Iowa Tom

I have discovered that what are now affordable and easily available NEODYMIUM SUPERMAGNETS are absolutely spectacular to use for caches needing a source of magnetism. I myself use a lot of them for geocaches. They are so strong that even two 1/4 inch by 1/8th inch thick ones will stick one on each side of my hand! I get them at Hobby Lobby. They are called Power Magnets there. I only pay about three bucks for a set of ten of the smallest ones, described above, the same amount for six of the next size up and three dollars for three of the 1/2 inch diameter jobbies. They are all but impossible to get apart unless you slide them apart. Just don't get them near your computer or TV screen, unless of course you don't mind seeing the image get shrunk down to nothing after which your screen may be ruined. If you want to make a magnetic cache, I strongly recommend these magnets. There are many demonstrations that use Nd magnets here. -it

I have found that epoxy glue is worthless when it comes to holding stuff to caches that are left outside. The best glue that I have discovered is GOOP. It's awesome stuff! I use it by the bucket load, or so it seems. It never gets hard nor does it crack or yellow in time. I get it at Menards. -it

I camouflage ALL my caches as well as I can. I use the paint advertised here. It comes in five flat colors. I could only find it for sale as individual cans at Menards. Every other store rep said I’d have to order a case of each color! I also use flat gray primer and a little red-brown primer. To make it look really good, I lay grass or leaves, or as in one case where the cache was going to be in an evergreen, the leaves of that evergreen onto the container and paint over it. That gives a hint of natural vegetation shapes to the subtle markings left by the paint. Usually I begin with a base coat of the color that I want the leaves and such to have in the end. The result is sometimes quite beautiful! I have also taken the 3M scrub pads and pulled them apart down the center, making a scraggly side. I glue the smooth side to the small cache and paint it using appropriate camouflage colors. My ultimate goal is to someday take a small paint brush and color the (small caches anyway) to match the bark or whatever I have it attached to as closely as possible. I will attempt to paint bark or grass etc. in detail onto the container. If I use a plastic container as a cache I usually wrap the plastic with camouflaged duct tape I get at Walmart. Since that fades to cyan in short order I paint over the top of the tape with Rustoleum flat colors. That way, if the paint flakes off the tape at least I buy some more time with camouflage before the tape turns cyan. Even if it does in patches where the paint flakes off it’s better than a white or a colorless spot! The tape also holds onto the plastic much better than any paint does and the paint sticks to the tape well. -it

This is not profound by any means but may be of help to beginners. When I make a waypoint I have discovered that it’s best to hold the GPSr still, antennae up, for AT LEAST 2.5 minutes and preferably for 10. That way the GPSr has time to average many readings from the satellites. I tested this technique by positioning my Magellan Sportrak Map over a GPS coordinated aerial survey marker in the schoolyard where I teach. I know the coords of that spot with great accuracy. I watched the readout change over time and saw that it rather leveled off after about 2.5 minutes and stopped changing within reason by 10 minutes. I made a nifty PVC pipe holder to mount my GPSr onto the top of a tripod to let it average while I mess around doing other things. It has a hole in the side that allows me to make the waypoint using a ball point pen without having to lift the GPSr out of the tube. Now, when I go to hunt for a cache, assuming the coords are accurate, I get reasonably close, stop and remain in one spot to allow the GPSr to average readings for a couple minutes. Then I look to see how far and in what direction I should move. I move that direction and distance then stop and repeat the process at least once. Then I begin wandering in ever increasing circles to attempt to locate the cache. This info on the Net that seems to verify this method. -it

