todd300

BTW, PQ's are working again. I got today's PQ about a couple hours ago.

Look at the caches in your area and see who they are published by. That's one of your reviewers. Click on his name to take you to his profile. From there, you should have his contact information. Some may have an e-mail address listed. Some may have you send a message through the geocaching.com website. All in all, this is the 4th of July weekend along with the website going down yesterday. Give it a few more days before you initiate any contact though. you just have to be patient.

Thanks for the quick work and for the twitter updates. I had to text a fellow cacher for an update and he sent me the twitter link. I was then able to follow the progress on getting GC dot com up and running again. My only withdrawal was getting notifications of finds, DNF's and new caches that I get in my e-mail daily. I already had over 2000 caches in my GSAK database still unfound so it's not like I could not go out in the field if I wanted to. I'm taking a break though due to a nasty poison ivy rash on my arms from searching for a cache near some poison ivy. Tomorrow will break my longest Geoslump (currently at 4 days without a find, tying my longest slump). But I'm not worried about that either. Soon as the poison ivy rash heals up again, I'll be back out in the field. I may use this time off though to finally get around and planning some of my own hides that I've been neglecting to do for the last couple weeks. Again, thanks to Elias and Jeremy for a job well done. I'm sure PQ's will start running again tomorrow. I usually get mine in the early mornings. I didn't get mine today, but that's because when I usually get my PQ's is about when the server was still down at the point. Notifications started coming in in late morning and they still are. So I'm sure PQ's will come soon enough (I only have one PQ scheduled for tomorrow). If PQ's are not running, be patient. They will soon enough, I'm sure. And to searchjaunt..who pissed in your wheaties?

I don't have an actual GPSr. I use my Dell Axim x30 PDA running WinMobile 2003 loaded with the Smache software and a bluetooth GPSr. I'm paperless for the most part as Smache is an awesome caching software - and it's free. I doubt I'll ever get a traditional GPSr like an Etrex or Lowrance. I also use GSAK to organize my cache files and send my caches to Smache.

Glad to see that worked out well. Happy caching to you too

Did you check the box to activate the cache? Also have to think this is a holiday week. Possible that reviewers are out on vacation. Make sure your home coordinates are also set and correct or your reviewer may think the cache is like 5000 miles from home. All in all, just have to be patient

No, he's not. Guess I have nothing to worry about. Just have to make sure it's not on too many watchlists.

Or make a new mission for that TB to make it way back to you by adding information to the TB page.

I'll be placing some new caches over the next few weeks. The question is - I also will drop a TB in one of those caches. That TB is not mine, so I'm afraid the TB owner (or anyone on the TB watch list) will have the advantage of knowing where the cache is before it is published. So I take it I will have to wait until the cache is published, then log the drop right after publication. In my area, reviewers usually publish caches in the evening, presumably when they get home from work. And I'm almost always home in the evenings, so it's not a problem for me to receive notification of the publication then log on to make the TB drop. The TB will be already in the cache. Just a matter of logging the drop. Is this the best way to do this to level the playing field? I know of instances where caches have been found BEFORE publication due to TB drops in said caches and I don't want that to happen in my case. Thanks to those that answers.

That's what I thought but wasn't sure. Thanks!! Funny thing about the smileys here. First the smileys used on the geocaching logs look so much like the ones used at Yahoo. The ones used in this forum look like the ones used on MSN Live Messenger. Anyone notice that? I'm sure you have. Just pointing it out anyways

Wow. You really took the time to back-track to those topics, Kit. I've only looked for one MO cache and it's the only one in my area. I understand the reasoning behind making a cache MO and have no problems with it. Now back to the Bittsen-Mrbort debate

I also have seen many MO caches published due to the fact that they are on private property placed with permission. In many cases, it's usually the CO's property and I'm sure he does not want some fly-by cachers on his property and for good reason. I see nothing wrong with an MO cache. They wanna be jerks about it, their loss.

Now that I had a chance to read the whole thread instead of just page 1, lol, I wanted to state my opinion of this. It's sad to hear about people putting up TB's for "ransom", but it's also good to see others buy those same TB to get them back into circulation. However, by doing that, you may have inspired others to muggle caches and sell TB's like that. We have to be careful and not go too far about that, meaning, you should not have to pay for a TB that is not yours. TB's get taken and muggled all the time. This situation is no different except that they were being put up on EBAY, which happens all the time too. Just my opinion.

