map. A cache placed the next day doesn't have any effect on his completion of the previous day's list. It just means that on that one date, he had found every single cache in that area.
-
Definitely the Space Pen.
If you don't want to spend $8 on a Space Pen, then use a standard ball-point pen with traditional ink (NOT the Gel inks).
Gel pens won't write on the Write In The Rain paper that is used in many logbooks. They are nice for writing on standard paper around the office, but really suck for damp logs or waterproofed logs in caches.
Space Pens write on dang near anything and they work equally well on damp paper as they do on dry paper.
-
As to the FTF drift in this thread... it's actually a fairly common practice in remote areas of Alaska for groups (not really teams, but it's usually the same people in these groups) to go out to remote areas on hiking trips. They will plant a few caches along the trip, often hidden by different members of the group. Then the hider will provide the coordinates of the cache he just hid to the other members of the group (who supposedly waited down the trail or whatever for the hide to be completed). The other members will hunt, find, and log the cache. When they get back to civilization, the hiders will publish the caches and as soon as the listing comes out, the other group members will log their finds (they usually remember to change the log dates back to the day they actually found the cache, so the finds are the same as the hide date and prior to the publish date).
It really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, as such caches are typically difficult to get to and would go unfound for months if they didn't do these group expeditions. Even so, the next cacher can come along and claim to be the FTFAP. Since there is no official FTF game and there are no FTF rules, you can do anything you want as it relates to FTF claims.
For awhile there were second logs on new caches around Anchorage that said FTFACH, because a cacher who's name has the initials "CH" was always FTF, so everyone else was "competing" for the first to find after CH. And it was all done in good fun. I even managed to get a couple true FTF in that area last summer that I logged as FTFBCH in the same jovial spirit.
If it ain't fun for you, don't do it.
-
As the discussion in our local group has progressed a bit, the leaning is more and more toward making our challenge concept a NON-Groundspeak deal, so it wouldn't be a cache and wouldn't have anything to do with GS. The reason is the GS prohibition on a Challenge that requires all active caches in a geographic area to be the Challenge.
At any rate, back to my OP question, the info I was looking for has been provided by the forum community. Thanks for the feedback.
-
To clarify the previous... that means take the seconds (i.e. 13.41) and divide that by 60 (i.e. 13.41 / 60 = 0.2235). Take the result and add it to the minutes, rounding it off to 3 digits on the right of the decimal (i.e. 55 + 0.2235 = 55.224).
It's a super easy conversion that requires no computer programs to manage.
-
Definitions of American English words are not "opinions".
Citing British dictionaries doesn't define American English.
Citing Wiki is the same as citing an anonymous internet blog... oh, wait, that's because Wiki IS an anonymous blog.
Regardless of "opinions" the definition of "sport" remains an organized activity requiring skill or physical exertion that is most often in the outdoors. A "game" as related to "sports" is a single incident of that sporting activity. So, if you participate in the sport of geocaching, you could say that engaging in a hunt for a geocache would be a "game" played.
Using previously listed examples... While golf is a sport in the broad sense, you go out and play a single game of golf. Baseball is a sport, yet a single event of baseball is a game.
Everything that takes energy to do is an activity. Stuff that you do for enjoyment outside of your normal work or profession would be for leisure or recreation.
Thus, for many people's recreational activity, they go out and play games in the sport of geocaching.
Ya'll anti-sports knuts are going to change your tune when geocaching becomes an olympic event. Mark my words!
-
I've fallen into the OP's "category" several times. I've had caches muggled or had contruction work start at or near the cache site where I've disabled the cache for a lengthy period. It is sometimes due to things going on around GZ and we are waiting for contruction to end before replacing the cache. Sometimes we are working on building a new hide that will help reduce the chances of the cache being muggled. Sometimes, our chosen profession results in us being deployed away from home for several months at a time and we are unable to do cache maintenance within the timeframe that a given cacher demands.
I was able to keep most all of my caches up and operational for most of this year, but I still had one that was disabled for probably 4-5 months and I just disabled another one a few days ago that may be down for awhile as they are remodeling the "host" structure. It will require several hours of work to rebuild the puzzle for a new cache after they're done working and I can go see how I'll deal with placing a new cache at the site.
If I've disabled a cache stating that I'll fix it soon and then something comes up where soon turns into weeks or months, I'll try to post another note to the cache stating the delay if I remember to.
That said, if the CO is clearly not active (hasn't signed on in the last few months) and the cache has been disabled for over a year, that meets every aspect of the need to log an NA. I know the local reviewer in our area seems to regularly go through cache listings and will post a CO reminder note on long-time disabled caches. If nothing happens within a couple weeks of that note, they will archive the listing.
-
I also agree with these last couple ideas. The "no log" folks seem to stick to the "finding your own cache" part. Since finding the silly box isn't the intent of the Challenge, then we just need to get rid of the box & book. An event cache is easily logged without having to find any box, so a Challenge cache ought to be the same way. If you've completed the goal, you get the log.
The discussion is interesting, but I've learned this morning from our reviewer that a Challenge that requires you to find every cache within a geographic area is against the challenge guidelines. They consider that to be an "explicit list" of caches.
-
Can't quite see who's hand is under that sock...
Geocaching and Hunting
in How do I...?
Posted
Avoiding hunting times/areas is great, but if you're out and see some hunters nearby in their blaze orange (note, that get up is only required in some areas - many places don't require hi-viz clothing for hunting), you should walk up and say, "hi". Just tell them you're out geocaching (or hiking if you don't want to explain what that is) and ask them which way they are going. Hunters are typically very friendly people who will appreciate your desire to share the land. Once you know the hunters are working up a certain geographical feature and they know which way you're going, the both of you can do your own thing without worry about the other. And everyone will be happy. Carry on.