sarhound

I'm running into the same problem right now. I just purged a few PQ's that show they were generated 2 days ago, but they never showed up in my mailbox. I resubmitted one of those PQs as a new one, and it hit the mailbox within seconds. I waited awhile and tried it with the second of the bunch that never showed up; it shows as having been generated, but isn't making it to the mailbox. I thought I was having a problem with Charter, but they don't have spam filters on, and I don't have a problem with PQs showing up as junk mail. Now I'm starting to wonder if there's a problem with my geocaching account. Haven't had a problem like this since I started using PQs-- now I'm starting to look to see if the little black helicopters are circling my house for some reason....

The problem being-- the PQ that I suspect as being faulty shows as having been generated on Dec 20. It never showed up in the mailbox, and now I know that it isn't a problem on Charter's end, which was a possible point of hangup. They don't have any spam filters on, and I don't have a problem with PQs coming thru as junk mail. I still think the other 2 PQs are corrupt, as well, but I'll give it a day to see if anything happens. If necessary, I'll just purge the entire PQ list and start over again, although it will be a major pain. At least it will keep me occupied during the holidays....

It's starting to look like maybe the PQs were corrupted somehow. I just purged one of them, redid it (changing the radius of the search,) and resubmitted it. It hit the mailbox within seconds. Guess I'm going to have to weed the faulty ones out one by one...

This is the first time since I became a PM that I've ever had problems running PQs. Day before yesterday, I ran 3 PQs for areas that I hadn't updated for a couple of months, and they all show as having been generated. I never received them. I just have put one of those queries into the queue for today, and normally, it would generate immediately. It's just hanging there right now, showing that it last generated Dec 20 at 1245. It doesn't show as generating today. The last successful PQ that I got ran on Dec 19, but it took forever for it to show up. They usually hit the inbox in minutes. Is there a server issue going on?

OK, I'm next on the list of Charter people to be having problems. I received one PQ yesterday (after an unusually long wait for it to hit the inbox,) and had no problem opening it in GSAK. Today, I've put out a request for 3 PQs on areas that I haven't updated for a couple of months; they show as having been generated by Groundspeak, but I'm not receiving the PQs. Is there a server issue going on, or do I need to start hounding Charter?

I've been trying the method that Markwell pointed out (using MS S&T 2006,) but I've not yet been able to get it to work. I can generate files that I think are in the correct format using GPS Babel, but when I go to upload them to the route page, either nothing happens, or I get all kind of wierd error messages (I think I've managed to rack up three different kinds of errors so far.) If anyone can lend a hand, it would be greatly appreciated. I don't always want to go the way that Google Earth wants me to go..... aahh, the price of nonconformity.

Y'all ought to come on down here when we have the Yamboree and crown the Yam Queen....

If this is the cache that I'm thinking of, I've found this cache... The cache in question Looks like another case where we as finders assume that the necessary permission was obtained before the cache was published, but it looks like that might not be the case here. I remember being a little uneasy while looking for this one, but it was on a weekend, and there weren't too many people around while we were there. The sculptures themselves are rather interesting. I would have been happier if they hadn't been located next to a bank.

I'm using Mapopolis now, and I'd like to see how you set up your maplets to display the info when the icon is tapped.... sounds really useful.

We've been using geocaching as a means to teach our team members about GPSr use since I discovered this site. A sister SAR team uses it, as well. To top it all off, I usually take one of my search dogs with me when I'm caching, and he's developing into an article recovery dog because of the trips-- he's finding caches that I can't find, following scent trails to the cache. It's nice to know geocaching can serve multiple purposes!

The majority of my finds are cemetery caches; I go out of my way to reach the older cemeteries. The history contained in them is irreplaceable. I'm fortunate enough to live in a town that prides itself on it's history; many of the homes of the folks who rest in our local cemetery still exist here today, 150 years later. Being able to connect these folks to their homes and to the local stories of their histories is a way of being able to connect to the past. I wouldn't have known about many of these outlying cemeteries if a geocache had not been placed in them. I will continue to seek out these older cemeteries in hopes of preserving their stories.

A paraphrase from Dory in Finding Nemo: "Just keep walking, just keep walking...." I find myself singing it under my breath when I'm wondering if I'm going to make it back to the cachemobile.

Hmm, I've been trying the Streets and Trips method that was described, but I don't think I'm doing something right. I managed to generate the "routefinal" file, but I don't think it came out to be the right kind of file, because when I uploaded it, I got a massive error message : Object reference not set to an instance of an object. Et cetera, et cetera. Insert a large section of error messages here. I thought the upload took either a KML or a GPX file. I really suck at DOS, so if someone can translate into English for me this part: gpsbabel -i gpx -f route.est.gpx -o gpx,gpxver=1.1 -F routefinal.gpx it seemed to generate what was needed (at least, I got a file out of it,) but I must be doing something else wrong. My brain is starting to hurt.........

A few shots of the search and rescue dogs out looking for caches:

Ditto on wearing cotton-- temps in the sixties can be a problem when it gets wet. We teach our search team members to avoid it. CoolMax has been one of the greatest things ever invented. Here in Texas, we seldom hit the twenties, but we wear polypropylene layers next to the skin, CoolMax shirts, synthetic BDU's, and Polarfleece when we're out on searches. I keep a set of packable waterproof rainpants/coat in my pack. I switch to a hat with earflaps when winter comes. I always wear double socks, even in summer-- a polypro liner with a heavier hiking sock over (keeps me from getting blisters and wicks moisture.) I can remember one overnight training where I had to strip off some of my layers to wrap up my bloodhound, because she began shivering uncontrollably. I usually make sure my outer layers are loose enough that they will wrap around her, if needed.

