thirtyfootscrew

Hello All, Just wondered if any geocachers also use XBox Live? If so, my gamertag is [edited] - join me for a game of something sometime, I have the following games: Project Gotham 2 Rainbow Six 3 Counter Strike XIII Midtown Madness 3 Moto GP 2 Sorry to everyone else for posting such a blatantly off-topic post!

I've not been to any meets yet so this hasn't really come up for me but I like to use a consistent nick on the internet. I don't mind people knowing my real name and anyone enterprising could find out in about 30 seconds if they tried. My name's Ash by the way.

I've always liked walking but sometimes you just don't know where to go, the main draw for me is that searching for a cache gives me a target and somewhere nice to go - most caches are placed in nice countryside and I've had some great walks whilst caching. The initial intrest came from the fact that I've always been intrerested in geography and maps and working in IT means I have a fondness for gadgets too.

If I detect incoming muggles I usually do one of two things: (1) Unfold my OS map over cache and pretend I'm planning my route (can be prone to people offering to help you find your way). (2) Grab a bit of food out of my bag and pretend I'm having lunch (most caches looking like lunchboxes). At one site I was just replacing the cache and I heard voices so I quickly went for option (2) and grabbed some food. The family that was coming round the corner saw me sat by a tree eating and decided that I had picked a great spot to have a picnic then sat down, got out their food and started eating too. I waited a while but they looked pretty settled so I used option (1) to cover their line of sight and very carefully replaced the cache, resumed eating for a while then left. Tricky business this geocaching!

I'm not sure about free sites either but I know you can get a year's hosting and domain registration for about £30-40. Mine costs £40 per year with 100Mb space and 0.5Gb bandwidth but I know there are better deals out there than that. As a tip, try and get unlimited MySQL databases - I find that if I want to try out PHP scripts it's really handy to give each script it's own DB as it's much easier to clean up afterwards.

Cheers for the article, a nice entertaining read. I particularly liked the awards section and I'll be doing pheasibility studies to work out which ones I can manage and when!

I for one will be pleased with myself when I hit 100, especially as I've done most of my caches on foot and by public transport. It's not a race or a competition but I do like to set goals for myself.

You're not alone in that one, I mostly use an ebook reader on my mobile to read the notes and (already decrypted) hints from the .prc file but at the beginning I used to take printouts and decrypt in the field. I too could read some words without using the key such as 'tree stump', 'hollow', 'hidden', etc.

Thanks for the recommendations people, I shall put them on my ‘to do’ list and do the research, cheers. I also find the debate interesting and both sides certainly have merit and I might as well add my opinions to the thread as well. I’m an atheist as are most of my family so religion doesn’t come into it so the most important consideration for me is that of respect. I understand the viewpoint that that playing a game in someone’s final resting place may sound disrespectful if put that way I think there are other things which come along with our presence at these locations. When I visit a graveyard I tend to read many of the epitaphs on the older graves and some of them are definitely very moving or indeed interesting, personally I would be honoured if in 200 years time people are visiting my grave for whatever reason. I understand that not everyone will feel this way but I think most of us will treat graves and graveyards with the utmost respect and I think that rev-n-doc’s suggestion about cache-in-trash out is an excellent one. If people don’t visit these old graves then they’ll be forgotten and demolished and I doubt any of us like that idea. Cheers, Thirtyfootscrew.

I've always liked graveyards, especially old ones - some of the epitaphs prove to be very interesting reads. I also think it's nice to walk around and think how life may have been for those people. Since I started geocaching I've visited a few as a matter of course: GCD657, GCGTZE and GCGTZK. What does everyone else think about graveyard caches, any to recommend? I get to many parts of the country for various reasons but my main caching areas are Herts/Beds/Bucks or North Lincolnshire. Cheers, Thirtyfootscrew.

Geocaching was mentioned in the 'Get the most out of your GPS' talk by the guy from gpstraining.co.uk (at the Memory Map stand), it was only brief (and they didn't mention geocaching.com), a few people looked knowing and a few looked interested.

