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Saw this sign in Bath, UK... very far from home!

10 miles a day for 18 months? Lemme see... *gets the abacus out* ... (Assuming 30 days in a month): 5400 miles?? And then, I don't even drive, so don't have a route that I would normally drive. I'm doomed...

That'd be interesting - imagine ALL the possible hiding places in a building!! Though I guess there aren't too many public buildings to be within the GC rules... Interestingly, GNSS (in a certain form) has been used on commercial airliners for donkeys years - typically, ring-laser-gyroscopes (RLG) are used as accelerometers to sense movement from an initial position, and GPS signals are used to supplement this data as the accelerometers have a certain time-dependent inaccuracy. This is especially true over large ocean routes where there are no radio towers to provide position updates. Currently, using just GPS as a navigation device on board an aircraft is against regulations, hence its use as a secondary navigation source. So, the technology's been around for a while, but as the article mentions, its size needs reducing!! Also, as the previous poster says, geocaching is currently used as an excuse to get outdoors...

I've been reading this thread with interest, and have felt no need to add my thoughts until now. here's why: Although your contributions to various threads are always intelligent and well thought-out, I believe you are missing a key point. GC.com is designed to be (mostly) a tool for people who go out and find stuff, not a technology showcase. It handles the demand for most of us just fine. I don't want the price increased just so some folks who are technologically more sophisticated than I am can have a bigger or fancier database to play with on their computers. I am genuinely in awe of your computer savvy, but I am sure there are other places for you to play those games... Thanks for listening! Intelligent and well thought-out??! Sir, I thank you - I usually just write the first thing that comes into my little head, but I'll take any compliment! Have a smiley for your kindness: I agree, GC.com (i.e. the website) should remain simple, so everyone can join in. That's the point, after all! Technology showcase? We are using GPS, which is kinda latest technology - perhaps features should reflect that? BUT: I do wonder whether $30 is enough to to even keep the site and features going as it is currently - loads of PQ problems at the moment, by all accounts. It's not a popular opinion - most on this thread are happy with the status-quo, which is fine. I'll go back under my rock now, thinking of intelligent contributions...

Crikey, seems like a few people are really laying into this guy!! Give him a chance! Personally, I'm not really in it for the FTF. As a result, I wouldn't be interested. However, there are a number of people who are absolutely all about the FTF, and they're the ones your aiming for - it's fairly well known that the majority of the guys in this forum aren't the latter, hence the negative (and sometimes rude sounding) replies. Good luck with your venture - every idea's gotta start somewhere!

Agreed! Personally, for me to get a PM I would want access to the entire database whenever I want - no daily/monthly etc restrictions. This is 2010 For this to happen, as is obvious from the forums, the PQ system needs a MAJOR overhaul (end this 'your-PQ-will-be-emailed-to-you nonsense for a start - just serve it up!). Also, the price of a PM must increase to enable Groundspeak to upgrade their SNES which they seem to be running the site off of. I'd be happy to pay $10 a month for unrestricted access, and I'd be happy knowing that that sort of serious money would go to upgrading and keeping the servers up to date. Summary: Groundspeak obviously can't handle the demand at the moment. Increase the price, upgrade, and get up-to-date with the services. My 2 pennies.

If only I had money. Also, the idea is to not get my netbook out whilst caching as that's a pain. Also, judging by all the current comments in these forums, it looks like my PQ would be arriving late and empty...! EDIT: My netbook sits in my rucksack when I'm out caching.

