Rustynails
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Posts posted by Rustynails
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I use my oregon600 100% of the time. No worries about dead batteries. just a solid unit as it's shock resistant and water proof. It's main purpose is for navigating and does it well. I do use a phone and you'll never believe what for. I use it to speak and communicate with fellow humans. I've been doing this for over 50 years and will continue. I wonder if many young people know this ancient way of communication is available on their phone?
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I have been contemplating a multi-cache based (loosely) on the 'maze of twisty passages, all alike' part of the old text based Colossal Cave game. You have multiple rooms, where you can go multiple directions. These directions lead to more rooms. In the middle of this maze was the pirate's chest. (In the game, the key to mapping this area was to drop an item in each room, making it different.)
So, pick a starting point. At that point, instead of a single set of coordinates, you have three or four. Which ever set you pick, it would take you to either the cache, or to another set of three or four coordinates. For each cacher, the route and the number of waypoints to get to the cache could be different. I figured about a dozen waypoints total would be a decent sized maze. The cacher would have to go to at least three waypoints before they could get the actual cache coordinates.
No puzzle solving involved in this one, just guessing (and keeping track of coordinates).
Almost sounds like this very well made multi https://coord.info/GC44JT1 .
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I've seen a few posts on Facebook recently from Premium members who have let their membership lapse being offered a promotional rate of 50% discount on renewing their membership
"as a thankyou of your support of Geocaching as a purchaser of the Classic App"and another tonight which says
"Groundspeak Premium accounts provides the basic members the promo price: 14,99 € (the first year).The offer is valid until 23 April 2017. Users whose premium account expires in the next two months can also benefit from this promotional offer.
Note: if you're a premium member this link will go to the page of geocaching.com. Only the basic members will be able to take advantage of this offer and correctly access the link below.
A Premium account has access to more features, more geocaches and more adventure. Since messages, filtering of basic and advanced research, new notifications of caches, statistics, advanced caches along a route, Pocket Queries, favorite points to be allocated, lists of caches and other types of maps.
Hope good geocaching to tod@s!
Is this offer going to be extended to your loyal supporters who also purchased the classic app - which you're now retiring - and whose auto renewal falls outside of the next two months?
My membership expires 4/20 less than a month and I can't get the promotion. Are they lying to us?
Don't know why you'd think like that...
If that's your date, you can't even access the promotion until your membership expires on the 20th.
It does say, "Users whose premium account expires in the next two months can also benefit from this promotional offer".
If you didn't cancel and still have auto-renew, I'd think an email to the Help Center kinda quick would be a good place to ask how they plan on going about it.
If you did cancel auto-renew, that gives you a couple days.
Last weekend I sent a email with the above promotion to the help center. They deny offering it as it's written above. Here's their response.
"Thank you for contacting Geocaching HQ."
"That is not the copy that was sent out. the offer is only available to current Basic members who used the classic app."
"Best regards,"
Sounds like future basic members will not get the promotion. Letting your premium membership expire won't do it.
Well, then how do premium members benefit from this?
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I've seen a few posts on Facebook recently from Premium members who have let their membership lapse being offered a promotional rate of 50% discount on renewing their membership
"as a thankyou of your support of Geocaching as a purchaser of the Classic App"and another tonight which says
"Groundspeak Premium accounts provides the basic members the promo price: 14,99 € (the first year).The offer is valid until 23 April 2017. Users whose premium account expires in the next two months can also benefit from this promotional offer.
Note: if you're a premium member this link will go to the page of geocaching.com. Only the basic members will be able to take advantage of this offer and correctly access the link below.
A Premium account has access to more features, more geocaches and more adventure. Since messages, filtering of basic and advanced research, new notifications of caches, statistics, advanced caches along a route, Pocket Queries, favorite points to be allocated, lists of caches and other types of maps.
Hope good geocaching to tod@s!
Is this offer going to be extended to your loyal supporters who also purchased the classic app - which you're now retiring - and whose auto renewal falls outside of the next two months?
My membership expires 4/20 less than a month and I can't get the promotion. Are they lying to us?
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Believe it or not, the sense of smell can be part of a hide. Not only smell but touch, sight, taste, and hearing. One of the best multi's I've ever done. Gauntlet 2010 - Senses Census https://coord.info/GC26NWB
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Wrong, not working. USA-midwest
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It would only take seconds to update us. We are paying for this service after all.
