LSUFan

I was wanting to see what the first cache placed in my home state was. I can do pq's by dates that will return results showing active and inactive caches. I was wanting to see if there were some older than these that may have gotten archived. Does anyone know of a way to do this? I figured GC had to keep them in the database for logs from previous finders. Any help would be appreciated.

PayPal'd for my two ----Thanks again.

Kilted Cacher, I would like two coins but will take one for sure if that's all available by the time my name comes up. Thanks LSUFan

Briansnat was absolutely correct in that your pocket pc isn't made for the elements. Sometimes though, when that cache is just within a few feet of the car, human nature is just gonna push you to take the pocket pc with you instead of grabbing a dedicated gps. Take my advice and get you at least one of these from Wal-Mart, and make sure to insert your pocket pc into EVERY time you get out of the car. It's also handy to keep it around your neck. I know all of this from experience. There was no water anywhere around, except where I dropped my pocket pc into it . http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=2553355 As far as software, gpxsonar and mapopolis has been the winning combination for all of my geocaching group. One of the main things you have to keep in mind for your pocket pc is speed and memory. This is where certain programs excel over others. The Maryland Geocachers Sociey has an excellent article on their website about this. They influenced my decisions and I am quite happy with their recommendations. http://www.mdgps.org/modules.php?name=pocketcaching LSUFan

Actually, there are a several cachers down there who are even placing new caches out. I sent a private message thru our LA geocaching organizations website to a geocacher in Kenner, LA for you. This cacher is still active and placing new caches as we speak. Maybe ya will be able to log this cache together.

Another example of "you snooze, you lose". I didn't catch this forum topic until it was all over. If anybody does back out of paying, I would like anywhere from 1-3 coins myself. Just put me on the backup list in case. Thanks LSUFan

WebbWalkers, it definitely sounds like your compass has reversed poles. Getting it too close to a strong magnetic force can cause this. I'm sure you have played with magnets before. You know that when you place two magnets together, that they will only attract to each other in one direction, and if you turn them around, they will actually repel each other. You can call this North and South polarity. North and South attracts, while North/North or South/South won't. You can think of the earth as having a large magnetic bar running from the north, thru the center core, and coming out at the south end of the world. The north end of this magnet has a southern polarity and the south end of the magnet has a northern polarity. Since the earths magnetic north field actually has a southern polarity, it attracts your compass needle, which has been factory magnetized with a northern polarity. If for any reason your compass needle has it's polarity reversed, then the magnetic fields won't attract, but instead repel each other. (Technically, your reversed needle will now be attracting towards the magnetic south that has a northern polarity, but your needle's magnet may not be strong enough for this to actually happen) This sound's like what has happened to your compass. Your compass has been remagnetized by another magnet with a southern polarity. Silva has information on their website about how to fix your compass that this has happened to. http://www.silva.se/outdoor/products/comp_general.htm I'm sure there are more scientific correct terms for what I said, but this is as best I can understand and explain it. Hope it helps you understand what happened. LSUFan

I have started going to a local trophy shop and getting a small ftf trophy made up. I have the name of the cache and the GC # printed on it. They usually cost around $4. The local ftf hounds seem to really like them. They taunt each other, by posting pics of who found the trophy. Here is a link to my "Looks Greek to Me" cache trophy. The trophy shop printed everything in greek fonts to go with the theme of the cache. http://img.Groundspeak.com/cache/log/0b60b...434e58098d7.jpg

Cache-n-dash, if you want to do a little research on your own, these are a few places to begin. The Maryland Geocacher Society has an article about cachemate on their website. http://www.mdgps.org/modules.php?name=Cont...=showpage&pid=1 Also the GPSPassion website has many forums about the globalsat (and just about all other) pda gps. They also have info on all mapping software. You might want to check their site out too, to learn about your choices and pick up some tips. www.gpspassion.com

I wouldn't see any problem with that, Jkibbe. However, my geocaching partner seems to have a bad habit of becoming emotional attached to tb's. I scan his profile and have to physically go over to his house and take travel bugs from him, so they can continue on. He earned the title of the pro-cache-stinator honestly.

I think the gas stations all around do pretty good because of geocaching/geocachers. I'm wondering if the upward demand for fuel around the world is due to caching becoming more popular. Maybe somebody will do a study on this for us. I haven't checked on how much Garmins/Magellans stock prices have went up since the game began. EDIT: I went and looked at garmins stock and their revenue has definitely increased the last 3 years. I'm not sure if it's geocaching related, but it definitely couldn't hurt. http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/RevenueEPSSumma...N&selected=GRMN

Mtroop, when ask about software for your axim, are you wanting mapping software (with maybe voice guidance), software to read cache pages in the field, aerial view software, etc. You can get all of these and much more for your axim. Not knowing what you really want in the terms of software, I'm just going to provide a few links to some stuff I have on my axim X5, that I use frequently. www.mapopolis.com -----for autorouting, mapping, turn-by-turn navigation, geocaching maplet conversions, etc. It has a free trial to see if you like it. http://gpxsonar.homeip.net/default.aspx ------gpxsonar--for going totally paperless and having all the info from the website with you in the field. It's provided by another geocacher free of charge. There are many more programs out there. These are just some I recommend from my experiences. LSUFan

Advance Auto Parts stores carry them. They come in a two pack for a few bucks.

Just another little idea that you can feel free to hate is to have a small ftf trophy made at a local trophy shop. I have been doing this for some puzzle caches around here and get the gc name and number engraved on the trophy. It usually cost's me less than four dollars per trophy. The local ftf hounds really go for it. LSUFan

Thanks for your reply Mtn-Man. I, like Thot, had wondered exactly what the problem was with locationless caches. I thoroughly enjoy doing locationless caches, especially since our area doesn't have that many physical caches. I usually have to drive over a hundred miles now to find new caches. Locationless caches were a nice alternative to me. I do understand it all now after reading your take on it. I had no idea of the difficulties in the process with them.

