debaere
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Posts posted by debaere
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You could sweeten the deal by pre-loading the GPSs with the caches in the area (say by running a PQ with the 100 closest caches), and loading up detailed maps into it.
Wouldn't that be against the Terms of Agreement, to provide premium features to non-premium cachers, or to provide such information to non-cachers?
EDIT: Outside of the above, I think it is a GREAT idea!
I hadn't considered that. Could they perhaps preload the GPSr with non-premium level caches? I would think the sticky point would be providing premium caches to non-premium members, not running a PQ on their behalf (really they would be completely agnostic as to how the caches are loaded - they would just be there).
You could also require a basic membership to geocaching.com (sign em up right in store when they rent), to cover the "don't provide info to non-cachers" bit.
I would highly reccomend discussing all of this with your reviewer to see if its OK or not before proceeding.
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Hey!
I'm writting on behalf of the Village Suisse in Val-David, Québec. The Village Suisse, or Swiss village is a domain of chalets for rental. However, this year it's we're opening a store for after-ski activities, selling books, eco-friendly board games and brain teasers and so on. But we also like to promote outdoor activities, and apparently there are a lot of geocaches around this area (above 500 within a 50 mile radius).
We were thinking about opening a section for geocaching by renting gear for instance.
Do you geocachers think it would be worth it? If so, what gear is worth renting (rather amateur gear -the Village Suisse being a family business, funds are kinda limited).
Thanks in advance for your advice and feedback.
Le Village Suisse
As far as which gear, you'd want something on the cheaper side, but rugged. Renters are not easy on things they rent so the likely hood of damage is high. I'd probably see if I could find some used Garmin 60CSx's on ebay and rent those.
You could sweeten the deal by pre-loading the GPSs with the caches in the area (say by running a PQ with the 100 closest caches), and loading up detailed maps into it.
You can also start small and only get one or two GPSs and see if you get takers. This will keep your costs down initially.
Personally I would buy the GPS I would want to use and rent that. This gives you the advantage that if the geocaching side of your business doesn't work out, you still have devices that you would use yourself. Think of it as a free upgrade
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Hey!
I'm writting on behalf of the Village Suisse in Val-David, Québec. The Village Suisse, or Swiss village is a domain of chalets for rental. However, this year it's we're opening a store for after-ski activities, selling books, eco-friendly board games and brain teasers and so on. But we also like to promote outdoor activities, and apparently there are a lot of geocaches around this area (above 500 within a 50 mile radius).
We were thinking about opening a section for geocaching by renting gear for instance.
Do you geocachers think it would be worth it? If so, what gear is worth renting (rather amateur gear -the Village Suisse being a family business, funds are kinda limited).
Thanks in advance for your advice and feedback.
Le Village Suisse
As far as which gear, you'd want something on the cheaper side, but rugged. Renters are not easy on things they rent so the likely hood of damage is high. I'd probably see if I could find some used Garmin 60CSx's on ebay and rent those.
You could sweeten the deal by pre-loading the GPSs with the caches in the area (say by running a PQ with the 100 closest caches), and loading up detailed maps into it.
You can also start small and only get one or two GPSs and see if you get takers. This will keep your costs down initially.
Personally I would buy the GPS I would want to use and rent that. This gives you the advantage that if the geocaching side of your business doesn't work out, you still have devices that you would use yourself. Think of it as a free upgrade
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Hey!
I'm writting on behalf of the Village Suisse in Val-David, Québec. The Village Suisse, or Swiss village is a domain of chalets for rental. However, this year it's we're opening a store for after-ski activities, selling books, eco-friendly board games and brain teasers and so on. But we also like to promote outdoor activities, and apparently there are a lot of geocaches around this area (above 500 within a 50 mile radius).
We were thinking about opening a section for geocaching by renting gear for instance.
Do you geocachers think it would be worth it? If so, what gear is worth renting (rather amateur gear -the Village Suisse being a family business, funds are kinda limited).
Thanks in advance for your advice and feedback.
Le Village Suisse
You may want to try something like this idea from a town in Oregon: http://thedalleschamber.com/blog/the-dalle...ocaching-sites/. The basic idea is "Complete our 12 caches and get a geocoin from the Chamber Of Commerce.
I recently had a chance to do the Dalles Dash and I now own a unique souvenier as a result, and I had a great time. You could do the same in your area by either placing new caches, or working with existing cache owners to give a tour of interesting places in your area, and offering a free coin if they come into your store with proof that they found all of them.
