NickPick

Longitude?

I use the website https://gridreferencefinder.com/ to convert OSGB to postcodes, w3w and so on for work purposes. It also does WGS84. Personally, I'd tend to work everything in WGS84 Lat/Long as there can be errors brought in when converting (the algorithm has to convert from a spheroid to a localised representation of a flat plane). It also relies on using the correct datum and projection (I've had work coordinates being 120m out before - not all lat/long systems are the same!)

Well, I had a go yesterday, and in sighting 2 known locations (the corner of a building and the nearby radio mast), from about 500m away, then calculating my co-ordinates and comparing against the GPS (using trigpointing's co-ord conversion to go from WGS84 to OSGB), I got an error of approx 70m, so allowing for sighting accuracy, GPS CEP and co-ordinate conversion errors, I'd say that the compass is OK.

Thanks for the replies. I already knew about declination and needle dip/inclination. I suppose there's also tectonic drift to worry about as well depending on how old the map is. I had a quick play with my compass last night whilst waiting to pick up the kids, and found that the sighting part of it gave a different bearing to the lubber line. Then I remembered that sitting in a steel car is not the best place to test bearings - the compass card changed about 20 degrees from eye level to chest level!

Not exactly geocaching, but related, and more approriate here than on my car or scuba diving forums. I've found my old (very old) Silva compass in a draw and since I want to restart hill walking and show the kids how to navigate without batteries, I was wondering if an old compass is still reliable. I intend to measure / calculate some known bearings from maps to check the compass against, but I was wondering if anyone knew whether magnetic compasses lose their accuracy over time, or is it a case of once set, always set (unless it's been stored next to a big magnet or something) Any advice or ideas?

Yes, EGNOS is the same as WAAS (as far as your GPSr is concerned) - they're both the same method of receiving differential corrections, but in different geographic areas. I think there's another one planned for the Pacific area, but don't know what it's called. Because the satellite is in geosynchronous orbit, it is over the equator, so your GPSr may not 'see' it depending on your sky view. When you are receiving it, the satellite view will show Ds in the signal bars.

Hmmmmmm...... ???? Perhaps DrDick&Vick should have re-read his post with his pedantic hat on and phrased it as "If you are not prepared to ensure its maintenance, don't place it" <sarcasm>How foolish of him not to anticipate someone pointing out how he's contradicted himself in a post from 4 months ago! </sarcasm> He was looking for someone to maintain a cache for him, which shows that he did want it maintained. There have been many in the past which have been abandoned as litter, which is why we have the 'holiday caches' rule.

I'd like to add my thanks for your time as a forum mod. I felt that both you and Dave ruled the roost with an even hand. Hopefully the last person to leave will hang up a sign saying "Try the GAGB forums instead"

So, does that mean we're back to non-local moderators now then? Not that I've got anything against any of the global mods, but it's always seemed more appropriate to have locals doing it. Thanks for all your hard work as a forum mod, and I hope it all continues to go well as a reviewer.

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Just another thing to consider. While GPS signals should be accurate to within 10m or so when you get a good signal, the vertical accuracy is usually nowhere near this. I think the sattelite constellation is optimised for placing you on a globe, where best horizontal accuracy is achieved when you have sattelites nearer the horizons. The vertical accuracy is less accurate in this configuration, so I'd expect vertical accuracy to be about 3 times less than horizontal (So if you're getting an 'accuracy' of 10m, then you can expect the altitude to be within 30m) I don't think your old unit should be any less accurate than a more modern one, but it might not be able to lock onto the satellites as easily, due to the modern ones having improved antennae.

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I just purchased a birdbox (with a CCTV camera installed). The kit included 2 aluminium nails for attaching it to the tree. The instructions said to use alluminium nails rather than steel ones specifically for the risk of injury to future chainsaw users.

Is it Brownsea Island? Don't know about caches Red Squirrels?

Just make sure you take out all the fireworks before you use them as caches!

Guild of seamstresses? (hem-hem)

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I'd guess at somewhere in Egypt, so: Cairo?

I'd suggest that you pay if you want to, or if there are premium only features that you want to use. If you don't want to pay, or feel that you can't afford it, and can manage without the premium features, then go back to being a basic member.

Three weeks isn't that long a time for someone to take to move a coin, but it's possible that they've forgotten about it. The user that's picked it up has logged other coins before, and has a garmin one of their own, so it looks like they should understand that it's not for keeping. If you decide to email them, then make sure it's a polite email, and I'd tend to keep it along the lines of "Thanks for picking up by Geocoin. Its mission is to race my husband's coin to this cache. If you'd be able to help it along its way, I'd be very grateful".

I use GPS at work for surveying the location and height of objects to within a few millimetres.

Is it all about the numbers? Well, Yes and No. Really, it's about whatever you want it to be. If you like to find caches in interesting places, then that's what it's about for you. Some people like to find as many as possible. Personally, I like the thought of finding something which lots of people pass by without realising it's there. Since it's just taken me 4 years, 2 months and 8 days to reach 100 finds I'd say it's certainly not about the numbers for me.

My answers to your not stupid questions: 1: You don't need to leave anything as a swap for a trackable tag/coin. They are meant to travel and not to be swapped for things. 2: I'd say that your photos are not spoilers. They do show the container, but unless it's a particularly unusual container or a "Hidden in plain view" type of box, then that's no problem. The photos don't show anything to give away the location of the cache.

Call me Alan (ar an anagram of it), but I keep a database of all the tag numbers, tracking numbers and details of (almost) all the TBs I log. It's useful for just this eventuality. If you don't hear from the bug owner soon, you could try asking the previous loggers of the bug if they've still got the code.

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