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I have previously stated that I use a Garmin 62s for geocaching. I repeat, I have never paid a licensing fee to find a Chirp, maybe the cache owners send the bills out later. Perhaps you should read what I and others actually say instead of continually resorting to your conspiracy theory non-logic and sophomoric insults. For you to try to insult everyone who disagrees with you is the sign of the intellectually bankrupt. For you to say “Maybe you think that all GPS units are made by Garmin and you just don't know any better “ is humorous at best, ignorant at least. I own GPS receivers ranging from early commercial Sony Pyxis and Magellan NAV 5000 to HP Z3801, Odetics, Trimble Thunderbolt, and some other specialized units for time and frequency research. You previously stated: “I tend to get snarky when somebody "corrects" me with incorrect information. …. I expect people posting supposedly factual information in the forums to have done their homework.” You would do well to follow your own advice, stick to the facts, and keep the insults to yourself.

There are now about 365 member companies in the ANT+ Alliance (check the link for more info) that allows members to develop hardware using the ANT+ protocol and one of the alliance companies is Magellan (MiTAC Digital Corporation). Perhaps Magellan is looking into the possibility of adding this feature to some future unit. For Magellan owners, maybe all good things come to those who wait. If and when Magellan comes out with a Chirp capable model I’m sure that feature will also come with a premium price and cries of elitism directed toward owners of those super Magellans will be heard. That statement is incorrect or specious. I have found a few Chirp caches and I haven't had to pay Garmin any licensing fee so these obviously aren't commercial caches.

That logic is the kinda like saying a dog is an animal with 4 legs; a cat has 4 legs; therefore a cat is a dog. I’m sure that many cachers who have bought the Chirp capable Garmins did so for their other worthwhile features and their decision had nothing to do with Chirps instead of the other way round. The fact that Chirp caches are now starting to appear in my area never was a factor in my decision to buy the 62s. I owned my Garmin 62s for over 7 months before I used it to find a Chirp, or even knew what a Chirp really was. I guess that I don’t see everything as a conspiracy or a marketing ploy. I view the fact that I can now use my existing 62s to find a new type of cache as a neat feature and a bonus. I can, however, see why Magellan or Delorme owners would say: “shut up and deal.” If you don’t like Chirp caches and don’t want to spend money to get that feature (or the many others that come with a high end unit), let others who do choose to cache that way do so. Oh, and by the way, can I expect to hear a rant on the Delorme PN60W / SPOT combo that does non-cache things other GPSs can’t do?

Could you please make it clear what irritates you, the mere existence of Chirp caches, or the fact that you don't have a high end Garmin to find them.

There are lots of pine and other evergreen trees in NH and ME and I've found probably a few hundred caches from bison, film, and up to full size Lock-n-Locks hidden in them. As long as you know what to expect I don't see any problem with them. I will say our trees in New England are mild after doing some in joshua trees in CA. No one is forcing you to look for these caches are they?

Try using thermophotography.

I'm sorry you can't stand others POV and choose to mock them rather than be open minded and accept that your way of caching is only one way of caching, not THE way. Oh, sometimes I eat at McDonalds going to the drive-up window but today I had lunch with my wife at a nice restaurant. Which way is the right way?

True, the time from the satellite constellation continually updates the time in your handheld to within a small fraction of a second. The satellites actually run on GPS time that doesn’t correct for leapseconds and currently is ahead of UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) by 15 seconds. The received time in UTC is then adjusted to your local time zone and used by your GPS. If you have your GPS inside a building where it cannot receive a signal then it will use the internal clock that will drift over a period of time. Once you receive satellite lock it will sync to the GPS satellites once again. The Trimble Thunderbolt timing GPS receivers I use at home with a fixed antenna on the roof average the position over 24 hours to get a good fix to several decimal places. These are used to get time and frequency accuracy to parts per trillion. Surveying GPS receivers have position accuracy of 5 millimeter. As far as having accurate internal clocks (actually an accurate frequency standard that drives a clock display), in a portable GPS is very possible. The smallest 10Mhz rubidium frequency standard I have is 3.5” square by 0.75” thick and capable of accuracy of parts in 10E-11 so it could be done but where the receiver clock is set to the received signal from the satellites this isn’t necessary. A typical handheld GPS receiver with WAAS enabled will probably be within 10 feet 95% of the time or 15 feet with WAAS not enabled. This is horizontal distance and vertical distance will be up to twice those values. Also the model of the earth doesn’t exactly conform to the shape of the real earth so the vertical distance may be off up to 200 feet, give or take. A minimum of 3 satellites is needed for position, 4 for altitude. Bottom line, no matter what you use for a commercial grade handheld GPS, even a “Maglin”, to place a cache, the combination of your error added to the searchers error could add up to 20-30 feet.

