JustBeingJolly

After a 4th of July, hunting virtuals, and enjoying the D.C. fireworks, we went to Fuddruckers, in Chinatown. I visited the bathroom, taking the GPS out of my pocket and placing it on top of the toilet paper roll. It was well after we had finished eating and I was heading home, when, at Metro Center, I patted my pocket, and realized that I had left my GPS. Used my cell to call the restaurant, as I headed back over there. Someone had found it and had turned it over to the employees. That was neat. Thank you, whoever you are.

About the 2-sided Velcro straps--they are wonderful! I bought the smaller ones at Staples (5 to a pack), and the larger ones at Home Depot. The larger ones are meant for heavy-duty use, like managing garden hoses, etc. All have a wider end with a hole that you can feed the other end through. This way, at least on my little area of the planet, they find permanent places on my cables and cords. Being an amateur radio operator, I have all kinds of cords, and the straps make for a quick setup/takedown. I don't know if this helps you, but I think I have another idea of something I can tuck into a cache! Good luck in your search. I know REI carries a backpack cover in a case that both clips nicely onto a 1" wide strap and clips into a standard 1" squeeze-snap buckle, but I doubt that helps with a backpack like you describe. They have all sorts of doodads, so you might find what you're looking for.

If someone posted what you consider to be spoiler(s), is it possible for you to encrypt that part of their message?

Congratulations, Rob!

It turned out to be a great weekend, in all aspects. The weather was good. The radio stuff went well. I hid one tupperware-like container cache, and 3 micros from there. The tupperware and one micro were hidden as 1/1s, but the other two micros were in plain sight, but not in places where one would normally look, so they were very hard to find. It was nice to be on the other side of the cache(s). I also learned that you can just walk into a photo processing store and they'll give you micro-cache containers by the dozen! And to think, I threw a bunch of them away a few years back in one of my decluttering modes [This message was edited by JustBeingJolly on June 30, 2003 at 08:09 PM.]

Wish I'd seen this post before I logged off on Friday. As a matter of fact, we did camp out, so were there continuously from Saturday, at 9 a.m, through about 3 p.m., Sunday.

Oops, sorry, I failed to make the location clear, and thanks, Rob, for correcting my oversight. Rob(and anyone, for that matter), if you want to, stop by and say hello. Some members of our club have found your caches. You are excellent at hiding them.

One other thing... Per the Frequently Asked Questions, here's how radio helps geocaching: quote:Do you have an FRS/PMR channel to find out if other Geocachers are in the area? Yes. The community has decided on channel 2 as the primary for both FRS and PMR, and 12 as the alternate FRS (Family Radio Service) channel and 8 for the alternate PMR (Europe). FRS and PMR radios are longer distance walkie talkies, like the Motorola Talkabout.

