Thot
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Posts posted by Thot
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I think I'm missing something. Why not ask him to log in and change the password to something everybody can use?
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I have one screen that actually says how far away I am and another that is a compass with a distance reading, but man does that thing swing at times.
You can configure those values at the bottom of each screen to be whatever you want them to be. I don't use the compass screen at all. As you say it behaves erratically. But I still don’t follow you about the difference between the coordinates themselves and the distance I assume is calculated using these coordinates.
Each person finds the method that best suits them. I use the map screen with bearing and distance displayed at the bottom. I begin using this screen while heading to the location in the car. I configure the map screen so the arrow always points in the direction I’m moving. The map screen gives me good fix on where the cache is relative to me and my movement. By noting the distance, I can tell how far away it is and thus if there may be multiple paths to reach it. I continue to use the map screen (noting the distance periodically) until I’m very close. Then I begin watching the distance and move in various directions choosing the one that causes the distance to decrease. This takes me to the exact location the unit thinks the cache is within 2 feet. That’s when I start searching.
By the way I’ve found these Magellan units need 3-5 minutes of settling time after you reach the location. They seem to overshoot, carrying you beyond the target location until they settle in. You simply cannot believe the reading you get when you first arrive. I have the EPE (Estimated Position Error) at the bottom of the coordinates (waypoint?) screen and I flip over and check it while waiting for the gadget to settle. I don’t know if that’s true of all brands/units.
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B)I don't go by the # of feet away I am, but actually look at the coords. On numerous occasions, the distance is off by a fair amount but the actual coords are right on.
Could someone explain how distance is determined if not by using the coordinates?
In my Magellan the coordinate screen does not give direction and distance to cache. The compass screen shows heading - bearing - speed - distance to cache.
The GPS figures the disance from your position to the waypoint you entered for the cache position.
So yes, the coordinates (yours and that of the cache) ARE used. You just can't see all that on most GPS (as I understand it - and from the screen shots of GPS's I have seen). As described above - you can see the disance and direction but not the positions.
I have the same unit he has and you can configure the screens to display whichever parameters you want on the various screens.
However I read his statement "the distance is off by a fair amount but the actual coords are right on," to mean the coordinates are more accurate than the distance to the target calculated using these coordinates. If it uses the coordinates it thinks you are at to calculate the distance to the target coordinates I can't see how the coordinates can be more accurate than the distance calculated using them. And, I'm can't see what other information it would use to calculate the distance.
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B)I don't go by the # of feet away I am, but actually look at the coords. On numerous occasions, the distance is off by a fair amount but the actual coords are right on.
Could someone explain how distance is determined if not by using the coordinates?
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I don't see why there'd be much risk to the other caches if you just discussed the possibility of placing yours and said nothing about the existing ones.
Well, if the land manager has never heard of geocaching, and you go in asking permission to place a cache on "his" land, he just might go search gc.com and realize there are already caches placed, without permission.
That's possible, but the risk seems fairly low. If a recent policy statement has been issued then he probably already knows about geocaching. If Milbank doesn't give him an education about the web support he wouldn't know anymore about gc.com than he did before. "There's this game I play with others where I hide a container of harmless novelty items, then tell others the Lat/Lon and they try to find it and trade items with me. Here's my container of stuff. I wondered if it would be alright for me to hide it over by the bend in the brohau stream"
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Bear in mind that one possible consequence of approaching the manager of the refuge might be that the other two caches will be removed.
I was just thinking about that.
I'm thinking I will go and get the cache, then look for someplace else to hide it.
I don't see why there'd be much risk to the other caches if you just discussed the possibility of placing yours and said nothing about the existing ones.
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I carry my caching supplies in a modest sized denim bag. In it I have a pair of compact Nikon binoculars. They're small and light. I'm not as agile as younger folk. I can often find an angle that lets me see under over and into places without climbing, kneeling or crawling. But, this often requires moving some distance away. The binoculars let me see at these distances as well as I'd have to be close to see. Just last week the binoculars let me see under a small bridge from a distance. Without them I would have had to crawl through a fence and sit down on muddy ground to see under the bridge. The cache wasn't there, so in this case, they saved me time and some unpleasantness.