So. I'm a poor student (they do exist). I cache with a netbook (check my other posts to see how that works - I won't bore you all again with it here), which directs me to the cache via voice. I send this voice over an FM transmitter (like the ones you get for your iPods in cars) which my FM enabled MP3 player picks up. Now, I hate paper. Also, I have no printer, which kinda poo-poos all over printing out cache pages. I've been using an old diary to jot notes down before I go out, but this isn't ideal - the diary isn't the smallest, and on cold days fingering through the pages is very tough! Also, all you people mentioning $10 Palm m500's are living on another planet - I'm watching one on eBay UK and it's currently at £27.50 all in. Far to expensive for me! So I needed a solution. Last night, I think I had an epiphany. At least, I was proud of my thought! Here goes: Print to file. I know. Amazing! How? Here's how it works: for each cache that you plan to do, go to its page, then click 'Print'. When selecting your printer, choose 'Print to file'. I choose an .svg format, but .pdf seems to work too. Once printed to file (or just saved as a pdf), I convert the file into a jpg image, which splits the single pdf into the separate pages, so each page is one image. Then I upload the images onto my MP3 player, which can display photos! Now I'm using the MP3 player to listen to instructions, and read latest logs/hints/show local map etc. I'm a big fan of making my devices do more for me! I thought it was pretty clever. Cons (sorta major): 1) Route kinda needs to be planned in advance 2) The info is static. No fieldnotes then. Questions: Does anyone else do this? If so, improvements? As always, YMMV.

You'll have to create a pocket query (PQ), ad the results will be emailed to you. I'm not a premium member so don't know much about it, so someone else will hopefully take over from here....

Any info on what your laptop setup is? Windows, I presume? I cache with a netbook and also swear by it - if you can keep it powered for long enough it's amazing! However, I run Linux on mine, for which reading a GPS USB dongle is very easy. Not sure what it's like in Windows...

Oooooh, buddy, not sure you'll be allowed to add a geocache POI into the OSM database. Strictly speaking Groundspeak 'owns' its location information, and this can't be shared with third parties unless special permission has been given. I highly doubt this is allowed in this case! However, please do continue to edit OSM - the more, the merrier!

I'm not really contributing anything to the actual topic, so apologies, but I have to pick you up on this point. Almost all of your examples in the first list have actually gone DOWN in price, at least here in the UK as far as I've seen (I don't know about cab fairs, or anything in the second list). So the argument that "when was the last time anyone saw the price of a service go down over time?" fails. Phones are cheaper to own than they used to be, internet and cable is now ridiculously cheap and you can fly for £1 on Ryanair (well, so they say - we know it's not just £1, but it's still a lot cheaper than it used to be!). In addition, cars have also gone down in price over time - that's why when buying a car you must always check its expected depreciation. The same car in 2003 is worth a LOT less now (so perhaps the same PQ service in 2003 is worth a lot less now....? Hmmm, I preferred the ice cream analogy!) Anyway, that is all.

I've spoken with the developer, and looked at the code, and all the site does is parse the GPX file, then throw it away. It does not store the file, and it definitely does not share the file, as Keystone seems to think it does. (EDIT: For those that are able, the code is freely available to check this claim). If uploading a GPX file for code to parse and spew back some information to the owner of the GPX file is against the TOS, then so be it. But the code is not saving, nor sharing. To be honest, when I saw the original thread go up I thought "Oooh, this looks cool. Wait, GS are gonna hit this soon..." Oh well...

Walking directions are a beta feature of Google Maps, not tachoknight's algorithm. We'll have to depend on the folks at Google to develop that feature. Ah, I see! Good stuff then!

Hi there - great bit of code there. Unfortunately I have no car so do most of the caches on foot, and the missing trails in google maps is kind of a bummer. You say on the page that walking directions are in Beta - how are you planning to improve them? Otherwise, pretty good for car cacheing! Great job!

yes this seems to be a common theme with many of the nearby caches... Actually the WAAS units have been around for 9 years or more. I rather gaurantee that your unit is NOT "exact within 3 meters" except under the most ideal of circumstances. That figure is a sort of "up to 3meters" not a firm always. The actual error of most modern handheld units is around 15 to 25 feet under "average" conditions. I've always wondered about this. I cache with a netbook and GPS dongle. Very often the screen readout tells me that my horizontal accuracy is +/- 1m. So is that not true? I got it a lot when caching in Canada with 10+ satellites in view including WAAS. But I also seem to get it here in Britain with no WAAS. The vertical error is usually between 2 and 5 metres. Just curious.... (For info, the program I use to show me this error is cgps (which uses gpsd to gather data from the dongle). A screenshot of someone else's is shown here http://home.zyrianes.net/blog/static/includes/cgps.png, with their horizontal accuracy at +/- 24 metres

THAT was the first clever answer! GermanSailor Oh man, I was three minutes from being clever. I blame Paint...

