kbootb

I've not got a gps with mapping on as in the 60cs. I think that is way over the top for getting into geocaching. Unless you also want to use it for navigating on the road as well. Also, I'm not too sure if the price on eBay is much of a bargain. Retail price in UK at this shop is £323 plus VAT i.e. £379. That's in the UK so will have EU map. Also, if it is being imported, a fair number are stopped by customs and have VAT applied to them. ( I also hear that some couriers then apply a fee to this as well to handle the VAT transaction) To be honest most people start with something like the yellow Etrex (in fact there are many that continue with it as well) This would cost about £80 at the shop metnioned above. One thing to beware of with this unit is the GPS only points in the right direction when you are moving. Stand still and rotate on the spot and the arrow will no longer be pointing in the right direction. I decided to move up the range and get one that has an electronic compass that kicks in when you have been standing still for a while. But... it's not my money... and if you know you want it for more than just caching then I hear many good things about it. Others will know if you can install the UK maps over the pre-installed ones. The software for uploading cache co-ordinates is pretty simple stuff. Most people here seem to us GSAK (just do a search for it). EasyGPS works but isn't as clever. Don't forget you will need a cable to connect to the PC. You would probably find it useful to become a premium member. A small annual fee allows you to set up queries that will send you batches of cache descriptions by e-mail, up to 500 at a time, on a scheduled basis. Most people prefer that to trawling through listings and downloading the ones they want. Also, the only info that goes to the GPSr is the co-ordinates to create a waypoint. All the description and hints that you see on the web page will be lost. So you either print out the pages or use some form of Pocket PC or Palm to carry that around with you. For the £300 + you were thinking of spending, I bet many people here would buy a cheaper GPS and be a fair way towards buying a PDA. Hope that helps. People here are really helpful, but please read as much as you can on the geocaching site, and the resources pinned at the top of the forum to avoid asking for help with every thing. But no-one minds answering a question if you have read up and are still stuck.

Thanks for that puzzle. I was chuffed to bits that I worked it out. But there really is no-one in my real life that I could share the triumph with. At our Christmas drinks party (well trip to the local) the conversation turned to 'Anorakdom' with a guy who was accused of being one as he knew far too much about the BMW range. He maintained that everyone in the room would have a 'specialist' subject that they knew lots about but everyone else would not see the point of. Now could I openly claim to an unhealthy knowledge of navigation, map co-ordinate systems, datum lines, and tupperware boxes....no. They all know I've got so many anorak areas, what with IT, networking, music particularly guitars, they didn't even have to ask me to reveal mine... perhaps that was lucky.

I think I can see what's wrong. Someone's nicked the batteries.

0.5 miles to the nearest I have placed, 0.8 to the nearest I have found 4.7 to the nearest unfound. 15 caches within 5 miles.

I thought this was a wind up until I looked on amazon. (I know they have missed gullible out of the shorter Oxford Dictionary, but I just had to look and check) I can't believe that there is 232 pages worth to write as a guide to GC. But then again, if I remember the style of these books there is a lot of white space and repetition. I wonder if it will get into clever idea for fiendish caches and puzzles? Or perhaps repetitious instructions for how to enter waypoints for every GPS they could think of, now that would fill a few pages. Go on.. if you were writing a book on GC what would be your chapter headings? Lets see if we can guess the content before SP gets his hands on the book!

Part of the standard text on a cache description page says, 'Warning, the logs may contain spoilers' or words to this affect. However, The cache in question is close to my area, and I was planning the next couple of caching trips and stumbled across the picture. At first sight the picture looks innocuous enough. But give it a few seconds and your eye is drawn to.... Well, that must be the definition of a spoiler. This picture really must go, or at least be cropped, or the title changed to make the spoiler really clear. If you are planning to do McDehack caches in the near future, for your own pride/pleasure/sanity don't open the log pictures.

Well it made me laugh, even the teenagers here smiled, and that takes a lot.

I find the possibility that someones 'find' was deleted due to a negative comment on the log. I can't speak from great experience, I've only set 3 caches, but here's my instant thought. Caches should be thought out... there should be a reason why the cache is placed, not just hiding a box because you can hide a box there. There really should be a reason for attracting someone to the location. Secondly, the setter should give some thought to the type of person they are hoping to attract, and perhaps give hints about that in the description. e.g. my caches are hoping to attract families and please the younger members, or beginners. They are placed in places that I hope families would like, contain objects for the young (at heart) and are not fiendishly difficult to find. Making comments about how well that has succeeded, if the find was too easy to bother (and perhaps easily muggled) or too difficult, can only be found by an expert, or that the place I've drawn you to is poor and not worth a visit are quite legitimate. Comments on the terrain and difficulty assigned are particularly welcomed. So I think it is quite acceptable to give your personal rating for a cache, against the sort of criteria.. e.g not my cup of tea.... far too muddy/easy. Or great for a walk with the kids. Or even... not sure why this cache is here.... perhaps the setter had a reason that is not made clear and should think about the description a bit more... Sorry it's a bit long, but I'm killing time waiting for the other half of the team to get ready before attacking the new caches that have appeared near home.