Note: I am not sure, being a store, if it would violate the "no commericial" rules. You should be able to do the free geocoin for completing a number of caches bit, but I don't know if you could mention "we rent GPSs if you don't have one" part. I personally don't see any issues with it as long as folks can use their own equipment to do the caches and get the prize for free, but I'd check with my reviewer before putting a lot of work into it. However if you could get it set up you would definitely increase exposure to your store, and make a cool series of caches for your area.
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My first cache was about 10kms away from the hotel I was staying at. The second one was 30kms and in a different country.
As you can tell I was travelling at the time. It took me until find 10 to grab the close ones to my house
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when you stop feeling like a noob then you are no longer a noob
No magic formula. -
I've decided I don't like phone-the-answer caches. When travelling overseas without the benefit of a mobile phone, it is frustrating to go to a cache location, read a clue, find a payphone, and phone in an answer before getting the next coords. Sometimes you only get one shot at these spots (like an hour lunch spot) so a return visit is not always possible.
And with no printer, and a limit of 1000 caches on my GPS, and no definite decided route from A to B, (or C then D then E etc) and no "hint" facility on my GPS (that I can see) it is frustrating to be spending so much time in internet cafes or using hotel-priced internet connection, scribbling away my notes, when I could be spending that time out finding caches.
I miss my printouts, cellphone, time, etc.
I'm just havin' a bit of a whinge.
Well, on to the abundance of nice quick traditionals for me.
Okay - what limitations have you found when "on tour" in a foreign country? Everyone wants other-country caches under their belt, I'm sure. Do you cache differently when overseas?
I am sure that there are others that have found caches in many other countries than I but I'm up to 10 different countries, in Europe and Africa.
First of all, my approach is that my only real goal is to try and find one cache in a new country I'm visiting so that I can color in that country on the map. Beyond that, If I've got some free time to spend in a foreign country, even if I don't find any other caches...I'm spending free time in a foreign country. Since pretty much all my foreign travel is business related the biggest challenge is often just trying to have enough free time to get to spots where I can find a cache. For some of the countries that I have visited where there are very few caches in the country that can been very difficult. While in Ethiopia and Zambia I was unable to find any caches at all. Even though there were a couple of close caches to where I was staying in those countries just getting to those spots in the limited time I had (and without a personal vehicle) proved to be impossible. I was lucky to have found a cache in Tanzania, only because I scheduled in an extra day and was able to get a driver that took me to a National Game park where a cache was located. In four days in Tanzania I was never closer than 60 miles to any other cache.
Even in countries which did have more available caches to find, I primarily focus on a few caches and spent some time prior to leaving looking over cache listings to see which ones I might be able to find. In Paris, that meant solving a few difficult puzzles before I left home. Although many of the caches I've found in Europe had english versions of the descriptions there were many that did not so during my preparation I used google translate to translate descriptions and hints prior to leaving and made some notes about the ones that I wanted to get if necessary.
I have an iPhone with the Groundspeak app which allows me to create a PQ at home then "save" the listings for those caches on my phone. I don't have to turn on data roaming when in foreign countries to see cache listings. Some sort of smart phone or PDA which allows you to go "paperless" can be a big help when caching in foreign countries. Next time I travel I'm going to see if I can find a good translation app that I can load on my phone while in the field. The new Google Goggles app sounds like it would work well for this but it's not available on an iPhone.
Basically, when traveling abroad I forget about trying to find a lot of caches (not that I do any power caching while at home) and focus on just exploring the country and picking up a few caches that happen to be in places I'm seeing anyway.
I agree with NYPaddleCacher on this one. When I go to a new area I try to grab A cache to colour in my map, and spend the rest of the time just enjoying the area (may be caching, may not be, but after the first one, I don't sweat the "missed" caching opportunities).
I have never heard of phoning in caches - that sounds annoying and assumes some sort of phone coverage - I probably would have avoided those
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The tree is part of the terrain, not the difficulty. Same would apply if the hike was extreme but the cache is on the ground.
Difficulty is in reference to "finding the cache". Thus a pine cone cache in a pine tree is "more difficult" than an orange matchstick container.
Now, add one more twist. What if there were two caches. The first is up a hill (steep with loose shale) to the ridge, i.e a T-3 or so. The next one is 600' further along the ridge. Thus the hike from #1 to #2 is easy, a T-1.