This is from the justification for archiving a Field Day event: quote:The thinking is that outside events scheduled for a specific purpose should not be posted as event caches, even if geocachers are invited. Unless a geocacher is hosting an event specifically for geocachers it cannot be listed on the site. Take a closer look at the two controversial events, and try not to make assumptions about them. Volkswagen: Is Volkswagen a geocacher? I was always under the impression that they were an automobile manufacturer. Is the event corporate-sponsored, or locally sponsored by a VW club? The title of the event says "VW Club", yet the text says that "Volkswagen is seeking a select few...," which implies corporate. The VW club might hand out membership applications and information while corporate might hand out sales brochures and model information. This makes a difference as to whether it is only about geocaching, or if it's a pre-sales event dressed up as a cache event. There is a banquet and awards ceremony, which gives the appearance of corporate rather than club money being spent. I'd find it hard to believe at such a gathering that the subject matter wouldn't stray from only geocaching to Volkswagen-related talk. Is the event for any geocachers, or only those who are just owners of Volkswagens? Do participants feel comfortable, or do they dread a possible sales pitch? Ham radio. Are the hams geocachers? Are they asking for just Field Day events, which only happen once per year, or meetings and hamfests which happen several times per year? Don't just assume that they want to leave a logbook in a can on a table, and point you to it. Read the description closely for the intent. Are they giving a detailed account of their entire setup, or are they giving a brief synopsis of what a seeker can expect to see when he visits? Can a seeker find the cache, take an item, sign the logbook, and leave without having to interact with the amateurs, or must he ask the amateur(s) for insruction upon arriving at the event? Does he feel obligated to stick around and watch radio for a while, or is he satisfied with a cursory look for a couple of minutes? Maybe he simply wants to meet the geocacher-ham who placed the cache. Does the cache have amateur-related material, or standard cache stuff, or some combination of both? Does the seeker feel comfortable or uncomfortable with any aspect of this? Can you make some published guidelines for various members of the geocaching.com volunteers to guide them with what they have been tasked to do. Perhaps some boilerplate text is needed to address unacceptable attributes of to-be-archived items. Taking this text from the official rules would make members feel like the rules are applied fairly and evenly. Break the rules down into an outline would make this much easier, with details numbered out from there. That will help everyone locate the aspects of the regulations that apply to a cache thay are trying to place. Put effective dates on each of the items, so everything is clear. I would also suggest, that if you get paid event listings, if that's in fact what the Volkswagen event is, that they be labeled as such. Newspapers do this with advertisements that even remotely resemble the editorial content. Have the rules in one place, even if it creates a very long page. That way, the user can use his browser to search for keywords and save some time. Whatever you do, don't ask him to do research through old discussion threads to interpret and determine if a cache is suitable, unless maybe you want a new area of the legal profession known as a cache law where you retain an attorney to do the research and interpret all the different rules, precedents and rulings. quote:However, we honor the posting of older caches that came in before the rule was issued. We'd love to post everything, but we're trying to keep the noise to content ratio low. We're working on new ways to open up the site for all sorts of waypoints, so who knows what the future may hold? How about changing "before the rule was issued." to "before the new rule was posted." At least there would be some concrete date to refer to, instead of ambiguous time frames. That would go perfectly with your outlined rules with dates. When you have a group of people who rely on you for some type of information and, especially, if you benefit financially from this, it is well worth your time and investment to keep an ear on the feedback and look for the messages that are being sent. Complaints and anger among the members is a symptom of something that needs to be addressed, and failure to do so, can jeopardize your investment

...stop on by and say hello. Some other geocachers and I will be with our amateur radio club, participating in Field Day. We'll be there from about 9:00 a.m., this Saturday, straight through until Sunday afternoon. Just look for all the tents and antennas as you pull in from 123.

I appreciate that you wanted both archived. That decision would have sat well with me. I wouldn't have been happy about it, but it would have felt fair. See El Oso's post above. You might want to know that had I never gotten into ham radio, I might also never have gotten into geocaching. It was another ham who told me about it, and got me interested in it. She's gotten many other people interested in it as well and not just hams. You might also want to know that hams talk on the radio a lot. Lots of people with scanners listen to hams talking on the radio. We don't talk about all ham radio, all the time, either. Field Day could have been a very good growth point for geocaching. That is the ultimate goal, isn't it? Perhaps you might privately ask the owner of the approved FD cache and see what he thinks and what suggestions he might have to offer. He probably didn't plan to be the only FD cacher out there. He may have wanted to compare notes with other FD cachers after the event, but now he won't be able to do that. Thank you for promising to be better about these things in the future. Nobody likes to plan a doomed cache. It takes time away from finding them

mtn-man, I still disagree with you, though I thank you for taking the time to provide a more detailed explanation for the reasoning behind this decision, and you were kinder about it, which I appreciate. These were event caches that were related to a subject area on GC.com's forums, and there was a similar cache approved with no official announcement anywhere saying that type of cache was prohibited. So, while I acknowledge that people do make mistakes, I do not think I have things backward. Let me restate this in "restaurantese" for ya. It would be like if the menu says groups of 10 or more are subject to a 15% gratuity, but when the bill comes, the gratuity is actually charged at a rate of 25%. When the waitron is asked about this, he says, "Yeah we made the decision back in March, but we forgot to correct the menus before they went to the printer. How silly of you to expect us to stand by what the menu said." So you have several groups of people who are upset because they didn't get the information they needed before investing their time in eating the meal at a restaurant, and then were faced with an indifferent waitron when they tried to address the situation. Hydee may not have wanted to disappoint the approved-cacher, but I think she probably disappointed a lot of other people in the process