You can save yourself the hassle of converting and change the way Google Earth displays its coordinates. I'm assuming you're on Windows. Got to Tools -> Options and in the 3D View tab (should be the first tab) select your choice in the Show Lat/Lon section. Here, I've done a nice Paint job for you: Edit: dadgum you ecanderson!!

Apologies, but I have no opinion on the topic of this thread. However, I think we're all missing some detail here - this dude says his car can park itself??? Please, sir, give us a hint.... does autopark have a pulse?...

Although we're based in the UK, our first cache find was actually in Canada. It was in a 'town' (in the loosest sense) called Stewart, BC and the cache is called Any Questions? GC1F7PJ. As caches go, this is probably one of the easiest you could ever hope to find - large container, obvious hiding place. But as newbies, we were diving into every tree which our arrow pointed to. Add to the mix darkness (of course we decided to do this at night) and the fact that we have no GPSr - just a netbook with a GPS dongle - and this hunt lasted a little longer than expected. We were hooked though, and throughout our roadtrip continued to find another 26 caches (pretty much the only caches you could get on our route!) We're now steadily making our way towards 100 finds - perhaps we'll make that milestone one for abroad too!!

I agree with everything you say - today's generation want all the info available to them now: check any other website with a database backend and where you have to pay for access to that database. You'll get unlimited access any time you want. Those who are happy with the current system tend to be very vocal on these forums (which is absolutely fine), whilst those who can see that the system is 10 years retarded tend to complain, get shot down (as is evident here) and don't try again. Good luck with this particular thread! I think the most important thing from your original post is that if we want the data NOW, we can get it NOW using the iPhone app etc etc - but that doesn't need premium membership, leaving PM kinda useless...

It might just be me being naive here, but isn't adding OSM as an option to GMaps just a few simple lines of code to add? What's it got to do with commitment? The other day I created a web page which overlaid all my GPX files onto an OSM map - only took me an hour. Obviously, GC will have to make it bulletproof, but there's a team to do it. The only reason I see for not adding it is that there's WAY more important bugs to be fixing now!! Anyway, I'm not too bothered: the bookmarklet posted earlier is exactly what I'm after, so I'm happy!

If you haven't visited Bath before, do MASONIC BATHING? (BATH SPA) (GC15JV9) - that's a great introduction to the city, and a pretty cool final hide! Also, see if you can get up into the woods at the eastern end of the city (The Skyline Trail) for great views and other caches!

I have used OSM, and I both agree and disagree. Agree: data on OSM tends to be accurate, down to the trail level. Disagree: when the data is there, it is accurate, but there are vast areas, where only the major roads exist. While OSM (at least as of now) is a good addition, it cannot yet replace Google maps. Agreed on all counts! An option to show OSM maps in addition to GMaps would be ideal!

I will be making Tracks this weekend. What's the most Geocaching-friendly way to make a trail to send to that site? Do you save each trail individually? This will be in a park, where trail loops are connected. If I don't send a complete trail, does that mess things up? I've never tried to send a track, nor have I read any of the trail-saving instructions on OpenStreetMaps (never even saved a track on my Garmin Oregon), so I may only try a couple of short segments, in case the format, or whatever, is entirely wrong. By the way, none of my GPS Tracks have ever looked like I was following a trail. They look like I was being chased around by wolverines. Just sayin'. I'll answer in bullets!: 1) Save trails as you want to. For ease of use, probably saving them individually is best (especially if they have different names), but that's only to make it easier for you when you upload and trace them. OSM doesn't care! 2) You don't have to complete a trail - put as much on there as you can - it'll be an incentive for you or someone else to go there and finish it off. 3) All GPX tracks look a bit wonky - use some artistic license when tracing your tracks, and use other features on the map to help you! Hope this helps!