I use GPS Babel but find it works best if I convert to PCX5 format (extension WPT) and then 'Import' them into Mapsource (as opposed to converting straight to MPS then opening).

From a basic search I get 402, most of those will be from the Watford end of things. It appears that the Herts/Beds/Bucks area is pretty dense, mainly due to The Hornet and Dan+Pid though!

I think it’s a great idea, I have some web space with a hosting company (so sadly not my own server) so I might have a go at creating some WAP pages and think of ideas that could use them. Some networks also support developers developing location-based service (though obviously these are no where near as accurate as GPS). Out of interest, how are you interfacing with the network operators (or an SMS service provider)? The only ways I can think that wouldn’t require an ‘always on’ Internet connection are: 1. Using a managed service (£££££) 2. Periodic Dialup (difficult to implement) 3. Some kind of radio device (is this possible?) One thing to be careful of is that sometimes there can be a significant lag-time between sending an SMS out and the user receiving it. This could be very frustrating if you’re in the field, send your answer and don’t receive a response for 5-10 mins. It’s rare but it does happen – it’d also play havoc with time trials. Failing that, another telecoms solution would be for the cacher to place a call to a number (could be an 0800), you could get them to call one number at the start of a multi to receive the first clue (an answer-phone would do this) then call another number at the end of the multi to prove they’ve completed it. That way you know exactly how long they’ve been going. I work for a telecom company so sorry about the jargon.

I think the furthest I've walked in a day was 16 miles from North to East Aylesbury though I'd say a good few miles of that was strictly unintentional! I usually aim for about 10 miles as I find my feet get a bit too tired after about 12.

Thanks guys, I'll look forward to the trip.

Hi, Thanks for the input guys, I think the yellow may be a good way to go. Happy Caching!

Hi, I know this question has probably been asked before but I couldn't turn it up through searching so here's my situation... A friend has asked for advice about buying a GPS for Geocaching but doesn't want to spend too much money. I have a Garmin Etrex Vista and I would say that despite the street-level mapping that the feature I couldn't live without is the digital compass. My friend is looking to buy a receiver but with a lower budget (probably the yellow eTrex). My problem is that I can't work out how you'd go about using a GPRr without a compass. My understanding leads me to believe that in order to get a bearing from the unit you'd have to be moving in a straight line (for the GPS to pickup the direction), is this correct? I am well aware that a huge number of people use the eTrex so it must be more than adequate but my friend is concerned that he'd have difficulty finding caches once he got in the general area. Any comments by current or past eTrex users would be greatly appreciated. Cheers.

Hello, I have a few suggestions for enhancements based on the SETI website (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/), I think it would be very interesting to see some good statistics about chaches, cachers, countries, etc. Examples could be: Total Stats (see http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/totals.html) e.g. Total Caches, Total Found in last 24h, Daily Totals, Monthly Totals, Yearly Totals. Country Stats (see http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/countries.html) e.g. Caches by Country, Users by Country, Finds by Country Cache Types e.g. Number of Caches by Type, Number of Finds by Type, Number of Non-Finds by Type, % Times Found/Not Found by Type There are hundreds of possibilities, have a look at the SETI site – they have user stats (see here) and you can join virtual groups (see here). I think it’s a great idea. I have plenty of experience with reporting and stats through my work so I'd be happy to create some examples if someone could send me the data. If I had access to the entire data-set then I'd be willing to create/maintain my own site for the stats. I'm sure there are loads of others out there who'd have ideas about this. Cheers, Thirtyfootscrew.

Hi, I'm visiting Kobenhavn next month (and probably Malmo too), I think I might release one of my travel bugs but I wondered what to do regarding language. I've not created a 'mission' for it yet but it'll probably be centred on Scandinavia generally. Will I be OK adding the message in English only or should I try to get it converted to Danish and maybe Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian? Thanks for your help, Thirtyfootscrew.