OK, you can do it this way if you have a gps card running in your pda, a bluetooth gps running(if applicable to your pda), a standalone gps hooked up with wires, or just know from looking at a map on your pda exactly where you are and want to mark a waypoint at. If you have a gps running with mapopolis all you will do is tap on the blue dot at the #4 stage below. 1. tap on tools 2. tap on maplets 3.tap on add location 4.tap on the position on your map where you want to add a waypoint 5. then type in the location name, select category, and icon as shown in the above forum post to finish it all out. Hope this helps

Gpxtomaplet is good to use if you want to make several waypoints all at the same time. If you just want to make one waypoint, then do it one of these ways. If you know the coords of the waypoint you are wanting to set up, like say from a cache page: 1. tap on tools at the bottom of the screen 2. tap on find 3. tap on latitude/longitude 4. tap and change all of your coords for degrees, minutes, and thousandths 5. tap on add landmark 6. type in the location name for the cache GC**** (if your keyboard hasn't appeared to let you type, tap on the bottom right-hand icon to bring up the keyboard, then tap it again to close the keyboard. 7. you can type in additional info for this cache if you want to. Make sure under category(optional) that geocache is selected---it makes searching easier if you categorize it-------also under the icon option on this page, it's easier to find on the map page if you make sure the icon you select is the american flag. You change the icon associated with the cache by tapping on the left/right arrow keys beside the icon symbol. If you use the flag icon, This makes your caches appear as red dots on the maps when you are zoomed out. When they are red dots, it's easier to see them seperated from towns and communities on the maps(which by the way are yellow dots) 8. Once you have selected and changed all the options you want, then tap on OK at the top right of your screen----all done now I was going to tell you how to mark a waypoint when you have your gps going but remmebered you haven't got that far yet. Hope this helps. There is a little learning curve, like in all programs. Once you practice a little with it, you'll like it more and more.

I use mapopolis on my pocket pc and think it is great. Did you use the gpxtomaplet converter that mapopolis makes for easily converting gpx files to maplets. I'll be more than happy to go over everything you can do with mapopolis if you want to email me. The Maryland Geocaching Society has an excellent article on their website about different mapping programs to use with pocket pc. You might want to check it out. http://www.mdgps.org/modules.php?name=pocketcaching LSUFan

Like mlk3454, six of us down here in the south use our axims with gpxsonar with no problems. We however use our sd (secure digital) cards to store the info from GPXSonar on. We have all bought CF GPS cards to use in the compact flash slot. That's what is great about the X5's is the fact they have both slots on them. You can use the axim as a gps and a paperless cache holder. The best of both worlds. If you ever do go the gps route with your axim, make sure to check out mapopolis. They have a utility that will convert the gpx file you use for gpxsonar, into waypoints that show up on their maps for you to navigate to.

Mapwom, I asked the same question the night of the hurricane. I guess emotions were running pretty high that night because I had to lock the forum down after the responses started getting ugly. It does seem cooler heads are prevailing now and posting in your forum. I also thought it was a legitimate question to ask, but I guess my timing was bad. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=107181 Mtn-man, you better rest up. When everybody's lives get's back on track in LA and MS, you're going to have a ton of caches to approve.

Actually if you drink Anheiser-Busch brands, then the answer is YES, they do have something about disaster relief on their website. http://www.anheuser-busch.com/Citizenship/MakingFriends.pdf Make sure to check out page 6 of it. They tell how they started out from the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906 of doing this and have kept on.They also supply fresh drinking water to disaster victims. So keep on chugging it down brother, you're helping us all.

Jcell, I totally agree with you. I have already sent money but plan to send more. Since GC doesn't seem to think their southern CUSTOMERS are important enough to warrant better consideration than an off-topic posting in the forums, I think I can see where my $30 premium membership would be better spent.

You are misreading what I am saying. I am saying that the caches mean nothing after a natural disaster. I'm trying to point out in these forums for everybody to read, about caching etiquette from the finders, not the owners. I went back and bold text this in my original post so nobody will misread it again. I am stating that the owners are not going to want to hear about the caches missing when they have so many other problems. The question remains on what should be a good way for ALL of the geocaching community to handle a situation after a natural disaster as to not upset the ones affected by the catastrophe. If you will look and see, I am from Louisiana and will be one of those affected by this. I know that I, nor my neighbors down south are going to want to receive an email in the near future from someone telling me to get out and check on the cache. My question still remains, should there be some kind of blanket way to temporarily disable caches in an area hit hard by a natural disaster/catastrophe so the owners won't have to deal with the subject until they're ready to.

I'm sure everyone knows by now that Louisiana and Mississippi are about to be pummeled by the hurricane. Many caches will either be destroyed, lost, or damaged from the winds and rain. Caches owners in these regions will have many other priorities in their lives besides worrying about replacing caches. Do you think that GC should blanket temporarily disable all caches in an area hit hard by natural disaster until owners get time to check on them? Should GC (and approvers) allow a longer time period for owners to check on caches if someone submits a request to be archived soon after the disaster strikes? I know that many owners don't know caches are missing until logs are posted saying so. I'm just not sure how some people are going to emotionally react from an email telling them to check on their cache, especially if they have just lost their house or worse. What should be the proper etiquette for these situations?

NFA was correct in his earlier post. I use a wi-fi card in my laptop and pocket pc and can usually just drive up in many hotel parking lots and access their free wireless networks. Most hotels even advertise their free high-speed internet. My local grocery story even has a wifi network that can be accessed by customers. Once you find several chains of hotels that offer this, you can usually find one easily.