Curioddity

Duplicate post. The Groundspeak server seems to be acting up again. rePete

I'd also be interested in what kind of tools people people carry in their fanny and day packs. I carry a notebook and pen, a 2-cell (AA) LED flashlight, and one of those telescoping inspection mirrors on a stick. I also carry one of those flexible pushbutton retrieval tools with the little jaws that come out of one end and a telescoping magnetic retrieval tool. 'Course water and snacks are a given. There's one other tool I keep in the trunk of my car but don't typically carry with me: It's a 40" steel rod with a wooden handle on one end and a 3" 90° bend on the other. I made it out of a piece of wooden dowel and a piece of quarter inch rod. It's basically a single-tine rake used for poking around in the detritus under bushes and other places I don't particularly care to put my hands. Pete

GPS accuracy can change on a minute-by-minute basis. I've seen changes in accuracy (as reported by my Garmin Oregon 400t) that went from 10 to 30+ to 3 feet within a 15 minute period and I wasn't on the move. You need to remember that the GPS satellites are not in geostationary orbits. They each orbit the earth roughly 2 times per day which means that the number of satellites your GPSr can "see" at any given time is constantly changing as some drop below the horizon and others rise above it. Remember too that local terrain and artificial horizons like buildings have a big effect on this too. If you happen to be in a place which has a restricted view of the sky, the change in accuracy can be rapid and profound. Of course atmospheric conditiond also play a role, but it usually doesn't result in rapid changes in accuracy. The 15 minute swing in accuracy I mentioned above happened in one of the local business districts with several high-rise office buildings and plenty of trees in it. I called up the satellites screen on the GPSr and the signal bars were moving like a slow motion graphic equalizer display. I was looking for a nano cache and accuracy was important so I had to sit near GZ and wait for awhile before I finally got a strong signal from several satellites at once. I should add that once my GPSr gave me that 3 foot tolerance it led me right to the cache (WAAS enabled). Pete

And that brings up the question: Are hides which require tools to discover or retrieve officially accepted by the geocaching community? Pete the Curious

I'd beware blaming the original hider by default. Could be that a lazy cache hunter didn't put it back where they found it. One of the very first caches I found is a micro that is hidden in plain sight. If it's carefully placed it looks like part of the structure it's hidden on and would take a real sharp eye or some touchy-feely investigation to find. But even as an inexperienced newb, I found it immediately because it wasn't in the right place which made it stick out like a hammered thumb. Truth be known, if it had been in it's proper location, I probably wouldn't have found it and wouldn't be aware of this clever kind of cache yet. It was quite apparent to me where this cache belonged and that's where I returned it to after I signed the log. Too bad the last person who found it wasn't as courteous. They turned a very clever micro hide into a very lame one and it would be an injustice to criticize the original cacher. Pete

I found a cache in some real tall weeds in an undeveloped part of a large public park near here. I just happened to come out of those weeds right in front of a couple of other fellows. They looked kind of funny at me so I waved my hand under my nose a couple of times and said "You DONT want to go back there for awhile." One of them grinned and said he hoped I hadn't wiped myself with the log. 'Bout then I noticed the compass bezel on the screen of his cell phone and we all had a good laugh. Less than two weeks ago I was totally unaware of geocaching. Now I'm amazed by how many people I know who are rabid about it. I'm also a little miffed by the fact that they kept it to themselves for so long. Pete

Hang the biggest yellow tape measure you can find from your belt. If you're going to use it strictly as a geocaching ploy you can open it up and remove the tape which will make it considerably lighter. I haven't actually used this trick for geocaching yet because I'm brand new at it, but I've worked in several trades where I had to carry a tape and having one on my belt usually seemed to satisfy people's curiosity when they caught me closely examining something. If you really want to look the part, add the previously-mentioned clipboard to the disguise. Pete

I spent quite a few years working in the sign industry when I was a bit younger. The company I worked for specialized in sandblasted stone signage, usually for golf courses but we also did plenty of commercial and residential signage too. We made our share of polished stone signs but our real niche was natural boulder signage, often made from indigenous stone from the immediate area. After about a year of doing this I couldn't seem to look at a large stone or boulder without considering what kind of sign it would make. I could be hiking along one of the most breathtaking mountain rivers you could imagine and I'd be looking for the perfect sign blank. I'm better now. I can walk in the woods and actually see the forest for the tree .. uh .. boulders, but since I started Geocaching I can't seem to walk down a street anymore without looking for a perfect place to hide a cache. How 'bout you? Has this hobby changed the way you look at the world around you? Pete

One more quick note about Eneloops in an Oregon 400t: A pair of fully-charged cells will drop from full to 1/2 on the battery gauge in a couple of hours. Then it will hang there for many more hours without dropping any further. This is a typical discharge curve for a NiMH cell, regardless of whether it's a hybrid or standard. But just beware that once it starts to drop again, it's going to go pretty quick. Pete

First, let me qualify myself: I might be new to Geocaching but I've been a rabid model aviator for years. The type of models I fly are all electric and some of my powered planes use LiPo packs which cost hundreds of dollars each. I also fly slope and thermal duration gliders which typically use NiMH packs to power the receiver and servos. Some of those gliders are carbon composite models which cost well over a thousand dollars. Others are made of EPP foam which is shaped, taped, and covered with iron-on film. Those typically have battery packs which are imbedded in foam and covered over so if I have to replace one, I have to cut the plane open to do it. Needless to say, the health of my R/C battery packs is very important to me and I've spent considerable time researching every aspect of charging and maintaining them. My battery tools include a pair of Hobbico AccuCycle Elite chargers, a pair of Hyperion EOS0610i Duo chargers, and a West Mountain Radio CBA II analyzer. That said, here's what I've learned about AA and AAA NiMH cells: Heat will kill 'em faster than anything. If your charger gets your cells much more than a little warm when you charge them, you're shortening their useable life every time you charge them. Maybe you can charge them in an hour, but you shouldn't unless you have to. Stick below a 0.5C (1/2 capacity) charge rate and your batteries will reward you. Use a "smart" (peak detect) charger designed for NiMH cells and use the Soft Charge mode whenever you can (if the charger has that option). I use a MAHA MH-C800S on soft charge for my loose cells. The ultra-high capacity (2500mAh+) cells don't last as long as the lower capacity cells. The sweet spot seems to be 2000 - 2300 mAh. The "hybrid" NiMH cells (Eneloop, etc.) are the cat's meow! In warm climates, standard NiMH cells can lose as much as 20% of their charge just sitting on the table overnight. Subject them to in-car temperatures and it can be substantially more. Leave fully-charged cells in your glovebox for a week and they might not even be able to turn your device on when you finally want to use it. The hybrid cells don't have a significant self-discharge rate so you can charge and store and they'll still be ready to go when you want to play. At most, you should only have to do a complete discharge-charge cycle once or twice a season and a full discharge for NiMH cells is 0.9V per cell resting voltage (for all practical purposes, there's no need to go below 1V per cell). Go below 0.9V and you will do irreversible damage to the cell chemistry. It typically won't kill the cell immediately, but it will reduce the capacity and shorten the usable life of the cells. Follow these rules and your NiMH cells will reward you. Break 'em and you'll end up whining in threads like this one. For a little example of that, check out this video: www.vimeo.com/1760099. It's one of the planes I mentioned which has the battery pack imbedded in foam and covered over with packing tape and iron-on film. I built the plane in 2005 and it still has the same NiMH pack in it. About a month ago I did my annual charge-discharge-charge test and logged the discharge with my CBA-II. That pack will still deliver almost the same capacity at a 200 mAh load as it did when it was new. Pete