I hope this post is not to far off the wall to be OK. The other day I was watching a TV special devoted to crop circles. I wanted to know if there were any coords given for any of them thar things and, much to my surprise, I discovered there is a teraserver photo showing one. It’s in Wisconsin! The URL was listed at a site I visited. The image is here. The coord is close to 42.97963 by -89.55468, near Verona, WI, a few miles SW of Madison. Anybody know of any other teraserver images in the USGS collection that show such things? I wish one were near me so I could look into putting a cache there. [Hmmmm. That might be able to be arranged next season. I live in Iowa, the corn state. Just kidding. I see there is a night cache 0.8 miles from the spot in WI. I also discovered that several people already have caches named “Crop Circles.” About the “circles,” I picked up the following from the Net. “One of the first crop circles made in the United States appeared at Kennewick, Washington on May 29, 1993. [Apparently the fad hadn’t caught on in the US till then.] Relatively few formations have been made in the U.S compared to England, where crop circles first appeared and variations of the same designs have been made in the same fields repeatedly. [i wonder if the farmer turns the damage in as an insurance claim?] The majority of crop circles in the U.S. have been in coastal states -– Washington, Oregon and New York between 1993 and 1996. A few have been scattered in inland -- Montana, Nebraska, Idaho, Utah and eastern areas.” [Apparently Midwest Martians are slow to catch on. ] As I was watching the crop circle show I was thinking about why we never hear of "snow circles." I wouldn’t think it would be all that hard for the crop circle force to make marks in snow. Oh yeah, maybe that’s why they don’t exist. The footprints of the artists making the circles would lead up to the spot and would be obvious! Along those same lines, what about “spontaneous human combustion?” My question is, why don’t cows or sparrows or, better yet, mosquitoes ever light up? Why is it always humans that go poof? Maybe it’s because cows DON’T light up, with cigs that is. I wonder if camels ever combust? Anybody see any blackened ground where I could hide a spontaneous combustion cache? -it

I feel for you. I had one that had as a key component a Bible in it. The multi-cache was called "Keys To The Kingdom." No pun intended. Anyway, the Bible along with all the other stuff with it was lifted from the ammo box! At least the box was left alone. Thou shalt NOT steal! -it

At my (Tom's) Corner of the Iowa Geocachers Organization I recently posted this article which may be of interest here.The article is titled, "The Way I Secure Fire Tacks To Trees". -it

Hello, I will take (and appreciate) the opportunity to introduce myself. I’m Tom, AKA Iowa Tom, simply abbreviated –it when I’ll feeling particularly melancholy. I can’t say that I have been lurking on these forums because I’ve been preoccupied with teaching five subjects in science, maintaining and designing new “teaching caches” and writing things for my Tom’s Corner at the Iowa Geocachers Organization website to name but a few. To maintain my sanity (just kidding), I would like yet another distraction, so I may now be snooping around this part of the great electron pie in the sky from now on. As a career I’m responsible for teaching 8th grade middle school science, 9th grade physical science, 10th grade biology, chemistry and last but certainly not least, an advanced course about human anatomy and physiology. Try being abreast in all those areas each and every day. Actually it’s not too bad since I’ve “lived” science for as long as I can remember, and that has been a long time. “A small step man, a giant leap for mankind,” was uttered the same month that I graduated from high school. Before teaching, beginning 12 years ago, I worked as a photographer in a defense industry. As far as what I like doing to keep myself occupied [outside of school work], other than geocaching, I’ve done much in (1) nature photography (mostly macro), (2) 3-D (stereo) photography--I use the “Lilliputian effect,” a technique which gives the viewer the impression that distant objects, Like Mt. Rushmore are wonderfully detailed toys!), There’s a stereo pair amongst my images here, (3) making and working with electronic gizmos [including electronic caches] like this and this and this, (4) astronomy (especially satellite observing: one and two and, (5) what else, oh yeah, collecting lake superior agates and fossils. I really enjoy designing and making my own cache containers and almost always try to teach something, like Newton's 3rd law with every one. In other words, I offer the opportunity for someone to learn if they WANT to. To keep mugglers from finding the cache innards, I make many of them a puzzle to get open. Some are so hard to figure out that I have to give detailed instructions to thwart geo-frustrations. I use a lot of fake birdhouses because mugglers tend to walk by them. I ALWAYS use camouflage paint and other materials to blend my caches into the surroundings, ALWAYS. The following three cache sequences are some that I really put A LOT of the work into. Few accept the challenge of going through the process but I can say to myself that I did accept the challege of making them. One , two and three. Gotta go! Tom