If you look at the cache that was approved, it was "hidden" or posted on 6/10/2003. If you look at the archived/not approved cache that is in the first post of this message, Honeychile's message says (emphasis mine): quote:Bert, I am really sorry but I cannot approve the ham radio field day(s) as a geocaching event. This has already been discussed by the admins and a decision made that it is not a 'caching event back in March. It has been denied by every other ham afficionado who proposed it (you're not the only one -- folks in several other states have all been denied event caches for field day). The thinking is that outside events scheduled for a specific purpose should not be posted as event caches, even if geocachers are invited. Unless a geocacher is hosting an event specifically for geocachers it cannot be listed on the site. As highlighted in bold, the decision was made in March, but the cache was not posted until June. This was a result of a discussion amongst the admins. Problem is, none of these admins bothered to post an announcement concerning this decision, even though they were aware of an interest on the part of hams in doing so. So, someone started a thread in the GPS and Ham Radio forum, and another ham posted his info on his Field Day cache. I assume the boards are moderated, but none of the moderators posted anything about the March decision or anything about how the Field Day caches were not allowed. So, hams that were planning for Field Day planned some event caches and probably wondered if it was okay to post such an event cache, as I did. They saw the Field Day thread and the listing of the approved cache, checked out the particulars of the cache, and figured, as I did, that it was okay, then posted their own. Which were then archived as not being geocaching events. Let me reiterate. Nowhere, either in the discussion boards or on the website, was it announced that Field Day caches weren't allowed. When this policy, or lack thereof, is questioned by a ham that tried to place a similar event cache, and who's suggestion that the idea that archiving the approved cache was dismissed by "Hydee" as being "silly". She further states that the approved cache will not be archived because it was approved before the decision was made. Maybe I just buy defective calendars, or something, but the last time I checked, June (when the approved cache was posted) typically occurs after March (when the admins made the decision not to approve such caches). What I don't like is that a cache-type that "Hydee" says is against the rules is approved and the other similar cache-types are archived. This is grossly unfair. If this were just about the rules, all caches of that type would be archived. As I see it, Jeremy and his crew saw some upcoming issues, if they had the meeting about it and made a decision. They made no effort to address this issue with the actual users of this site. I don't see why hams who wish to place an event cache have to be penalized by the admin's failure to communicate and by the stubbornness displayed by not archiving a cache that violate the rules that "Hydee" keeps throwing in our faces. Regarding the general idea that event caches shouldn't be placed by predominantly non-geocaching-centric events, I agree. However, judging from the presence of the "GPS and Ham Radio" area of the discussion boards, hams are interested in geocaching, geocachers are showing interest in ham radio, and the admins are well aware of this. I don't see that posting a Field Day cache is that farfetched an idea. In light of this, I suggest that the Field Day special event caches all be approved (it's all of what, 24 hours?), and let the entire geocaching community, rather than just a small subset of geocachers in Washington, make the choice whether to visit these caches and learn about ham radio. A few hams took the time to plan these event-caches, so it wouldn't be fair if one ham got to place his while the other hams were turned down. I might add that these hams have family and friends that they often bring to Field Day. I'd hate to think that somebody's stubbornness might keep geocaching from experiencing more growth, or geocachers from discovering ham radio, if that's what they wish to do. I would also like Jeremy to chime in on this. This whole thing has generated a lot of ill-will, and Hydee is not helping the situation with her dismissive, defensive and insulting attitude