Web-ling

Here's my submission: JZ3534 Cincinnati, Ohio

It's in my front yard, about 15 miles from the original location, and in a different county. Not much chance of confusing anyone.

Here's the situation: I acquired a City of Cincinnati traverse station disk after the city dug it up. I concreted it in my front yard, and submitted it to Waymarking.com under the "Recovered US Benchmarks" category. It was denied because "it is not a benchmark. Instead, it is just a part of a former benchmark." However, on the Waymarking category description page LINK it states that the category includes "Survey disks that look like geodetic disks, including cadastral disks, right of way disks, and boundary marker disks." Is it a survey disk? YES! Does it look like a geodetic disk? YES! photo Is it permanently afixed to the ground? YES It's even listed by the City of Cincinnati in their database (hard copy available, URL unknown), although in a different location. Does the category description say the disk has to be in the original location? NO! Does it say the disk has to be actively used by surveyors? NO! Based on the published category description, this should qualify. It's a geodetic disk, not a nail, chisled X, wooden post, or flagging tape, and the category description says nothing about still being in the original location. Should this disk be published on Waymarking.com? I'm willing to accept the majority opinion.

Rats! I don't hang out in the forums much anymore, and didn't hear about this contest until about an hour ago. I missed the cut-off

Try LostOutdoors.com

I have placed well over 100 caches. Some have been archived because they were muggled or had other problems. Recently, I archived several and placed new ones nearby. Why? First, they weren't among my most spectacular hides. They were basic "box in the park" sorts of caches. Secondly, I'm beginning to run out of good places to hide caches nearby. By archiving one cache, then replacing it with a new one in the same park, I created additional opportunities for local cachers to hunt caches without traveling quite as far as they might. As for new cachers that never found the originals, the new ones are nearby, so the hunt is similar. They don't really lose anything, and veteran cachers have another cache to hunt. Win/win for all involved. I did not archive all my caches, just a select few that I was tired of and that weren't getting as many hits as they used to.

I almost always use either a topo map and/or aerial photo to get near the cache. And, about 70% of the time, I find the cache without ever turning the GPS on, just using the topo or aerial loaded into my PDA.

Not me. I'm a recycled TRS-80 color computer. Really, he is! He's been sitting in my garage for 20 years!

I was an orienteer long before I was a geocacher. If there is a combo orienteering/geocaching event that is co-sponsored by a geocacher/geocaching organization and an orienteering club, with real geocaching, not just a here-are-the-coordinates-for-the-controls orienteering course, I think it meets the guidelines. If they have boxes hidden in the woods with coordinates, it should be approvable. Geocaching events in conjunction with orienteering meets are a great way to introduce caching to a receptive audience. However, it needs to be a "real" geocaching event, not just an orienteering event in disguise. Here is one I co-sponsored in 2003 that I would approve again under the current guidelines.

Q: What's the difference between the average geocacher and the average orienteer? A: Geocachers weigh 50 pounds more, and can use a GPS. A group of us with the Ohio Kentucky Indiana Cachers have started the "OKIC's Biggest Loser" contest to help us lose weight...

I use a Palm Tungtsen T3. In addition to caching paperless, I also usually cache GPS-less. I load .gpx files into GSAK, then add aerial photos and topo maps as notes to the caches I plan to hunt. Then I export as HTML files, and use Plucker to drop the data into my Palm. My T3 does the job very well.

Congratulations from another Eagle Scout (NE Ohio Council, T-380, 1979)

I log a note if I revisit a cache or have a comment not related to an actual hunt. If I made an attempt to find a cache, but didn't find it, I log a DNF. If there were circumstances that prevented my being able to thoroughly hunt for the cache, like if my son had to use the bathroom, or I'm already 15 minutes late for work, or I had a traffic accident while looking for one of JoGPS's caches, I add that explanation to my log.

I do about 70% of my caches using ONLY aerial photos and topo maps, without a GPSr.

I've never understood what the big deal is to be FTF. Even for us number hounds, there's no extra score for being FTF. I tend to avoid FTF caches. Too often, the coords are wrong, or there's something else messed up with the cache. I'd rather let several other people find it first, read their logs, then decide if it's a cache I even want to do. I'd also rather let the new caches in an area build up a bit before I hit that area in order to save time and gas. That said, I don't really think it matters if all cachers in a FTF group claim FTF honors or not.

I was an avid orienteer long before I started caching. I found my first 33 caches before I bought my little yellow Etrex. I still do about 70% of my caches GPS-less. I rarely turn it on until I'm pretty thoroughly stuck and unable to locate the cache without it, or if all I have is coords and no access to a printer. The big exception to the GPS-less trend is multicaches. I've only gotten 20/94 multis GPS-less. I've only used a GPS twice for a benchmark, out of 220 found. LostOutdoors.com is my best friend.

Another factor is that the "rules" for logging benchmarks have evolved and changed over time. When benchmarks first appeared on GC.com about two years ago, the only "rules" were a few comments in the forums by Jeremy. He basically said that it was ok to log finds if you only found a RM. Since then, through user input, the "rules" changed to be more aligned with NGS standards. I "found" several benchmarks when they first appeared on GC.com using the original standards. Under the current guidelines, they don't qualify. I'm keeping my finds as originally logged, because they DID meet the standards at the time they were logged. I suppose I could go back and edit those logs to indicate that the standards have changed, but I haven't yet.

Snoogans and I both helped Tilly and Toby win last year's Cannonball Run TB race.

Both.

I prefer to geocache/benchmark without a GPS, using aerial photos and topo maps. I want to get a PDA in order to reduce the MASSIVE amounts of paper printouts needed to cache GPS-less. I basically know NOTHING about PDAs, and am still running my PC under Windows 98 with a dial-up connection. I need a PDA and software that will allow me to download cache files, aerials, and topos. Several questions: 1) What PDA software would be good for plotting waypoints on aerials and topos? 2) What are some good sources for the aerials and topo maps? I currently print mostly from LostOutdoors.com. 3) Depending on the software, what PDA would be most economical yet meet my needs? Thanks,

Or, as Yogi Berra once said, "If you come to a fork in the road, take it."

Life is like a geocache - You never know what you're going to find.

Minor glitch: I just deleted two archived caches from my watch list by first listing the cache, then clicking the "Watch this cache" link in the upper-righthand corner of the cache page. The watch was deleted but I was brought back to the OLD watchlist page, not the new one.

OOPS! already discussed.

Wow! The last round of tweeks pretty much takes care of all the things I was looking for, except for the non-functioning links on the benchmark pages, which I'm sure you're working on. Thanks, Jeremy! Awesome job!