I own several micros. I knew that some people don’t like to hunt them for whatever reason but I never would have expected that someone would call for a ban or regulation of them. Wow! I may ruffle some feathers by saying this but to me, a well camouflaged micro is a whole lot less like an “artifact” left in the woods than an ammo box or a Tupperware container. That’s just me I suppose. One of my big pet peeves is finding a white or brightly colored bottle or a whitish Tupperware container having no camouflage at all on it left in the open or easily discoverable. There is just something about that “plastic in the woods look” that gets me. Rustoleum makes camouflaged flat paint in five colors and it’s not that hard to make a cache much less obvious than what it looks like straight off the shelf. I try to hide most of my micros either in some unique way or I use a micro to lead someone to a very special area. I make that clear in my description. What is more, I cannot afford to stock a lot of bigger containers anyway, as I own a lot of caches. I’ve constructed some micro containers where there was nothing available that would exactly fit the bill. E.g. one of my micros had been pilfered twice so I decided to hide it in a new spot where nobody would find it accidentally. The spot is a small diameter blast hole drilled into a huge glacial erratic that was trimmed to widen a road. A short 1/2 inch dia copper tube with an 8 – 32 threaded rod down its middle and with a removable cap on the end through which the threaded rod screws worked very well. It’s even waterproof and is not seen by casual observers. To retrieve it one needs an iron wire or a rod to attract the magnet that’s glued to either end of the tube. One person did find that chewing gum worked in a pinch. By the way, I find that film cans are terrible in that ALL leak: even the ones that I have that are 20 years old and have lids that you practically have to pry off with your teeth!

.....relying on the Number Watching This Cache to act as a benchmark for importance is now moot. It may be to some degree but I can tell you that I know that at some point in time a particular cache was worthy of someone's attention. The ones that I have that are being watched are ones that should be watched, considering their uniqueness. Ones that are most popular seem to be ones that have bugs deposited in them. Tom

Sometimes I place the log papers inside a waterproof match container that I in turn put inside the regular cache container. I get the match containers at Wal-Mart for less than a buck apiece. I developed a nifty two sided table that works very well when cut into strips that I put in the match container. I’m considering cutting up some Tyvec envelopes I have to use as “paper” that will hold up under any conditions. You can write on it with a pen for sure. See http://www.tyvek.com/whatistyvek.htm if you want to know what Tyvek is. I remember seeing it for the first time as a tear out sample in the fold of a Life Magazine almost 40 years ago. When I used to work as a photographer/photo-salesman I would see people all the time that kept silica gel packets in their camera bags indefinitely. Obviously the gel could not continue to be absorb water forever without being redesiccated [by using heat] every once in a while. I found on the Net that some silica gels can at best absorb 35% their own weight in water. That’s impressive considering that at best air can only hold 4 % by mass water vapor and that would amount to NO MORE THAN 0.0000516 g water per cubic meter of air! In other words, it doesn’t take a lot of water to saturate a given volume of air but, unless the gel pack is kept in a well sealed container, it will expire, no doubt about it. I cannot be sure how long though; to many variables to consider. I myself use silica gel to keep a little electronic device I have in a cache dry. I better replace it soon however. Tom

In another post I asked recently if an owner can know who is watching a cache they own only because I would like to talk to the watchers about that specific cache once in a while. Posting a note hoping to “fish out” the onlooker/s seems to be the least private thing of all. Even though it doesn’t reveal anyone, it ‘could,’ I think, make the onlooker a bit uncomfortable. By the way, I couldn’t care less who knows which caches and bugs I’m watching. Knowing how many people are watching my caches gives me a sort of vague rating about the importance of the cache. As I recall, I have seen that as soon as it's listed there is someone watching it. Is that someone me or am I dreaming? Thanks, Iowa Tom, AKA -it