I was requesting the article from El Diablo, so I'm going to relate the stories that I told him about my caching K9 experiences. My dogs are bloodhounds, members of First Response Search and Rescue. Two are active duty, and my third one looks like he's going to be an article recovery dog. He's found 3 caches already, without any true scent training yet; I was quite shocked when he did it, since I'd only worked on the most elementary of runaway trails with him, so he doesn't really understand yet what I mean when I tell him to "Find it." The first cache was an artificial prickly pear lobe that was stuck in the ground. I didn't even stop to think that it was unusual for just one prickly pear lobe to be present, since they're usually in a mass. I was scratching my head and digging around in the trees; Curly Jo went straight to it and started sniffing around it. It was the very first time that I'd ever taken him geocaching with me by himself (at least one of the other hounds had always been with him before. He was brand new to Texas, and he didn't know how to navigate through our underbrush, so I was using the other dogs to show him how to bust brush.) After I got to looking at the cache, I thought to myself, "That just doesn't look right." Sure enough, he had nailed the cache. There was a new series of caches put out shortly after that cache. I went out with the first wave of cachers to go find them; I think I was several hours behind another local team. The cache coordinates were bouncing around, about 40-50 feet off, due to the heavy tree cover and poor satellite reception. On the first one, Curly Jo hit the end of the lead like he was working a real trail, so I just kept up with him, dodging the lethal 6 inch mesquite thorns. I kept looking at the GPS and seeing that we were going in the right direction, so I let him take over. I got close, but couldn't find it where the GPS indicated. Curly dragged me over to a tree, and there it sat. By now, I'm starting to wonder about this hound with no formal training. The second cache had me going 180 degrees in the wrong direction; the GPS indicated hard right, and Curly took a hard left. Sure enough, he got me within 10 feet of the cache. He was following the scent trail of the same local team of cachers who had been at the previous cache several hours before. They had hit the entire series just before we did. Now I'm convinced that Curly Jo has an aptitude that my other two hounds don't yet have, so his training will focus on article recovery. I'm starting to think there's a new major brand of GPSr out there now-- the "Bloodhound."

We had a group assault on a 5 star cache that required climbing equipment to get to the cache: Steeplechase It was a blast watching Vegas CacheHounds ascending to nab the cache. He made it look easy. I'm not so good with the climbing part; most of my rope work has been rappelling down during search and rescue training sessions. I definitely need backup when this kind of cache is involved.

Mine is a play off an old George Carlin line, but I can attest that it is the absolute truth. Living with three of the beasts, there is a lot of it in my house. I have yet to find an industrial strength cleaner that can remove it without dissolving the underlying structure. Other K9 handlers just start shaking their heads and laugh. Deputyhound says we should patent this miraculous substance-- that it could outsell SuperGlue. Hmm, maybe it could be used in the construction of some cache cammo....

My iPAQ with Mapopolis is affectionately known as "HAL 9000." He gets most upset when I continue to foolishly go on my merry way, forcing him to recalculate his routes... At least he hasn't yet said, "You don't want to go there, Dave...." Even though my name isn't Dave.

We found the sulfur powder at our local feed store. I think we've also picked up a small bag of it at some point in the past at Home Depot, but I don't recall seeing it there recently. It does help-- we were out setting up for a search and rescue exam this last weekend, and I only have one additional bite on my leg. Now if I can just find a way to get rid of the dadgum ticks....

Another home remedy for chiggers is to take a bath in water that has a capful of Chlorox bleach in it (don't use any more than that, or your skin will fall off.) We also carry sulfur powder in the truck; dust your legs liberally with it before you go in the field, and it helps to repel them. I'm currently scratching my way thru a dose of chiggers now. You have my sympathies.

I try to arrange caches so that I can drive an efficient route (dragging bloodhounds around in a Suburban is getting to be a little pricey.) I pull down a PQ for the area of interest, dump it into GSAK, export it to Streets and Trips. I'll pick a start and an end cache, then let the software figure out an optimized route for all the caches in between. I'll usually run a printout of that route so that I've got something sizable to look at while I'm moving. I also export those caches into a maplet for Mapopolis, and dump them into the PDA for GPXSonar. I load up the appropriate bloodhounds for the day's excursion, crank up the tunes, read off the first cache from the route planned, set my trusty HAL to voice prompt on the PDA, and take off. Since hounds are involved, I seldom get more than a dozen or so caches at a time, but we have a great time while we're out there. A fringe benefit is that Deputyhound has a list of the caches that I'm planning on hitting, so if we disappear into the great unknown, he knows where to start looking for us. Unfortunately, the resource that could find us will not be available to him. He'll have to content himself with using his mantracking skills, since the nose power will be out with the missing person (me.)

I'm using the same setup as Alan2 is using; I've had occasional problems with a maplet location being tagged as "unable to calculate location" (usually happens in East Texas when I'm WAAAY out in the middle of nowhere.) I just hunt for a road somewhat close to the maplet location in that instance, then let it autoroute me to the general vicinity and hunt for a better way into the area. I'm running it on an HP iPAQ, and I use an Explorist 500 when I bail out of the truck. I'd sooner cut off both my legs than lose my new friend (whom I have dubbed "HAL.") Even when he gets frantic because he doesn't like the fact that I may not always follow the route he's planned to the cache, he's made it a whole lot easier to drive in areas that I'm not familiar with. The combo of GSAK and GXPToMaplet is what makes Mapopolis very useful to me.

There's a website out that has the state maps with county lines: state counties I've used it for Texas; I keep a list of counties that I've cached in, and update the map when I get a chance.

OK, I gotta know... Where did you find them? I've run into the same problem about not being able to locate them at WalMart or anywhere else. I tried the website, too-- nothing there. I've hit as many local WallyWorlds as I could, but it's like hunting the elusive Sasquatch.