tgsnoopy

Of course the sites down presently as we ran out of bandwidth thanks to the huge consumption of search engine crawlers hitting us hard. As we ran out early Friday evening, we may not be back on until Monday. Sorry about that.

It appears this is his type of bike, it wasn't a motorbike: This is from this posting he made in another forum. I hope your brother has a speedy recovery. I also hope the experience hasn't put him off geocaching.

Hi all. I thought I might offer an explaination of how Tim (or June) might have accidently deleted that string. I'm one of two moderators of the Groundspeak forums in New Zealand. On one occasion I accidently double clicked the Post button whilst making a reply to a string. It created two replies. When I deleted the duplicate, I used back to return to the message string. As it refreshes the page, it effectively tried to delete a message in the string that had already been deleted, as a result for some reason it deleted the whole string. It was a situation we were able to recreate. Unfortunately Tim (or June) would have had no indication this would happen, and it is an unreversable situation. As using back is normal procedure in a lot of circumstances it's a trap. Hopefully one that will be resolved in the future. I close the window after all deletes in the forums now, and create a new window to go back in and confirm the deletions. Thanks for reading this .

Ohhh, I just gotta try this cache out now. Steve, I'm sorry you had to endure that, but I'm pleased you survived ok and have learnt from it. Telling someone is of course the number one rule. Personally, for trips like that I usually have a first aid kit, compass, Heaps (and I mean heaps) of batteries, water, food, wet weather gear & a warm layer, GPS (of course), Machette, Fold up saw, Pruning shears, Tikka (a device that gives usable light for over 100 hours on a set of batteries), Scorpion (1 hour of 3 D cell maglite brightness from a torch the size of a minimag), Orange smoke flare (for day rescues), Strobe light (for night rescues), appropriate maps, Dual band handportable transceiver (I'm a Ham, much better coverage than a cellphone), A roll of trail marking tape (another lifesaver, stops you going in circles, and searchers can follow it), foil blanket, spare batteries for the Tikka & Scorpion, digital camera etc etc etc. Two valuable items are a bottle which filters out cryptosporidium and giardia from the water so as long as you have a fresh water source you are ok (puddles even) it was a godsend at North Cape a couple of years ago (about $45), and a stack of chocolate (pure energy almost). Mind you it's always in the silliest of places I've come unstuck. Usually cause I've decided on the spur of the moment to do something I'm not prepared for. But at least now I always tell someone, on one occasion I left the details on my cellular secretary, the result, coming out half an hour late and driving down the road and back into coverage to numerous messages from friends and family who were concerned and one from a friendly police officer asking me to give him a call when I got out otherwise they would be going looking for me in a few hours. I'm not going into too many details as to my foo pah's but there's been a couple of good ones. Anyone who's done the 101 cache will be familiar with the Wairongomai Valley, lets just say I got a stretcher ride out of there one day, after a darn cold and wet night, and I'm a lucky boy the hypothermia didn't get me and someone going in really early thought my little bomb car was stolen and reported it to the police at the time not later. It was a turning point in my preparation. As you get older you realise you aren't invincible as most teenagers seem to think they are these days. ******************************** Water tastes best when refrigerated and flavoured with fermented barley and hops

If you e-mail me a list of which caches you are interested in, I could e-mail you screen grabs from my mapping software. ******************************** Water tastes best when refrigerated and flavoured with fermented barley and hops

As of this evening NZ caches can be approved locally. I already have this ability and Gavin (rediguana) should also receive it shortly. Hopefully our being restricted to virtuals on DOC managed land for the moment won't result in this archiving problem any longer, heck as we are in the same time zone, we might be a little quicker too . ******************************** Water tastes best when refrigerated and flavoured with fermented barley and hops

Ah, now if you could just explain it like that to the poor person who's just got his new virtual cache archived, them it probably wouldn't be an issue. Perhaps you could use cut and paste to insert an explination along those lines next time? Thanks ******************************** Water tastes best when refrigerated and flavoured with fermented barley and hops

