kunarion

The best way to do this is with a "Needs Maintenance" log (where you might note the cache's apparent abandonedness) once the log sheet fills up (or if it's soaked). That can start a kind of countdown as you mentioned, when the reviewers see no Cache Owner activity. If the container's really in a bad spot, you could do a "Needs Archived" instead. Otherwise, the NM is enough to get the ball rolling.

There is weatherproof paper (coated paper), and waterproof paper (polyester or vinyl specially designed to be printed on and written on). If you replace a soggy log sheet with that, the cache may last a little longer. It can still get moldy and gross if it gets wet a lot. If the container isn't being maintained, or was poorly designed for its location (getting wet logs all the time), do a Needs Maintenance log (in addition to your Found It log). If it's still the same way a few weeks later, it could then get a Needs Archived log, in preparation for actually being archived. Then the area will be available for a new cache and a better container. Or, if you contact the Cache Owner and they allow you to change containers, that's fine. In that case, the cache page might need to be updated, and the Cache Owner still needs to be active enough to maintain the cache.

Since this seems rather iffy, I'd go even less expensive -- I bought some 4GB video cameras, which also take still shots, for $5 each (free shipping) on ebay. But people are leery of downloading files from strange memory cards. And the camera battery would need to be charged. It will certainly go dead in a cache after sitting in it for, say, 6 months. And if it's looking a little bit soaking wet, that might discourage people from plugging it in. Try it with the least expensive ugly little camera you can find. Then you won't care so much if it doesn't produce any photos, and the TB may still travel fine, even after it goes bad.

I was oing to ask all of the same questions. I'd like to make some cache labels but I'm unsure about affordable quality printable stickers that wont turn to smeared yuck after a rain. The containers look like possibly for makeup or fragrance oil (maybe?). I wonder if they're straight-sided -- no ridge or lip where a cache log might hang up and be super-tough to remove from the bottle. They look to be made of a better plastic than the lab vials I've bought. If they're transparent, I'd put the label inside the bottle (or have the cache log set up so that when rolled up, the "label" part is in view). Laser labels will eventually fade outdoors. Colors in the toner will change hues or fade away, unless the label is protected from light. You'll check the cache, and a nice camo brown will have changed to bright pink. Inkjets are even worse. But it depends on the brand, and even the batch of toner. You'll just have to experiment. You can call those "Micros", but it might be good to mention it's about the size of a lipstick tube, or whatever.

It would be interesting to have a Cache set up where you follow sounds (and/or existing lights). In my town, the traffic lights become stupid at night -- the car sensors are turned off, and lights change at a regular interval, about every 5 minutes, for some weird reason. The crosswalks thankfully don't produce noise. But as mentioned, that could change. There could be a law that all traffic lights in the country must loudly speak "Do Not Wait Unless The Other Street's Light Is Not A Walking Person Symbol", and then next month, the law's been changed to make it beeps of Morse Code. If you walk the route frequently, you can adapt it.

+1 But even the suggested "improvements" are already in place. As for a probation period, I already do that. I often let others find new COs' caches, so the bugs get worked out (I can also check to see if coords lead to "the middle of a street", before even going there). And when the description says "pringles tube under some bushes", that Cache Owner has already failed the quiz.

If it's unclear, you may have to contact the Cache Owner (have them add a hint). The "beacon" attribute was added for Garmin "Chirp" beacons, but COs may apply the icon to other sorts of beacons. You need a special receiver (a fancy newer Garmin GPSr, and certain specified others), to pick up the Chirp data.

If it were part of the "I Agree" submission, people could click the various "Yes/No" answers to a list of guideline issues. I'd be happy to have that list (in a link) on each of my cache pages, for future reference, and particularly if it's a help for reviewers. So when someone visits my cache, and they look at the list, they may NA my cache, because "you checked 'No it's not buried', but it's buried 8 feet deep. Pants on fire." Or something. If the "quiz" idea never goes anywhere, let's at least come up with a list that can be added to cache descriptions. I would add it.

No, no, no!! Well, OK. You're right. I'm thinking of caches inside a business, or buried, or inside an electrical panel, or in the middle of a railroad track, or anyplace that's "not within the guidelines", which will each be a perfect cache placement in maybe a couple spots on earth. The quiz would rule them out -- don't make them be ruled out. Sure, don't start a trend where every-monkey places caches on the railroad because they saw someone else do that, but also don't make it so that it could never, ever be done in some clever, legal, unique and fun cache hide. Okay, if you say it's too tempting to others, so always stay exactly within the guidelines regardless, I can roll with that. But many caches can and do "violate the rules" (new caches, too), because they are very cool exceptions. I can also think of a few cachers with thousands of finds who really could use a refresher quiz.

True. Instead of a "quiz", a variation of Clayjar's "Geocache Rating System" could be offered (available to all). "Is it buried? Will people likely tend to dig for it?" (Yes/No) "Is the container made of cardboard or pourous material?" (Yes/No) -- If so is it indoors? (Yes/No) Bunch of questions using common issues. Then it could make a kind of assessment, a "star rating" of cache goodness. I'd rather just NM/NA the trash cache when I find one, no quiz, no time restraint. Some prolific cachers have hidden real lousy caches, and the consensus is that they won't be subject to the "restraint".

But having to strictly abide The Rules (as defined by some "quiz") will also discourage great cache ideas. Don't have a restriction for "newbies" to prevent them from hiding lousy caches. Whatever it is you do to prevent non-newbies from hiding lousy caches, do that.