How do you rate the second cache? If they are to be independant, then is each rated from the starting point (the bottom of the hill)? Or is #2 rated for the terrain from #1?
I always assume the terrain ratings are from the starting point (i.e. from the point where I have to leave my car and walk). So #2 should have a terrain level commensurate with the starting point. I would probably mark it a 3 as well, maybe a 3.5.
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At this Tenth Anniversary of Geocaching I wonder how many people realize that I created the most energy intensive sport on the planet. Geocachers driving from cache to cache consume large amounts of fuel and create a huge carbon footprint.
Do I need an award for creating the biggest carbon footprint on the planet?
Just think how much fuel Geocachers will burn in the Next Ten Years!
Cache-On!
Dave Ulmer - Inventor of Geocaching
P.S. Just call me Big Foot !
Bah. I doubt its the most fuel using sport (got any numbers to back that up?) How much fuel do you think is used at a single NASCAR event (both for the race, and to fill up the stands with fans).
Like others have said, I've done more hiking & biking since I started caching than I ever did before. Besides I doubt I've used more than two tanks of gas for my 131 finds (I have cached in 3 countries and 10 states, but I don't count the long distance as gas spent geocaching because I was going to those places anyway - I just count the diversions from my normal route to caches).
If I wasn't caching, I'd have spent my time watching TV (who's electricity has its own carbon footprint), or driving to other locations. Either way, me being healthier and more entertained by caching far far outweighs the negative effects of any minor increase in carbon footprints it may have caused.
Worry not good sir, and thanks for the good times. I love this hobby.
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Which brings me down to my question. I'm considering placing premium member caches of good quality in the area. Are there others out there that place premium member caches for this reasoning: to have a group of "elite" geocaches? What are your other reasons for doing so?
I would say you should place high quality caches open to the public at large. This was hopefully others in your area will get exposed to caches that meet your standards and will place higher quality ones on their own. By limiting the caches to members only, you vastly restrict your audience.
Personally the only time I would make a cache of mine members only would be in a high muggle area, and even then I would probably either not place the cache, or take my chances.
As others have stated, you want the membership for the PQ's, not the extra caches.
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Ech. Moose are dangerous creatures to hit. If you hit a deer odds are you'll get away with some minor damage to your car. Hit a moose and you're screwed. They are so tall and heavy that they often crash through windshields. Even if they don't hit your car, keep clear of them in the wild. An angry moose will mess you up.
I had an ecounter with a Moose when I was a kid (8 years old). I believe it was in Maine (somewhere north east US, don't think it was in Nova Scotia). We turned the corner of this windy country road and saw a moose standing in the middle of the road. We had plenty of time to stop safely, and were about 20ft from her. We watched it for a bit. It looked at us, and started walking along the road away from us. We followed it for about a half a mile, keeping our 20ft distance. It apparently didn't develop a great opinion of us during our bonding session as it suddenly stopped, looked back at us, uriniated, and trotted off into a field.
We eventually lost it when it entered the woods on the far side of the field.
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No Roos here in WNY (at least i aint seen'em mate) but A White Tail jumped OVER the hood of my pick up once as I was driving.
This happened to me once as well. Driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway in foggy conditions. went around a corner and saw a deer start to leap. Cleared my PT Cruiser. Really quite an impressive feat of athleticism on the part of the deer
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The best EPE I've ever seen on my 60CSX was 6 ft. That was on a treeless mountain top. Usually it's 15-30 feet but as I mentioned before that number is not necessarily true indicator of the accuracy.
The worst consistent accuracy I saw on my 60CSx was 500ft, but I was in an airplane going almost 500mph at the time
In normal conditions (i.e. standing still on the ground in relatively open conditions), my best is 9ft, and my average is 14ft.