Just seen this on the US eBay site. Very clever, but I get an uneasy feeling that if all caches were this difficult it would not be much fun. I prefer trying to work out where they could have hidden a decent sized ammo box

Just saw this on the BBC news site. Geocaching didn't even get a mention

I'm not sure if it appeared in the forums. But the event is now here. If you are attending have a quick look at the site as there is a bit of home work to be done or the bran tub will be embarrassingly empty. Just thought I'd warn you.

Have a look at this Aegis I used this about 10 years ago. We had to go the the map office in the Civic Centre and extract all the data relating to the positioning of dog poo bins and plot them. Also, we found out that schools can get copies of all electronic OS data for the area the LEA covers and use if for educational purposes free.

You know, I never knew that.

Little Arrows by ???? Leapy Lee if my memory serves

'Lost in France' perhaps?

Naturists? What is that just creeping into the left of the frame? I'm sure I recognise the location, I think I kayaked past this once. There are three great caches in the region that I have found GCG9BQ GCG9BR GCG9XZ and one really tough one that has been 'lost' and is now archived after our brave attempt. GC72B5 France may not have many, but if you choose carefully they are very high quality.

I would not delete a DNF if I subsequently found a cache. I think the cache setter is entitled to the feedback that there was a difficulty finding the cache and that some circumstance changed to allow the hunt to be successful. The cache setter can then decide if any action is needed e.g. changing the description, clue, location or difficulty, or indeed they are happy with the DNF/find ratio and leave it as it is. Also, it gives a clue to people setting out on a hunt that they might be in for a bit of a search on this one.

For me there has to be a purpose to posting a DNF. 1) to alert the cache setter that the cache might have gone 2) to alert the cache setter to the fact that we had a good search, and despite using the clues couldn't find it. Therefore either situation 1 applies or the clues need revising, or possibly the difficulty level. If the cache setter has made it difficulty 4 or 5 and a proportion are finding it tought, that's OK 3) If there is an interesting story behind the DNF I don't post if I think it was my incompetence and I am likely to go back for another shot soon. However, I do get suckered in to posting a DNF if a number of others have posted for the same cache. Note to self, must watch this and treat all caches equally.

Also, I assume you are using the gps correctly, i.e. entering the co-ords as a waypoint and then navigating to that waypoint. This then gives you an arrow to follow and a distance to go read out. Don't laugh, but I have recently read the website of one enthusiastic cacher (team) that were so keen to try out their new toy that they didn't read the instructions and spent the afternoon walking round trying to get the location co-ords to match. (No clue, but you know who you are ) Point 2, when you get 'close' i.e. about 100m, slow down. The GPS does take a time to settle. The once within 15 - 20 m stop for about 20 seconds. I usually go to the page that shows signal strength at that point as it gives me a feel for how accurate the signal will be at that point. Remember if your unit is reporting accuracy up to 10m, whoever placed the cache would have had a similar accuracy when they placed it. So you could have a 20m inaccuracy to deal with. The satellites are 'moving' and some configurations of sats give better accuracy than others, so from day to day the co-oords for a given spot may vary a bit and the possible accuracy will change.

Tee- hee. Brought a big smile to my face Actually someone I know has a vauge connection to Tim Berners-Lee and actually showed her some of the very early pages.

I'm still looking for the first page... you know the one with the list of contents.

We were muggled recently while doing a 'coal post' cache. These are Victorian(?) iron posts that surround London and mark the point at which you have to pay coal tax if bringing it into London. A sort of congestion charge but the cameras weren't so good. We had found the cache and just about to replace it when a woman arrived. We sat on the log waiting for her to move on for about 20 mins. Eventually a dog walker arrived and engaged her in conversation and distracted her enough for us to slip the cache back in the hidey-hole. As we walked back past her she commented that she thought we would never leave as we were in her picture of the coal post. She clearly was as reticent to reveal her mission to photograph coal posts as we were to reveal that we use millions of pounds worth of military equipment to find tupperware. However, once we revealed that we knew a bit about coal posts and knew where the next few were in the series could be found both parties went on their way with pride intact. Not so much a tactic, but made me think, 'well I know why I am here, what on earth are you doing here if it's not caching'.

Here you go Hot Lingo a spell checker that works in IE. I'm a cheepskate, and use the evolution version, and pass on the web address when I can (part of the usage agreement of the evaluation version). Dave thanks for that. Got partway through the install and remembered I'm test driving firefox at the moment.

love the caption threads. Don't stop. As said earlier, mark the threads clearly and those that don't want to read them don't have to.

I was going to start a thread to thank the reviewers for the 20 min (might have been less but I went for a cuppa) tunround in approving. But then I thought it might look like a) adverstising Sycophancy (why isn't there a spell checker here) but as others have already thanked them.. I'll join in. Thanks for doing a great job for us.