I am curious if there is a way to know what geocachers are watching your caches. I know that 1 watcher is the owner but any more than that includes other people. I would think the owner of a cache would have that knowledge as an option. If not, why not? Anybody have any idea? Iowa Tom

I will be taking care of this request this Wednesday. Iowa Tom Waterloo, IA

Hey JohnnyVegas, Is there something about the Delorme or Microsoft software that you don't like other than the little GPSr they come with? I thought about using the little GPSr that comes with them because I have no holder for my Magellan. It's also big enough to block a significant part of my window. I also find that my GPSr interferes greatly with AM radio reception if placed on the dash. I wonder if the other units do that as well? As far as scanned topos go, I think that both softwares are the same. Descriptions of the two are at http://gpsnow.com/3dtquad.htm and http://gpsnow.com/ia.htm. I cannot tell for sure but it sounds like the NG flythrough might be better than the DeLorme. Thanks for the response. Hope that Santa finds his way to your place with an expansion pack. I wonder if it shows a flythrough down your chimney?

Hopefully this is not too much for one post but here goes. I sure would like any opinions about which is better for GPS and travel use: (1) Delorme's newest Earthmate that comes with a GPSr or (2) Microsoft's newest Streets and Trips that also comes with a GPSr. Also any opinions about which of these is the better product for geocaching etc. would be appreciated: (A) DeLORME 3-D TopoQuads 2.0 for individual states or ( Geographic TOPO! Shaded Relief State Series? Lastly, any thoughts about the Streets & 3-D Views Expansion Pack as an accessory to NG Topo software? Seems like the DeLorme might have that capability already. I wonder what Santa uses? Happy Holidays!

I just got this email back from the National Geographic store on the Web. As far as using my SporTrak with the NG topo software: ++++++++++ Yes, use the setting for Magellan 315. S. Gibson National Geographic Maps 800-962-1643, ext. 100 303-670-3457, ext. 100

I have a Magellan SporTrak Map GPSr and want to get the latest Delorme Street software that comes with a small GPSr of its own. It costs about $120.00 at Best Buy. (1) Can waypoints be downloaded onto the maps from Internet? (2) Can waypoints be downloaded onto the maps from my Magellan? (3) Can the tracks I've made in my Magellan be downloaded onto the maps? (4) Assuming that waypoints can be downloaded from the Net onto the maps, can I select waypoints on that software to move into my Magellan? Thanks!

I own a Magellan SporTrak Map. I want to get topo software for it. Most people are in favor of the National Geographic state by state topographic software. I looked at the compatibility list for it but didn’t see the Magellan SporTrak Map specifically listed. I saw a "Magellan Map" but not the SporTrak Map. At one dealer on the Web where they were selling the SporTrak Map they showed the National Geographic topographic software for California as an “accessory.” I’m hoping that somebody out there uses the NG topo software with this particular unit. I want to download waypoints and tracks (at least) to my computer and maybe back to the GPS again. Thanks!

Hello Team Tayjam! I must say that having a local geocaching organization has been a boon for me. I really like the fact that many of the posts to the organization are limited to topics of local interest. The Eastern Iowa group, which has a very nice website by the way, has proven to be a great way to meet local people with pastimes we have in common; people that I myself might not ever have met otherwise. The souls that I've been introduced to so far have enriched my life, no bones about it. When we have a local event, the group planners communicate at length with each other in a private sort of way before the details are released to the rest of the geocachers. The local membership benefits from this the most. I really don't think there's a big need to directly share all the details with everybody in the Great Plains area although they are certainly welcome to any public events. If there is someone far off that's that interested they will probably see the event posted on the main geocaching site anyway. Mind telling us what part of the state of Iowa you are located in? I'm in NE Iowa myself.