I also carry a mirror that lets me see under and over things that would require crawling or climbing to examine. I must confess I’ve never found a cache using these devices, but I’ve eliminated places by using them.
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I don’t know much about webcams, but how do you find the URL for them when it’s not given?
I just looked at the mapquest map, zoomed in and saw it was near the UConn campus grounds. Then I did a google search for "Connecticut webcams". That search led me to the UConn webcams (they have two at the school) and I saw that the 'cache' is the webcam at the bookstore.
Requiring you find the URL seems to be that chaps theme. Here's another of his. I tried your method for a couple of minutes on this one and gave up. I don't know enough about Boston and Google seemed give a jillion webcam hists for boston. Never before realized there are so many porno webcams.
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A photo is a bit of trouble and requires an exchange of e-mails just to find out the e-mail address. That's because you can't send an attachment with an e-mail through the gc.com system.
I never thought of not being able to send a attachment through gc.com
If you still want to continue with the email idea you can let them send the photo the first time. There's an option to make your email address available instead of requiring they use the blind form method. If you make your address available they can send a regular email and thus include the photo.
Under ideal conditions this isn't as hard as it seems. If you're home and the cacher has a picture phone. The cacher could take the picture with their cell phone, send it to a friend who emails it to you and then returns the hint to the cacher via cell phone. The unlikely part is catching you at home checking your email. If you knew a friend who's at his/her computer all the time you could enlist them to reply.
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I don’t know much about webcams, but how do you find the URL for them when it’s not given?
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I think you need to quit worrying about your Texas DPS friend's paranoia and go find some caches!
Oh, it hasn't slowed me down. I just wondered if it has ever happened. Somebody seems to think not.
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Nope. You have a much greater chance of someone boobytrapping a $5 bill on the sidewalk with a tripwire, or a walkman left on a parkbench, or any one of a million other things. If you are serious about hurting people by boobytrapping something, how much fun is it to go out, hunt down a cache, boobytrap it, then wait maybe weeks or months for the next finder? It'd be much more fun to a sicko like that to boobytrap a purse on a bus seat.
Maybe. But, it would be a lot easier to do this in a remote cache without being detected/seen than in a public place.
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At a family get together a few days ago I had occasion to explain geocaching to the group. One family member is a senior Texas DPS Officer (highway patrol and more). Another is a guy who also works in a tough business. They both laughed immediately having had the same thought. They said they’d never do that. Both agreed that, “Sooner or later you’re going to open one of those things that’s been booby trapped and meet a rattlesnake, blow your hand off, get a face full of poison or something similar.”
I guess I’d never considered that, but an ammo can certainly provides an opportunity for a malicious person to set a booby trap. Has anybody ever heard of this happening?
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Sometimes, I do the "camera at arms length thing, but that's usually just with cache-cameras.
You mean I was't supposed to take that camera?
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One situation that intimidates me is when I suspect the cache is hidden in shrubbery. Maybe three times now I’ve run into micro caches such that the nearest area to the coordinates where anything could be hidden was a flower bed with shrubs.
Last week I was looking for a micro (it used the official micro container). I know the coordinates were way off because they put me in the middle of a highway and when I got home and read the logs others had said the same thing. The nearest possible location was a flowerbed in a small park. The flower bed had a cluster of many small shrubs. I’m not a plant person, but the shrubs were like 20 inche hemispheres sitting on the ground. The bed was about 10 feet on a side. In order to examine the plants one would have to walk all over the flowerbed tramping down/compacting the mulch and soil. Also, the branches of the small bushes were more woody than soft, green and compliant. It seemed to me that digging into the plants and mashing them around to find anything in or under them had the potential to damage them. I was unwilling to do this. There was no one around when I was there, but at other times the area has a lot of traffic and I suspect you might get chastised for walking around in the flowerbed.
My question is, is it common for people hide caches in flowerbeds risking damage to the plants by the many geocachers that may come tramping around in the beds and mangling the plants?
I'm not making an ethical judgment here, I'm just trying to figure out how to proceed when I suspect the cache is hidden this way.
