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Mom-n-Andy

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Everything posted by Mom-n-Andy

  1. Well, I think it is a fair question. I have used my snowshoes for geocaching many times. First, I'd recommend a major brand like Tubbs, Atlas, or MSR. Each manufacturer has a range, usually walking, hiking on rolling terrain, and backcountry terrain, with the price increasing correspondingly. I would stay away from "beginner"/"entry-level" snowshoes. I have found the mid-range Tubbs snowshoes to work very well on county park trails. The most important feature is the bindings - you want bindings that stabilize your foot and are easy to put on and take off when your fingers are cold. My Tubbs have bindings that you adjust once to fit your boots and then you just snap buckles closed to put them on. As for the flotation, I think it's a tradeoff to a certain extent. You will get better flotation from the 36 but they will be much less maneuverable than the 30, especially if you are climbing over logs etc. to look for caches. I recommend renting a pair of 30" from EMS, REI or the like and trying them out. The clerks in a store like EMS will be able to advise you as well.
  2. Most people I know (myself included) leave the family home and geocache by themselves or with other adult geocachers. Tell your daughter that since the gps doesn't work you will trade her a Big Bird, Kermit, or other age-appropriate toy for it.
  3. Suggest you try certitude before dismissing it. There are lots of nice features, including limiting the number of attempts, an updated map showing the actual solved location of the cache, and the ability to with one click update the user notes on the cache page. I've used it for several of my caches and will no longer use anything else.
  4. You do not need to create a web site of your own. You will be able to do this using the Certitude coordinate checker, which is already used by many geocaching puzzle creators. Instead of entering coordinates in the checker, solvers will enter their puzzle result, and if it is correct, will be given the coordinates along with any additional information you care to include. www.certitudes.org is the address.
  5. If you don't want to use Facebook to log in, then don"t! No need to get your knickers in a twist. Just log in the usual way. So what if FB's first in the list of login options? The geocaching site login form is displayed prominently right there below it. I imagine that Facebook is paying Groundspeak for this. An alternative might be for Groundspeak to charge more for premium memberships, or to discontinue free memberships. Those options would bug me more than having an easily-ignoreable Facebook login option.
  6. I enjoy just looking around and puzzling-out the location, and some cache spots are fun to visit, and I've been mulling over a couple of caches for months. Overlay that thought with a group I once tagged along with. We'd arrive at a spot, they'd whip out the phone, make a beeline for the container, everyone signs. But they sign QUICK, because everyone's back in the car and heading for the next cache RIGHT NOW. People are having fun, caches and hides aren't damaged. I didn't have time to do anything but sign and leave. Who cares? If that is how they want to play, why would I let that bother me? Life is just too short to get your knickers all bunched up over things you can't control.
  7. When I hide a cache I want people to get out, find a new area that maybe they've never been to, maybe take a nice walk, and find my caches. If they are having trouble finding the cache they are welcome to call me or a previous finder. Speaking for myself, I like to seek out puzzle caches or other unusual caches in nearby towns. if I drive more than an hour and can't find a cache after looking for 30 minutes, I'd have no problem calling anyone I could since it would probably be a while before I'd get to that area again. As long as people are having fun and not damaging caches or hides (which can happen if someone tears apart an area because they can't find the cache), who cares?
  8. That is the one that I tried as well. YMMV, I guess! I know BBWolf had excellent results, but I didn't! If I were to try again, I'd consider this one instead: http://www.canakit.com/pll-stereo-fm-transmitter-kit-ck555-uk555.html It has a crystal to prevent frequency drift, and it looks to have a better filtered power supply.
  9. I can't speak to whether it would pass a review or not, but I can tell you that it has been done. In the radio cache that I did, you drove to the radio location, where the coded coordinates for the next leg of the cache were being broadcast. I have thought about placing a cache like this myself, but obtaining a decent radio transmitter was outside my budget. I did some experimenting with a cheap FM transmitter that was hooked to a discarded iPod set on loop. What I found was that the frequency drifted so much that it would be a real pain to tweak it every day or two. I also found that operating the transmitter from the house mains introduced a very loud hum in the broadcast. I put together a little filter circuit but was never able to overcome the hum. In my research I found that you'd have to spend around $100 US or more to get a PLL transmitter with a good power supply. That was more than I was prepared to spend for a cache. These kinds of transmitters are marketed to folks who do elaborate Christmas light displays that are synchronized to music. $100-200 would not be expensive for something like this. I understand that some folks have used the talking home transmitters that were all the rage with real estate agents several years ago, but those units are extremely unreliable. I actually purchased one cheaply on eBay, but never got it to run more than a day or two. Another cacher I know has had the same experience with these. BTW, the relevant FCC info you need is "Part 15." Google that and you'll get all the info you need about legal compliance.
  10. A lot of 5 star difficulty caches are puzzle caches - the puzzle is often the hardest part. The hide itself may be no harder than a 1.5 or 2 traditional might be. The thing to watch out for is 5 star terrain. That might actually kill the unprepared.
  11. You would think they would put up signs at the entrances to the area when the exercises are going on.
  12. Congratulations! You could include the GPS coordinates of the wedding location on the invitation! ...and then sit by the phone to answer a hundred phone calls asking for the "regular" address... I did say "include" not replace the street address with the coordinates.
  13. Congratulations! You could include the GPS coordinates of the wedding location on the invitation!
  14. I noticed Certitude is down, didn't realize there were problems with the others. I think all of these are hosted on different sites. What is going on?
  15. What did you mean by saying you "allowed" the DNFs? I've never heard that before.
  16. Some people enjoy the FTF game. Some like having lots of finds. Some like puzzle caches. Some like long hikes to find ammo boxes. Some like having Sunday breakfast and then going caching with a group of geocachers. And so on. The nice thing about geocaching is the variety of ways to play the game. Do it the way you enjoy!
  17. Thanks, I thought of that. Will need to make a new gmail address first. You would think this kind of thing might happen fairly often. It shouldn't be too hard for the developers to create a way to do this without having to make a fake account.
  18. Often reading other peoples' logs will give you a good idea of what to expect. You might see something like "lots of hiding places" if it's a needle in a haystack kind of thing. Or maybe something like "great job on the container, never saw that before." There are some things that you see over and over in logs and they almost seem like code phrases.
  19. I posted this to Getting Started but I'm not sure how many people read that forum (and I've asked the mods to close it there) - Is there any way to give a geocacher a gift of a premium membership anonymously?
  20. I am going to re-post this on Geocaching Topics where it hopefully will get more replies. Mods, If you would close this thread I would appreciate it.
  21. Title says it all - is there any way to give a geocacher a gift of a premium membership anonymously?
  22. LOL. I thought you were talking about logs that went on and on about what a great cache it is and what a wonderful human being the CO was for hiding it. To answer your question, you should not remove the log. You can post a "needs maintenance" log. If you can't sign what's there you can sign a piece of paper and leave it.
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