billfern

Interesting conversation. I just got interested in this since i happened across a geocacher who boldly advertises one and decided to look into it. I have virtual geocache. It seems that a virtual travel bug in a virtual geocache is a good match. What else can you do? It is a way to keep travel bugs going? I’ve just had a bad situation with real travel bugs, where i put them into a geocache and next day a novice comes along, takes both, only logs one of them and does it incorrectly. This would be a real cure for all that.

You are absolutely correct, in all that, no dispute here, and yes, I am only in this game a year, and do thoroughly enjoy it. Probably. The pencil will likely never go away, but not so sure about ball point pens, and fountain pens even seem to be coming back. don’t get me wrong, I am just a mediator type of guy who would like to put caches everywhere, darned these rules, but I do understand them. I can agree a flat strip of magnetic material is not a cache, but a flat strip of magnetic material can form one side of a cache container. I see wallet windows being used as a container, two pieces of leather or plastic in one case, with a cache shoved into them and hidden in a thin spot. so why couldn’t two pieces of plastic that be used, the fact that they are magnetized shouldn’t be the issue because it holds them together. Let’s think beyond the strip, into a plastic box made of strips, like what else couldn’t be described like that.

I also worried about one of the comments seen above regarding caches on wooden poles. The comment was made that many caches found today would not be renewed under the new rules, and I agree. One of the concerns I have about this whole industry.. I have been caching for three weeks in California, and I can suggest that about 30% of what I have found here would no longer be allowed, at least not where I come from. So if we were to see all those caches be archived, about 30% of the caches in this area would disappear. Is that a bad thing? Well yes, although they could be put into the mountains, I am too old to climb much now. Frankly putting caches on electrical equipment such as wood poles or transformers or switch boxes is dangerous. Linemen often use spurs to claim wood poles, and a cache in the wrong place could cause a mishap if a lineman’s spur can’t sink into the wood. While most electrical equipment is inherently safe, there are failures and explosions, and going near electrical equipment is ridiculous. I’ve been in the electrical power industry over 40 years, and am well aware of the results of explosions of transformers and other items. My advice, stay away. Yesterday I found a cache near and electrical installation that was marginally kept, visible wires, open cabinet doors, and you had to lean over this to get the cache. Sorry, but all this is an accident waiting to happen.

Well, another favourite cache container is that is often found is an electrical plate. It is a flat plate, but beveled at the edges. So the differences between this plate and say a magnetic strip is the hardness and the bevel. Under the raised bevel, we put magnets, glue the magnets to the electrical plate and use a very thin log, so the magnets don’t get forced off the surface they are supposed to connect to. This gem looks like an innocent electrical plate on a surface where electrical plates are expected to be. Some Cachers are wise enough buy a gasket and put it under the edges to keep water out. Or make one. So what’s the difference here if you take a magnetic tape strip, cut a piece out that is the size of an electrical cover plate, put a gasket around the perimeter to raise it off the surface, put a log under in the space created, and mount it. Just like the electrical plate that is accepted, you are using magnetism, a space, one side of the container is the magnetic item the tape strip is mounted on. I think there is enough magnetic force there to still hold it on the item, and a little spray paint will add the cameo. I don’t see anything wrong with this arrangement if the whole issue is about writing on the strip as a log, then this should satisfy the rules. And cheaper. And no magnets falling off.

And Oh, I did look at Waymarking, and who knows, we may be left with that. But no, I like the hide and find a container thing.

Not that I don’t enjoy the find, and I have hidden over 100, I tend to look at what is going on in the world. We hear now about cleaning plastic up in the oceans, recycling, and all that, yet we as Cachers keep on going hiding those various things others are seeking to get rid of. So do we need a better container that well decompose and contribute to the environment, or do we revert to something else, or do we find a happy marriage by looking at what fits where?

The interesting challenge here is to determine why bans and permission needs have resulted from this hobby. Perhaps the whole issue has come from the need to hide and find something. And we are supposed to hide something in a container that has physical dimensions and could be trash. What if we didn’t have to hide anything? What if we just identified something you had to take a picture of and show the metadata and post that. Perhaps it’s time to change geocaching! I too am finding the whole process a bind. it seems anyone in the public can take something into a park or onto most property as long as they carry it out or trash it properly. But call it a geocache and suddenly heads rear up. I think it’s time to scrap the container and log idea and do something else.

So it’s 2019 and I’m only a year old geocacher but finding these magnetic sheet logs here or there. I’ve read the views of others on the issues and smile about what is really going on. First I do trackables and note that many trackable dog tags are issued with Q codes. Is the intent not to eventually just let your phone scan that code and have the app report the find. There is already an app for reading the code on a trackable! How far away are we from printing a Qcode on our caches such that scanning that code is our find and equivalent to a signature? Will we need a large container for that little code? lets go back to what started this geocaching hobby! A significant change in technology on how to navigate. No one is insisting that we get the cach coordinates but continue to use old technology to get there. We have smart phones and very good gps units to do that job. So we discover that a magnetic sheet can cover a writable substance that reduces our use of paper, eliminates another bit of garbage in the environment and makes a hide even more muggle proof? And we insist on a hundreds years old method of record keeping? A pencil and paper. Seems like a real serious separation of using a modern technology blindsided in development by constricted ancient practices!

I was out of town without internet and woulyhave loved to join this but too late obviously. Maybe next year

Not sure anyone ever answered your questions. But I bought three of the coins. Really admire them. If you need the measurements still I’d be happy to help out but in general the coins are very similar in size to most others I’ve bought. There is a British game called Avalon in which Merlin and Mordrid are the main Characters. I was trying to find a geocoin to go along with the Mordrid character! But no luck so far.