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Or, you could begin by trying to contact the cache owner, like this:Hello,
I am interested in searching for your "Fluffy Pink Bunnies" cache in West Park, but I noticed that the last five logs all reported that they could not find the cache. The most recent successful find was in April.
So that I don't waste a trip, can you please confirm for me that the cache is still in place?
Thanks,
Joe Geocacher
Hmm . . . My instincts were right. Here's the version I sent:
I was about to try your "Fluffy Pink Bunnies," but noticed the last 5 tries have been DNFs while the history shows regular finds before that and almost no DNFs.Do you know if it's still in place?
No reply yet.
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The Title overstates the certainty of knowing a cache is "dead," but let’s assume there’s good reason to suspect a cache is no longer in place. Should I report my suspicion to someone? If so, who?
While selecting some new caches to hunt this morning I came a cross one that had a history of consistent and regular finds every week to two weeks for a couple of years. Now, for the last four months there have been no finds, and 5 DNFs have been reported.
This strongly suggests to me something’s gone wrong with this cache.
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I originally did a lot of 800 x 600 and 640 x 480 but then realized that 60-125K can be lot to download . . .
But sometimes they just look so much better big
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Is it just me or is the main geocaching.com website painfully slow?
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I'd seen it somewhere, just couldn't remember where.
I actually remembered the limits correctly, but I've seen more experienced people quote incorrect things (such as, pictures can't be larger than 600 pixels wide or the limit is 125kb), so I decided I'd better check my memory.
Thanks
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How big can pictures posted to a log be without getting resized? (I understand they resize for a giant thumbnail (elephant toenail?), I mean for the "original" image you get when you click on the toenail.
How wide and tall in pixels (800x600, 1024x768, etc.)?
How large a file (200 kb, 300 kb, etc.)
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I may have missed it in the lists above, but I would add a Leatherman or other multitool
I didn't think to mention items that I always carry in the car that remain in the car, such as a flashlight and a small tool kit that contains about 8 common tools including a Leatherman.
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I’m not sure why I’m posting this as it mostly repeats what others have said, but it’s from the perspective of an old guy who only recently began geocaching, and to some extent this is a game better suited to younger more agile people. I had to give up on one cache that would have required a mild form of acrobatics to reach it and get back.
I use a denim carry bag to keep things together/collected to take to the car when I start out, but I don't take it out of the car on the hunt. My stick stays in the trunk between hunts.
1) GPSr & extra batteries
2) Printed copies of the first page of the cache descriptions, & a zoomed map linked from the description page. Copy of current working cache folded in pocket, the rest are Note 1
3) OFF/Deet - in Houston this is essential -- jillions of mosquitoes and West Nile Virus Note 1
4) Digital Camera. extra batteries are Note 1
5) Compass - which I rarely use because it never seems to help. Recently this is Note 1
6) Right hand glove - for sticking hand into/under worrisome places. In pocket.
I think the following ones are more important to us old codgers who can't climb, stoop, bend, squat and kneel like younger folks. And, irregular ground is more of a problem - it threatens a fall and things break easier. And, I don’t bring wading boots.
7) A stick for walking on irregular ground, moving stuff aside and poking around in worrisome places (mine happens to be 2 cm square meter stick with a wrist strap on one end)
8) Inspection mirror -- a mirror with a telescoping handle. To peer into, above and under hard to reach places. (I'm considering taping on a penlight flashlight to shine on the mirror.)
9) Compact binoculars - for seeing places I don't want to have to climb, crawl, wade or walk a log to unless I know there's a payoff. Note 1
I have a couple of bottles of water and a cell phone in the car -- I rarely go more than a mile from the car.
I don’t carry swag because I don’t trade. I go for the places I see and the hunt. Occasionally I leave geoGeorges. I have never taken anything.
Note 1 – left in car until needed
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If your coords are good to witn ,say, 5 meters and the cacher's is off by 5 meters as well, then it is probable that that cacher can be up to 10 meterrs ( abt 15-20 feet) off.
I hate it when I nitpick, but 10 meters is really 33 feet.
Change Password
in How do I...?
Posted
What Prime Suspect said it the easiest way -- you find the "My Cache Page" in the selections on upper left of the geocaching.com main page. Here