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This link may help: http://www.geocaching.com/about/glossary.aspx
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I think the reason GC.com limits the amount of caches in a PQ to 500 is due to server limits. That's an ICT problem. Every ICT Person should know about the Law of Moore that tells us that every year, limits are doubled. The speed of CPUs, the speed of the Internet, the size of Hard Disk Drivers etc etc. Alas, the limit of 500 has not been increased since at least 2003, when I joined the GC community. If the limit in 2003 was 500 and it should have been doubled each year, it should now, in 2010, be 64,000. Alright, that's really a great number, but it would really be nice to increase the number to, let's say, 1,000 or 2,500 or something. What do you think about this? The density of caches in a region has increased a lot the last years so it takes more than the maximum of 20 PQs per e-mail each week to fetch them all for the desired area. For instance, I live in the Netherlands which had about 2,500 caches in 2003 and required 5 PQs to get them all. Getting all Dutch caches is understandable for a small country (125x190 miles), but now it takes more than 20 PQs to get all Dutch caches. Increasing the limit of PQs would be very nice. Of course, the number of geocachers had also increased, but so has the power of hardware. Why does Groundspeak not increase the limit for PQs to 1,000, 2,000, 2,500 or something? I think many of us would really appreciate it. What is your opinion and does Groundspeak read this and think about this issue?
Personally I never do PQ's with 500 caches so its never bothered me. I do find the 500 cache limit on the Google Maps interface a tad annoying (tho thats a discussion for another area of the forums.
I do have an issue with your arguments that GroundSpeaks capacity for larger PQs should increase with Moores Law. If the number of users and caches was static then I could buy it, however there are many other factors that affect the resources of their server farm. First the number of users has increased dramatically since 2003. Second, they use Windows as an OS, which also sucks up more resources with each release. Third, you are making the grand assumption that they are buying new hardware, and have the same number (or more) machines than they had in 2003. Fourth, Groundspeak runs multiple services now (geocaching.com, Wherigo, Waymarking) so their resources are being split between them.
All of these factors make it possible that the resources/user have not changed nearly at the rate of Moores Law
I would be surprised if the ratio hasn't increased tho (and the announcement that the PQ limit will be raised to 1000 seems to point to this) however the lag I see on their servers from time to time seems to indicate its not at the rate of Moores Law.Not to mention that Moores Law doesn't state that computer resources double, but the number of transistors in a chip can double every 18 months. CPUs have not been getting faster at the exponential rate of Moores Law. They have been using those extra transitors to add multiple CPUs in the same chip - this means that the chip can do more processing in parallel. However this assumes that the software running on those CPUs can efficiently handle the extra processors in a machine. If it doesn't, then much of a computers resources will not being utilized.
Anyhoo, I don't know if anyone will read this, but I appreciate the mental exercise of explaining it. I didn't proof read it, so YMMV.
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You could just go ahead and log your find. But if you want to imagine that there is a rule saying that if you didn't sign the log you can't log your find, be my guest. No one can force you to log a find online if you don't think you should log one.
I personally do the "best attempt" approach to signing logs to claim a cache. Assuming I can actually get the container in my hands, but the log is unsignable (I had one that was literally a block of ice when I got to it), I still claim it online as a find, with a note stating why I didn't actually sign it. Most of the time if I can't sign the log its a "needs maintenance" log as well.
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I use mechanics gloves. You can find them at WalMart or wherever.
Mechanics gloves are great. I have a pair I use for caching, and a pair I use for general yard work.
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Okay, I just placed my cache. After I finished placing it I got the coordinates. They were accurate to 3 meters. The problem I have is that I don't know which one is west/east and which is north/south. I put them in google and it was exactly where it was. The coordinates are 40.11348 ,-74.91731. Even if I know which one is supposed to be west/east/ and which is supposed to be north/south how would I know if it was north or south? I'm confused can someone tell me exactly how to fill it in?
As I understand it, coordinates are always listed North/South first. then East/West. North and East are positive, South and West are negative, So 40.xxxxx is north, and -74.xxxx is west.
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I typically just sign my caching name and date on the physical logs, and (normally) put a longer log online. It always seemed logical to put the information online since it will (theoretically) persist for a lot longer, is searchable, and gets emailed directly to the CO.
I am also a geek at heart and putting info down on paper has become a rare occurrence for me. Data is meant to be in the cloud
The one exception to the written logs is if my wife and 5 month old son are with me. They do not have caching names, so I normally sign the logs "[date] debaere with wife and kid"
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I frequently cache with my dogs. I have two dogs (a cocker spaniel puppy and a 2 year old Brittany Spaniel). The Brittany goes a lot of places with me, including caching and the office. The puppy hasn't matured enough to take to the office, but has come with me on a couple caching trips so far.
Walking through the woods always seemed like the perfect activity to bring my dogs.
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I have a GPS mounted to my bike. I use it for all sorts of things (except caching - most caches around here are too far for me to bike).