Yes. Do a cache inventory, make appropriate notes on your cache page and on the TBs' pages. Wait a few weeks, then mark the Travelers as being in an unknown location. I did one of my own TBs this weekend -- it was placed in its brand-new cache a month ago, and immediately vanished. People seem to have lots of trouble doing proper Traveler logs (me too, sometimes). If a cacher grabs/drops several TBs among several caches in one trip, it takes careful notes to keep them all straight, and extra online work besides just logging the caches. I'd encourage people to move just one TB and log it right, rather than try to bite off more than they can chew.

Or leave it to the GC community. If it's a bad cache, use the proper logs & tools to make it go away. There are several COs (some who should know better by now) who have always placed lousy throw-down containers in questionable spots, and I don't hunt their caches anymore. So, in the spirit of my reply, I should probably go find every trash cache, and get them archived. My first container was in place for six months before I activated it. I'd support adding that to the guidelines, rather than a quiz or number of finds. Something like: "Place your container, and see how it fares through the seasons. If it proves to be in a bad spot, remove it. If it holds up well, untouched, consider activating it".

When you see a log like that, is it possible that there's a throw-down container at such a cache? If there's more than one cache container at the OP cache find site, one of them won't have your signature. It's plausible that someone changed the log sheet (cacher or CO) after you signed. It also seems like cachers in your area may have issues that go far beyond Geocaching. As far as I know, the OP story has never happened to me. The closest thing would be a log immediately after I placed a Travel Bug that it was not there. But I've seen logs where a cache container has completely changed, and in one case the ammo can was gone and people were finding a sandwich box, very close by, with some obscure (unlisted on this site, no GC code) cache name written on it -- and nobody seems to have noticed that they're finding the wrong box. Someone logged on one of my Micro caches that “the log's almost full”*. Even though that's a little annoying (since I check the caches frequently and a log like that sorta suggests I'm not maintaining the cache) I left the log as is. No HORROR, no contacting anyone. I actually check my caches frequently enough so that I know if someone signed or not, and if I saw a "log's blank" note, I'd go find out why that happened (wet log? muggled?). *if a log's "full", flip it over, and now it's only half full.

And that location data's likely stored by the cell phone carrier. If it's not a Federal requirement to save that info, which it probably is (for *ahem* "patriotic" purposes), it's at least kept for resolving billing disputes. At least with iphone, maybe you can see what the phone company sees.

Thanks, doug! I haven't put much into the voting anyway. The two I voted on are like 50,000th in line, behind a bunch of boring ideas. But I do currently have "23 Karma". So I'm better off staying indoors for the duration. Unless the house catches fire...

That one wasn't accepting new items, when I checked (annoying, since I had to make the trackable items and work out a viable plan for cataloguing and serializing them in advance, or there would be no point to contact them). There are other free tracking sites but they don't seem to last long. Bear in mind that if an item doesn't have the imprinted "Track at Geocaching.com" or "Track at Groundspeak.com" (Geocoin or Travel Bug), it's not a recognized trackable Geocaching gamepiece. It's therefore a serialized "signature item". There's no spot for them on geocaching.com (as there is for Travelers), people are less likely to do the extra work to log them for you, and all bets are off once the free site goes down. You can serialize (or name) them anyway, and at least request a PM (where you could do your own sort of very basic tracking site). All I do is send out my serialized sig items, and occasionally get an email from someone confused about what they're for. Just for collecting and trading, and that's it.

It's generally a good idea to log what you trade. Lots of people don't, sometimes because it would be embarassing reveal what they left in exchange for something they want. If it could be useful or fun info to others, be as specific as you like. If you take a signature item (something with a cacher's name on it) or a certain kind of object you like to collect, you could type that in your log. If you leave something that you want to be a pleasant surprise (anything real cool thing that others might immediately take), you may choose to write that only in the paper log inside the cache. If you know there are Travel Bugs or Geocoins listed as being in the cache, a note about which ones are actually there would be very helpful.

I voted. I think I did it right, although I'm unsure about who many votes I added. I had "10 votes left", clicked add comment, and now it said "8 votes left". Then I clicked Vote, selected "3 Votes", and now I have "5 Votes Left". Maybe that includes something else I voted one previously. I'm sure it's fine, but I got confused real quick.

There's a cache in a park I've found next to some guy's favorite parking spot (for work breaks and long lunch hours?). Several logs mention him specifically, sitting there in the car. I used those logs to devine a time to go search. Ducking behind his car's front bumper to look for a cache didn't seem to be a good option.

Place a larger ammo box . That seems like great place for inventive caches.

That's how mine is set up. The Chirp is attached with velcro just above the rear window inside the car. The transmit range is very good from there. My TB decal has no number shown, and the TB dogtag inside is visible, but not the number. The only way to get the TB number (aside from asking me) is to find it by Chirp. I set the Chirp's "Lat/Long" to all "0". You could set the coords to a secret mystery container, or to a real cache as an extra way to get the coords. As Gitchee-Gummee said, you may not get a lot of "discovers". I've had some luck with that, at Geocaching events. One person had his GPS on, and got the signal without ever seeing the car.

That seems a little tacky. I'm taking my bassoon and going home.

The one with the "G" is free. It was designed to be in the Public Domain.

We've only just got back from the world tour. Surprised you hadn't even heard about it!