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Minnesota is where you find real winter caching. You can also PQ caches found recently. Not all hiders use the snowflake. I have used snowshoes for caching but not often. Take a pole or walking stick for stability and poking in the snow for the cache. If you have good geosense you know where to look and poke. Winter is also an excellent time to get those island caches. The ice here gets pretty thick and if you see ice fishermen on the ice with their truck, your probably safe. Winter caching is fun and no ticks or mosquitoes.
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Here is a geocaching trackable ring someone made. https://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=2526479
There are lots of ideas and pictures in Pinterest as well.
I saw those, and found a member here that may have them for sale. Check out member Shandscott's profile page if interested in one of those.
Emailed both addresses last night. No response as of this time.
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Just pay attention to Groundspeak's copyright. Somewhere in the Help files is a thing on what you need to have cleared to make your own stuff with their intellectual property.
From what I remember, some of it is free and clear to use, but I'd check.
I'm not looking for a custom made ring as they're expensive. Just a nice inexpensive ring. The only ones I see online are those square odd looking rings.
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I'm looking for a ring that has the Geocaching symbol on it. So no one misunderstands, the type you where on your finger. Anyone know where I could get one?
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The hand held gps loaded with a pq is the way to go for most experienced cachers.[/b]
I have to disagree. I like my phone apps better than a GPS unit for geocaching.
That's too bad, you'll miss wonderful adventures like this one https://coord.info/GC2XXZG . Boundary waters wilderness area with NO cell phone reception. Although there's a trail you still want your trusty handheld gps for safety.
Well, no. I can store the caches for offline use, I don't have to have cell service. I can run PQ's and store them on my phone, it does so much more than just a GPS unit.
My understanding is that you need a cell tower to know your tracking. Your phone can't get a direct satellite signal to guide you. Maybe you use a Compass or the stars?
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The hand held gps loaded with a pq is the way to go for most experienced cachers.[/b]
I have to disagree. I like my phone apps better than a GPS unit for geocaching.
That's too bad, you'll miss wonderful adventures like this one https://coord.info/GC2XXZG . Boundary waters wilderness area with NO cell phone reception. Although there's a trail you still want your trusty handheld gps for safety.
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It used to be people had to make an investment of time, money, and research to find out about geocaching, and start. You had to spend a couple hundred dollars or more to buy a handheld GPS. If you had the equipment and the knowledge, you were likely already somewhat committed to the game.
Flash forward a dozen years or so, and now every 10 year old with a smart phone and no money can easily start. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. If I have a special cache, or difficult to maintain cache, I don't want people that have not invested the time researching the game going out and destroying my cache either accidentally or intentionally.
Every so often we'll have a cache bandit go through the area, and we believe it's usually a young kid based on the notes they leave when they destroy a cache. Making it premium makes it harder for them to find it with the free app, as kids aren't going to invest $30 to go destroy boxes in the woods.
I agree 100%. App crap also allows newbies with phones to hide caches with terrible coordinates. The hand held gps loaded with a pq is the way to go for most experienced cachers.
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If folks are curious, the "might need maintenance" email was sent on December 30th. At that time there had been three straight DNF's, plus one earlier DNF, and a total of only two finds in the cache's first 18 days of activity. That record of finds vs. DNF's (along with other factors) was enough to trigger the Health Score algorithm.
Since the notice was sent to the CO, there's been several more finds. (Yay!)
Lately, the Community Volunteer Reviewers have seen several examples where fairly recent publications quickly resulted in a "might need maintenance" email. We regularly feed back these observations to Geocaching HQ so that the algorithm can be fine-tuned.
Once again it's a PUZZLE CACHE not a P&G. It's going to get a few dnfs and It's been checked more than a few times. The computer program failed to consider the past maintenance and the fact it's a puzzle.
Groundspeak you have gotten notification your computer program needs maintenance but failed to fix it. They should now archive it. Practice what you preach.
Actually, since none of the Notes you posted on your Listing are logged as Owner Maintenance visits on the Listing page, I'd characterize the *fail* on the cache owner part. Reading through the log entries a bit more carefully, I'm struck with how things progressed, and I'm left with the impression that the cache design required several updates in order to make some coherent sense. I'm not usually a strong advocate of "Beta Testing" caches, but this one might have benefited from such an approach before Publication.
It's a PUZZLE CACHE Not a P&G. Emphasis added. Only hints were added, nothing else was changed.
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If folks are curious, the "might need maintenance" email was sent on December 30th. At that time there had been three straight DNF's, plus one earlier DNF, and a total of only two finds in the cache's first 18 days of activity. That record of finds vs. DNF's (along with other factors) was enough to trigger the Health Score algorithm.
Since the notice was sent to the CO, there's been several more finds. (Yay!)