My pet peeve are cut and pastes like "Found on the way to the event. TFTC." I mean, c'mon. Be more original. Describe your experience. I live in an area where several tourists pass through from one city to another and I get logs a lot like that or something like "Found on my way home from Canada. TFTC." At least, if you are gonna be short and sweet about it, don't do the cut and paste. Be different in each log in the area like "Saw this type of hide before. Nice hide" in one cache followed by "Wife saw it before I got out of the car. Quick find." That I don't mind seeing in the logs. I just don't like getting 20 e-mail notifications of "Quick find. TFTC" in each one of them. It's like I'm getting duplicate e-mails. Thanks for the rant.

Testing thread.

That one of the GPX files of a difficult cache was corrupted. This happened to me once. I was cursing to myself and was about to turn back as I was not far from home. Then I remembered I left my computer on back home and my daughter was home also. So I texted her, told her to log onto my geocaching account and gave her the GC number of the cache. She texted me back with the coordinates and the clue to the cache. I manually entered the coordinates into my GPSr, then was able to do the search. I had to log a DNF anyways due to darkness as I was doing the search in the woods at sunset. But at least I didn't have to turn back right away. This taught me a lesson to make sure that anytime I load a GPX file into my GPSr to make sure the file actually works. I never leave home now without double checking to make sure all my GPX files are good to go on my GPSr. Has anyone ever found out AFTER they left home that they didn't get all the files that they needed on their GPSr? Or forget to bring their GPSr period? I did that too once - lol. I took my notebook, drove about 5 miles, stopped at a cache location and then realized I forgot my GPSr back home that was still plugged into the charger. LOL. Was not funny back then as I was cursing every four letter word in the book, but I laugh about it now. How about you people? Any forgetful moments or moments where you thought you had your GPX files loaded into a GPSr and left home only to find out some or all the files would not work?

At the very minimum, you will receive the GC number and maybe the cache name of the new cache. Basically it will be from noreply@geocaching.com and will say "Reviewer-name published (cache name). This is an automated message for (GCxxxx)" Depending on your cell phone, the message will get cut off there, like mine does. But so as long as I get the GC number on my phone, I'm good to go as I can enter that number on the website to look it up.

Has anyone staked out a hide after getting the notice that their cache got published? Hard to do in a rural cache, but easy to do on an urban cache. Soon as I got the notice that a cache that I hid near a local burger king, I went to that burger king, sat by the window and ate my food. Like a half hour later, some cachers came up and looked for it. After they made the find, I went over and introduced myself and congratulated them on the FTF.

I get around the 500 Cache limit this way. If I'm gonna hit an area dense with caches, I set up 3 PQ's for that specific area. One is for traditional caches, one for multi's and one for unknown (puzzles). I add in a few filters (attributes/terrains/difficulty)and I'm set to go I also do the same for my own area so I don't miss anything. I've been lucky though living in a rural area, so I don't have much caches to choose from. I would hate to have to run PQ's in somewhere like, oh, West Bend, Wisconsin, who claims to have 500 caches in just a 7 mile radius. Eventually I'll have to do that as I'm going to West Bend next month. I'm gonna have to start running PQ's a week before hand so I can make sure I'm covered by the time my trip comes around.

I just registered a TB as my personal TB. The only back-dipping I have done was near a cache right by my house to start mileage. Otherwise I'm not doing any back dipping. The only time I dip my personal TB is at events. That's it. It's an event only TB where I meet other cachers and they can discover me. If I run into a cacher while hunting, they can discover me then too. but I won't dip the TB into traditional caches. That's about it.

Similar titles in a series don't bother me. Many ways around it. Just set your GPSr to just put the GC number on the map and take a notebook with a list of caches and refer to that GC number. Use GSAK to rename the title. Many other ways to get around it. Nothing to complain about. I've had a few complainers in my area too about the long titles in the Spirit Quest series. That don't bother me when I see several listings on my PDA that says "Wisconsin Spirit Quest.." then it gets chopped off. So I just refer to my notebook with the GC number on it and the shorthand that I wrote such as "GC1TQ9J - WSQ - St. Matt's". Yup, that's it, and I go make the find. What's the big deal on similar titles?

Valid points on both sides of the debate. I'll talk to my reviewer for my area as I do not want to give away too much here if I went into specifics. He can tell me what category I can list it under before he publishes it.

I use this site to convert coordinates. It's very flexible on what type of coords that you enter. http://boulter.com/gps/

The puzzle I have in mind can be solved in the field. My starting coordinates will lead to the first WP where it has the puzzle. The answer to the puzzle leads to the second and final WP. So I guess I can list this as a multi. I still have to get permission from the locations that I have in mind, then get the listing published.

Say I want to place a multi-stage cache. Inside the first stage is a puzzle that the cacher must solve to get the coords for the second stage. Do I list this cache as a puzzle cache or a multi-cache? Seems that this falls under both categories. Thanks to those that reply