If you did just a little digging you might find what Groundspeak bases its 150 foot guideline on. The hot link is to another thread where a reviewer posted this information which isn't mere speculation on my part.

So by that theory, Groundspeak has archived the cache because they agree with the bomb squad’s removing the cache because it’s a violation, not just that it happened to be muggled. No matter how you look at it, the cache was in violation of Groundspeak guidelines about caches being within 150 feet of active RR tracks. You’re arguing with the guidelines trying to justify a position that is incorrect. Wrong, this has nothing to do with trespass laws or right of way, it is based on Groundspeak guidelines(did I mention that before?). If you want to prove otherwise, try placing a cache anywhere within 150 feet of active RR tracks and tell your reviewer truthfully what you’re doing. Any bets on their answer?

Just to get you up to speed, Groundspeak has archived the cache so in fact they see it as a violation.

You’ve completely misinterpreted what I said. This has nothing to do with what the RR owns(as I said before). It is about the Groundspeak guidelines. If Groundspeak says it’s a violation, it is a violation-period.

The violation is clearly stated in your own quote of the guidelines where it says: "Cache is near active railroad tracks. In the United States we generally use a distance of 150 ft (46 m) from tracks. Other local laws may vary. TaranWanderer picked up on this and is correct that it is a proximity issue, and the others who say that the cache is ok because it isn't actually on RR property are wrong. If you look at the photo from Google Earth, the cache is directly over the middle of the 3 tracks. Any location on that bridge would be in violation of the guidelines.

There is also an outdoor gear company called "Gear Aid" that released 53 geocoins in Damascus, VA, last weekend and they gave me 4. Nice looking coin and the only openly commercial aspect is the link to their site. All coins are registered to them and I'll be placing the 4 I got in NH caches soon. I see nothing wrong with them distributing these coins.

Having just got back from doing Route 66, what I found is that while the Garmin 62s logs the cache finds to the second, The field notes on Groundspeak only allows one cache in each minute slot. The caches along RT66 were sequentially numbered so it was easy to see when Groundspeak skipped one. We were doing between 60-70 per hour so Groundspeak was ignoring quite a few. I had multiple copies of the browser open and was using one to log the skipped cache finds manually as I found them to try to keep things in order. Trying to change the date stamp to please Groundspeak was not an option because we had no spare minute slots available. Keeping track of the skipped ones and logging them at the end would complicate things as well so manually entering the skipped ones as I found them seemed like the best choice. If your caches aren't in numerical order so you can easily see any problems there is a greater chance that you'll miss some. Apparently the programmers at Groundspeak never thought that anyone would be finding caches this fast. Kind of reminds me of the Y2K bug where programmers saved 2 bits by using 2 instead of 4 digits for the year and caused all sorts of problems.

It sounds like the cachers whose logs you've deleted have described some of the contents of the cache to confirm that they did indeed find the cache. The reason they didn't sign the log book was because of a cache maintenance problem, which isn't their responsibility. I can't understand why you want to compound your cache maintenance issues with deleting logs from cachers who can describe the actual cache contents to prove they found it. They found as much of the cache as you had left there therefore they found the cache. Why take it out on them because you failed to maintain your cache for such a long time? As Shakespeare said: ""The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves..." Let the logs stand and move on.

For the life of me I can’t understand how anyone with a basic understanding of logic could honestly believe that. As some others have pointed out, a power trail clearly fits into a series category. You generalize from subsets to a set, not between subsets. Both cats and dogs (subsets) have 4 legs (set) but that doesn’t make cat=dog. It would appear that some cachers are just too lazy to do the filtering of caches they like or dislike on their own and believe they need 500 categories to cater to their caching styles. There are already so many ways to customize searches to accomplish what you want. GSAK has filters and quite often cache owners or others have pocket queries if you want to select a PT. If you want to exclude a subset of caches you could do that just as easily by putting a little effort into it. I fail to see the reason for all this angst. If you don’t want to do a series of caches and call them a PT, just do them one at a time, but as they say, YMMV.