I have a Garmin GPSMap 60CSx. Take my advice and don't get the Garmin bike mount - its flimsy. I have one of these: http://www.amazon.com/RAM-Mounting-Systems...2351&sr=8-1 (RAM mount - got it at amazon.com). Its very sturdy, and my GPS has always remained solidly attached to it. Its a bit more money, but well worth the extra cash for a much better and more secure mount.
My bike is a hybrid bike (think mountain bike with tires more appropriate for roads). I am not particularly gentle with my bike. I wouldn't trust my GPSr with anything less.
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After reading the forums quite a bit lately, Ive noticed a lot of animosity towards those who don't log DNF's. I use my find count more to keep me organized in my caching than any bragging rights (maybe because its still around 50) but I am worried that some cachers would accuse me of not logging a DNF.
Sometimes I wont log a DNF if I plan to come back the next day. The simple reason is that I did a cache once that was full of DNFs by the same person and it was annoying to read through and I dont want to log 5 DNFs on the same cache in a row. I dont mind logging a DNF if I didnt find it and I know I wont be back within 24 hours, but I dont want to hijack the on line log sheet. So my question is this: Do you log a DNF even if youre coming right back? If so, do you log every time you revisit or just edit your first log? And finally, if caching is REALLY "not about the numbers", why do people care about OTHER PEOPLE'S DNF count?
Please dont leave snide remarks, Im new here; and Im trying to learn!
I leave a DNF for every time I've actually searched for the cache, or if I was thwarted in my attempts to reach the GZ.
Times I have left DNFs:
- I searched for a while,. didn't come up with the goods
- A lot of muggles in the area
- an area looked sketchy and I didn't feel comfortable doing a search
- Couldn't get to the area due to obstructions (in on case it was a really icy trail I didn't feel comfortable walking on)
Times I did not leave a DNF:
- I didn't reach GZ for reasons aside from being physically able too. I've been on my way to a GZ and walked away before reaching the GZ because I ran out of time (had places I needed to be), had a diaper emergency (caching with 5 month olds adds a new dimension to the game) or I simply ran out of steam.
Rule of thumb: if my DNF log can provide useful information to others, I log it. If its just trivia, then I don't.
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I have met a couple, one prematurely.
My first cacher encounter was at the overlook at Niagara Falls ON. I was going into the pavilion to get some fresh batteries for my GPSr, passed a couple heading out. As he passed he said "Any luck?" "yep" "don't forget the virtual up the hill".
The second was in Charleston SC. I was looking under a wooden walkway for the cache. A person who was in the area (who I thought was a muggle) walked by and said "dude, you are so close to it!". Turns out he is friends with the CO.
The "premature" one was when we were talking to some folks after our Sunday School let out. We happened to mention that they were planning on caching that afternoon. Their face lit up, and they mentioned that they always wanted to try it. Two hours later, after acquiring lunch, they had their first find
They've since gone on to have >30 now and 1 hide, which is pretty good considering their first find was a month ago. -
I had an idea for a cache but was unsure if fell into the ALR category which Geocaching.com does not allow.
It's a puzzle cache. To the get right latitude and longitude you would have to watch specific movies (of my choosing of course) and in a particular scene you would see (as example) an 8 or 52 or 121 or whatever. Those numbers would then be used to for the cache location. The cache would have only one waypoint, you would just need to watch the movies to get the location.
I would provide the number of minutes into the movie where the number could be located.
Does that sound doable or acceptable to the powers that be?
I think it is within the rules, however I would be annoyed to have to go rent, or otherwise acquire, these movies in order to get the clues. How about using publicly available material that everyone already has access to like YouTube videos (as an example)?
No magic formula.
I would be surprised if the ratio hasn't increased tho (and the announcement that the PQ limit will be raised to 1000 seems to point to this) however the lag I see on their servers from time to time seems to indicate its not at the rate of Moores Law.
They've since gone on to have >30 now and 1 hide, which is pretty good considering their first find was a month ago.
Caching in other parts of the world...
in General geocaching topics
Posted
You might want to load up some maps, but the GPSr will work no problem. I've used oa 60CSx in Belgium/France without a hitch. The "global" part of GPS is not just a marketing ploy
The only GPS issue I had in Europe/Ireland was the GPS on my blackberry not working. I believe it has something to do with how it uses cell towers to provide hints to the GPS, which it doesn't get over there, so it never locks onto the satellites (i.e. bad engineering on RIMs part) It doesn't sound like you have this problem tho