Sorry Brent, But the fact you had placed the comment "Did I miss the voting process regarding who should be able to approve NZ caches." in bold, I interpreted it as you were unhappy about not being involved in a democratic process and subsequently with Gavin and myself being the moderators/approvers. Please accept my apologies . However, should the fact that I misinterprit things like that or just be to outspoken or whatever, don't be afraid to point it out. I won't be editing or deleting my previous posting for that reason. However one thing I'm not afraid of is admiting I'm wrong and apologising, which appears to be something some Kiwi's seem to lack. Eric, if you are aware of it or not, archiving those virtual caches awaiting approval is quite insulting and causes significant offence to the cacher creating it (Well, with us Kiwi's is does). You have encountered this before, and like I mentioned earlier please contact the cacher for further information before archiving the cache. If Archiving is absolutely neccessary, then a better explaination to the placer explaining why it was neccessary to minimise offence would be a good idea, as will addressing a modification to the process so that it wasn't neccessary (It's something I will be looking at seriously If/When I finally get the ability to approve caches). You made a comment "Jeremy wants to regionalize the approval process, and would like to employ approvers active in a local geocaching organization knowledgable both in the local limitations and the global geocaching.com requirements." This might concern some cachers, as far as I understand it, we don't get paid to do it, however we are given Charter Membership status without having to pay for the membership. I've chosen to pay anyway as I consider the sport is worthy of what I consider a reasonably cheap membership (Compared to my fuel and cache material costs). This string is getting a good airing which is good to see considering of late it's been very quiet. At the very least people will have got an idea of my personality and how my buttons can be pushed I haven't done much caching for a while, but hope to be back into it again shortly. Now if we can just get this DOC issue sorted . ******************************** Water tastes best when refrigerated and flavoured with fermented barley and hops

Actually the voting process has been mentioned and hopefully will be implimented at some stage in the future. However as Gavin and I are the existing NZ moderators it would be logical to have us as the cache approvers as well for the moment. I do not know how Jeremy feels about his moderators/approvers being changed from time to time after a democratic election in another GPS organisation, I guess we will address that in the future at some stage. It has been pointed out to him that we are considering this, however I didn't get any indication it would or wouldn't be a problem (he is a VERY busy man). If/When the GPS Society becomes a reality then these things will all be addressed at that time. Meantime, I'm sorry if someone takes offence at the fact the existing moderators become responsible for approval as well. Whilst I for one (and Gavin will as well, although he might not be as outspoken) have my opinions, I will always go with popular opinion should a situation arise where it becomes an issue. Meantime, we aren't yet (to the best of my knowledge) able to approve caches (we may in fact already have the ability, but don't know how to access it). First things first, lets just get the approvals done locally. If I'm too outspoken and opinionated for everyones liking, someone could perhaps start a thread on the subject, and then perhaps we could organise a poll on the subject of who everyone thought should be our moderators. Hey, I've got broad shoulders, don't hold back, if I'm annoying people, I can't adjust my behaviour if I'm not aware it's causing offence. With regard to the GPS Society possibly not being formed (I know someone will pick up on the If/When), nothing is set in concrete, it will be an expensive process to set up the society, with ongoing expenses, if we can negotiate a MOU without creating a society then one may not be formed, however, by the same token, one may be formed for other purposes, geocaching issues with DOC aside. In the meantime, until we hear from Gareth which way the opinion he's awaiting goes, we just patiently wait, and wait.. You get the idea. And yes, it is taking an awfully long time. However patience is a virtue, and good things take time . Water tastes best when refrigerated and flavoured with fermented barley and hops

Reality though Eric is that you are already aware of the situation here in NZ (New Zealand) with DOC (NZ Governments Department Of Conservation) and this is the third NZ Virtual Geocache on DOC land I'm aware of that you have done this on. Perhaps next time you could think "Is this a NZ virtual cache on DOC land? " and contact the placer without archiving it? I know the lookout well, and could provide a series of photographs taken from it on my own digital camera within the last 12 months . It is very unlikely any NZ based approver would knock back a virtual cache as we are only too well aware of the situation with DOC. In fact one of the things DOC requires for caching to receive a MOU (Memorandum Of Understanding) is that caches are approved here in NZ and that the approvers are aware what land is managed by DOC and which areas are suitable and aren't. We now have shape files indicating which land is DOC managed so we can identify these areas, however no arrangment authourising the use of DOC land has been made. We are awaiting the opinion of DOC senior managment on the issue. Hopefully this problem with NZ cache approval will be resolved shortly with Gavin (Rediguana) and I being able to approve the caches. Jeremy gave it the thumbs up some time ago, but as yet it hasn't been implimented. I don't like to pester Jeremy, but I did e-mail him again about it today. Fingers crossed, shortly we will have local cache authourisation and then the long awaited DOC MOU so we can continue geocaching unhindered here in clean green NZ Water tastes best when refrigerated and flavoured with fermented barley and hops