Lately, the Community Volunteer Reviewers have seen several examples where fairly recent publications quickly resulted in a "might need maintenance" email. We regularly feed back these observations to Geocaching HQ so that the algorithm can be fine-tuned.
Once again it's a PUZZLE CACHE not a P&G. It's going to get a few dnfs and It's been checked more than a few times. The computer program failed to consider the past maintenance and the fact it's a puzzle.
Groundspeak you have gotten notification your computer program needs maintenance but failed to fix it. They should now archive it. Practice what you preach.
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Recently I received this from Groundspeak.
Hello rustynails.,
Your geocache, Raspberry Town (GC6XXDC), looks like it might need some attention. The recent logs may contain more details about what sort of maintenance needs to be performed. This could be anything from a new logbook to replacing a missing container. Here are a few options for what to do now:
Maintenance: Visit your geocache, make any needed repairs, and post an “Owner Maintenance” log so the community knows it’s available to find.
Disable: If you cannot check on your geocache within a reasonable amount of time, please disable your geocache listing. Once you perform maintenance, you can enable it and post an “Owner Maintenance” log.
Archive: If you decide it is time for your geocache to be permanently retired, please archive the listing and retrieve all physical stages.
For tips about how to perform maintenance and to learn why Geocaching HQ sends occasional geocache maintenance reminders, please see this Help Center article.
Thanks,
Geocaching HQ
It looks like HQ is using a computer program to monitor caches. The cache in question is a puzzle cache using a field puzzle and chirp. By definition puzzles are puzzling until it's solved. HQ's computer thinks this is a P&G. The computer program is obviously flawed and needs to be fixed. They should let a human decide if there's a problem instead of a computer finding problems where none exist. Anyone else being harassed by HQ's computer?
Did you post any comments in the Release Notes thread when it was posted back in September of 2015?
Release Notes - September 8, 2015
http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=334834
Help Center → Hiding a Geocache → Geocache ownership: A long-term relationship
4.10. Maintenance Emails from Geocaching HQ
http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=713
B.
2015? Never knew about the computer monitoring until I got the recent notice.
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Recently I received this from Groundspeak.
Hello rustynails.,
Your geocache, Raspberry Town (GC6XXDC), looks like it might need some attention. The recent logs may contain more details about what sort of maintenance needs to be performed. This could be anything from a new logbook to replacing a missing container. Here are a few options for what to do now:
Maintenance: Visit your geocache, make any needed repairs, and post an “Owner Maintenance” log so the community knows it’s available to find.
Disable: If you cannot check on your geocache within a reasonable amount of time, please disable your geocache listing. Once you perform maintenance, you can enable it and post an “Owner Maintenance” log.
Archive: If you decide it is time for your geocache to be permanently retired, please archive the listing and retrieve all physical stages.
For tips about how to perform maintenance and to learn why Geocaching HQ sends occasional geocache maintenance reminders, please see this Help Center article.
Thanks,
Geocaching HQ
It looks like HQ is using a computer program to monitor caches. The cache in question is a puzzle cache using a field puzzle and chirp. By definition puzzles are puzzling until it's solved. HQ's computer thinks this is a P&G. The computer program is obviously flawed and needs to be fixed. They should let a human decide if there's a problem instead of a computer finding problems where none exist. Anyone else being harassed by HQ's computer?
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Then, lets get into life costs. Average monthly wage on the US: 5000$.
Where do you get your stats ? Certainly not my neighborhood. I doubt anyone in my apartment building or neighbors take home $60,000 per year.
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I'm hosting an event and have been struggling with how to distribute door prize tickets. Do I give each individual a ticket or one ticket per caching name? A family of five will have a 5X chance of winning if individual tickets are used over a single person. If each caching name is given a ticket then each cacher/cacher couple have an equal chance. I do understand a few families have more than one caching name. At this point I'm expecting more than 60 people. I have maybe 20-25 prizes. How do others handle this?
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138 active user(s) (in the past 15 minutes)
11 members, 125 guests, 2 anonymous users
Who are these guests and why do they far outnumber members?
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Find a geocaching organization in your area and ask for an experienced cacher to help you. I've assisted a few newbies myself and now we're friends. Most cachers would be willing to help you.
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Why use gsak? This is just adding one or more unnecessary steps. I just keep a solved puzzle list and create a PQ from that.
new cache submission
in General geocaching topics
Posted
I submitted a new cache for review and never received the standard your cache submitted reply. Is another one of those frustrating changes? I did notice the listing, "Your Geocaches Waiting for Review" added. If I didn't get a email reply maybe the reviewer didn't get it too?