Additionally that task you complete before finding the cache has to be caching related. One thing about most challenge caches I've seen, or completed, is they favor cachers with a large number of finds. I put out a simple challenge cache (17 GC1NBVB (click to view)) that favors those with fewer finds and I have qualified since I placed the cache 2 years ago, although I have quite a few finds. One cacher with a total of 94 finds completed the challenge and theoretically you could complete it with as few as 17 finds. You can meet the qualifications any place in the world before finding my easy to find cache container so it only requires the one trip to New Hampshire to find my GC1NBVB cache. While challenge caches are everyone's cup of tea, read the logs for GC1NBVB and you will find most cachers who have qualified for my cache have really enjoyed completing the challenge. They have also learned some frivolous facts about the number 17, made tenuous connections with 17 to their daily life, and had fun expressing their percentage of finds to over 50 decimal points. One of the reasons I had for placing this cache was that it be a fun but not trivial challenge. I have, however, seen some challenges recently that have requirements that few, if any, could complete but some cachers will still try to do these. Having all different types of caches that appeals to the countless different cachers out there is a big positive part of geocaching. As one person once said: "Variety isn't the spice of life, it is the very stuff of it."

I have logged just one of my own caches. That cache (17 GC1NBVB) is a challenge cache that requires that 17%, or higher, of a cachers finds be puzzle/mystery caches. What makes this challenge cache kind of unique is that, unlike most challenge caches, it favors those cachers with fewer finds. Since I placed the cache 2 years ago I have stayed above that 17% mark and with over 5800 finds as of today that isn't trivial. The physical cache could probably be found without a GPS if you use GoogleEarth and if there wasn't snow on the ground it would probably be wheelchair accessible so it's all about the challenge. Adding 1 to my find count really doesn't affect my numbers that much. I'm sure that my logging just one of my own caches will not upset the master plan of the universe, if there is one, but it will still cause a gnashing of teeth for some cachers that consider themselves 'purists'. All I can say is don't loose too much sleep over it, I won't.

I will only give generic info on projecting because it is considered bad form to ask for, or give, answers to specific geocaches in the forums. Go to your "Waypoint Manager" menu Select the waypoint you want to project When the waypoint info is displayed, use "Menu" Select "Project Waypoint" Enter your bearing then distance "Save" your projected waypoint select "GO"

I could almost describe both ends of the size range with one cache I once found. It was a 55-gal. drum filled with unmarked black film containers, one of which had the log sheet. That took a while.

I have been using 2.92 Beta with my 62s for a couple of weeks now without any battery problems. I seem to get excellent life per charge using 2650MAH NiMh batteries.

Santa brought me a Garmin 62s and I didn't even hint to her er, him that I wanted one. I also got the City Navigator NT (North America) on micro SD for it.

If a cacher has logged onto the site and checked "Found It" for a cache, that is a clear indication that they did indeed find the cache. Although you would like them to write something about how great your cache is, that isn't a requirement and a blank log is just that, a blank log. To require a cacher to write a log you have to approve is, as others have said, an ALR, or optional task, pure and simple. The guidelines are very clear on this where they state: As to your claim that the guidelines "don't tell us we have to check the physical log", that is false. The again clearly state: The guidelines are clear that if you have PROOF that someone didn't find the cache or log it, then you can delete the online found log but the only way you can prove it is to physically check the log.

For someone who doesn’t care either way you certainly are pushing your point of view. As to “proper communication”, the cacher has presumably signed the cache log and logged on line which meets, or exceeds the requirements in the guidelines. I fail to see the point of your suggesting the CO can delete a terse log and then requiring the cacher prove their find to Groundspeak, to get it reinstated. I’ll wager if you try this that Groundspeak will, at the very least, issue you a warning for this violation. It is the CO responsibility to check and maintain their caches and that would include physically checking the logbooks if they have concerns. Unless you can get the guidelines changed to require a cacher to stroke your ego by logging a minimum length (and positive, effusive) log, there is nothing a CO can do except stop placing caches until they better understand how the game is played.