Unfortunately at this point in time neither Gavin (Rediguana) or myself have the ability (that we are aware of) to approve NZ Caches, there are to the best of my knowledge no NZ based cache approvers. This is under review, and hopefully will be resolved shortly. I'm sorry it's taking so long. I've sent another e-mail today trying to get this issue moving. I beleive with the forum upgrade and other issues the Groundspeak team have been very busy lately. Hopefully with the forum upgrade completed we will see some progress.

I'm pleased to be able to report that Jeremy is well aware of the shortcomings of using PayPal for subscription payments. This will be resolved shortly.

As pointed out by Nick in gps.org.nz's forum: "For anyone who is a charter member at Geocaching.com and joined up to support the site soon after memberships were announced, you might want to check your Palpay details to ensure that if you selected the repeatable yearly payment option, that your credit card details are still valid, as I had my membership canceled due to the credit card being expired " It's unfortunate that most NZ Geocachers will probably only ever use Paypal for paying their geocaching.com subscription, hence it can easily end up with an out of date expiry date or in my case a change of bank also meant a closed account. As paypal doesn't contact you at all to say it's going to be doing a payment, the first you know of it, is after it either completes successfully or fails. When it fails paypal kindly informs geocaching.com who automaticly turn off the charter membership, as from their perspective you no longer subscribe (which is quite understandable, and no doubt is automated). Hopefully only Nick and I will be the only ones affected by this as everyone else will heed the heads up and check their paypal account details. I've already contacted Jeremy (geocaching.com) and asked nicely that if possibly could he organise a grace period and a message to us (I have no idea if it will be possible, but if I don't ask, we won't get it if it is). I've also contacted Paypal expressing my concern that they a). Didn't contact us at the expiry date of our credit cards to get us to update them, and . Don't advise us in advance of payments that are about to be made from our paypal account. I'd suggest others affected by this also contact Paypal and express their concerns. Happy caching everyone

Oops, I foo parred my first reply, sorry. The line of Latitude S43° 37' 37" (S43° 37.617') runs between Mahitahi on the West Coast and Governers bay on the East Coast (just south of Christchurch). There are a number of very active cachers in Christchurch who hopefully will be able to help you. If I lived there I'd be tempted to go to the Sharplins Falls Scenic Reserve off Flynns Road in Stavely (West of Methven), it's accessable off the Arundel Rakaia Gorge Road which is Part of State Highway 77 (although you need to turn off SH77 and stay on the Arundel Rakaia Gorge Road heading southwest). There are a few caches in that area that might tempt them to visit as well

Don't forget some decent cheese, my favourite is the Kapiti range. I'm sure you'll be visiting some fantastic places for a picnic weather permitting. It'll be a holiday experience others won't have had

I knew I'd made a further comment re contact with DOC somewhere, it's contained in this string: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000032.html The DOC person involved was also involved in the removal & return of my Sentinel Rock cache as far as I'm aware. She said hi whilst I was collecting it and seemed aware of what was going on. The DOC enforcement officer even said the only reason it had been removed was it was located on a closed section of track. If I find any other references to DOC I'll post them here as well.

Count me in!

Heres the links to the original postings: DOC, Caches, Virtual Caches etc Approaching DOC... Since they were made the forums have been upgraded and the old forums imported into the version we are using today, unfortunately data got lost from lots of postings in the process. Using the original postings will give the full picture. Since this happened I've had a cache removed by DOC because it was on a closed section of track. It wasn't located in a dangerous section of track, and to be perfectly honest I don't know why it was closed, perhaps post cave creek paranoia or just declining DOC budget. I beleive DOC is aware of our hobby (/sport?) and basically turns a blind eye at this point in time. I would like to see official recongition, and would support Russell (Popsit & Sweets) fufilling this role. The cache that was removed is here (I intend relocating it on an open section of track): Sentinel Rock

In Auckland I suggest trying: Geofurby's Incubator zuhe gongju clacker Tamaki River Rocks Red Box II Auckland's Panoramic Paradise All caches except the last I've visited and are either easy or are places your companions won't mind waiting while you look. The last falls into the should visit category so I don't think they'll mind. I hope you enjoy your visit, Cheers, Neill

The most effective way... Both! Registered users of the software can use their voice directly, and also users of other software can show their support along with registered users of the company we are approaching. This way we show solidarity accross the different users to them adopting an industry standard format .

I've already attempted contact with them re this subject and directed them to contact a person with suitable recognised experience. Hopefully they will follow through on this. Incidently, and ex-geocacher has just bought another GPS and as I type this is out attacking caches. He bought a Magellan GPS320, it outperformed my GPS12 yesterday, is cheaper and comes with the data/power lead .

Yes I must aggree, there should be a industry standard format for this purpose. I'll wave a flag supporting this .

Bump, Congatulations Paul & Pam on your big day

Well I don't know about everyone else, but it truely seems to be a silly season this year . Tauranga Grid locked over the harbour bridge this afternoon after a minor accident on the causeway. Yay 1 hour 15 minutes to travel from the Mount to Tauranga, normally a 5 minute trip. I actually wish they'd put the toll back on it so it wouldn't grid lock anymore . I had hoped to get a few more caches in by now, but alas other things keep cropping up. Yesterday morning my sister appeared back from the UK for Christmas, also with friends and relatives paying spontaneous visits I don't know if I'm going to get any more in before Christmas but I'm not complaining . (Mental note, Must take sister geocaching) Now as for the prospect of unwanted presents appearing in caches, that is something I hadn't thought of, but hey, why not? One mans junk is another mans treasure after all. Gee, will we see a cache armed with 2 pairs of Y fronts, 3 pairs of socks etc? Will anyone ever take them? On another note, whilst working for Telecom some 10 to 15 years ago, I remember unpacking the NEC NEAX61E exchange equipment (from Japan), on the inventory lists was packets of lint free cloth. Well these packets of lint free cloth never got used, in fact they were incinerated at the hospital in there plastic bags, the bags contained used cotton underwear, complete with skid marks . These Neax exchanges were the downfall of most Telecom technicians as they required practially no maintenance and replaced mechanical exchanges which required lots. Tauranga went from nearly 100 technicians to about 5. But I digress. I'm considering creating a temporary cache, a multi-virtual cache, one others could do in their city. What I'm thinking of doing is creating a list of waypoints, complete with instructions to visit the best illuminated houses, a Christmas lights trail. The BOP Times actually publishes one, and I'm thinking about creating a cache theme. What do others think? Would it be worth the effort? Oh, and by the way, in case I don't catch your attention again before the big day... Merry Christmas! I can't beleive that Christmas is becoming such a sensitive word in our society. Unbeleivable, I thought the idea of our society was to be tolerant of other beleifs, so why can't they tolerate our Christmas? Gee, I'm going off on a tangent again. Enjoy the "Summer Season" everyone .

Well, I've never heard of anywhere near that size fine being applied. In fact if you imported one or two I doubt you would get much more than an written warning and ordered to have the transmitter disabled. However, they are the maximum fines that could be applied. It's a nice unit, and it is likely that they will be modified and imported (or visa versa) at some stage in the future, please be patient. I did of course need to point out the legal situation with these units to hopefully prevent someone falling into a difficult legal situation. I'd hate to think someone imported one of these and was caught out. The other side of the coin is that there are already a reasonable number of FRS radios here in NZ being used and causing interference. Fortunately they are usually only used intermittantly causing short bursts of interference (usually by children, as a toy). Fortunately the genuine channel users aren't usually on exactly the same frequency, have higher power transmitters (9dB or 8 times the output power) and are able to over power the illegal devices. As commercial operators usually have CTCSS tones in use they don't even hear the interference. Some people claim they don't interfer because of this, however it's the real problem. Occasionally you'll end up with a situation where the two legal users are a reasonable distance apart and have low level signals between themselves as a result. Then a pair of illegal FRS users might appear close to one legal user and have a stronger signal than the person he's trying to talk to. As the legal users are likely to be using CTCSS tones, they won't hear the overpowering illegal signal and won't hear the other legal user intermittantly whilst the illegal users are transmitting. This could have serious safety implications. Never fear however, NZ has RFS29 frequency allocations close to the FRS frequencies. FRS radios have been modified to operate on RFS29 frequencies, and it is being looked at for the new Garmin Rhino's. We just need to be patient because these things take time.