Nervous Nick

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If nothing is entered, the default is, as I mentioned, 100 miles. The program sets this radius 'for' you. At least that is what I am seeing. You are correct; all I have to do is set the radius to a distance that I know will include 1000 caches. I guess it was a pretty dumb question after all. I kinda figured this out shortly after I posted. Thanks for the feedback!

This might sound so simple as to be stupid, but if I want, say, the nearest 1000 caches to a given location, would the hundred mile PQ default include all 1000 of the nearest (assuming there were that at least that many within the radius)?

The LCD screens on my two eTrex Legends have died after something like 18000 logged miles and six years. Over the years I've dissassembled the units three times and successfully fixed the problem by cleaning the contacts on the flexible LCD connector, but this time I was unsuccessful and it is becoming a PITA. The screens blank out to just a vertical line after the units are on for 5 minutes or so. Anyone have anything (preferably newer,maybe hcx) that I can replace one or both of these units with, please drop me a line. It would be nice to have another Garmin unit to reduce the slope of the learning curve, and it would be really cool to have removable storage, but I am open to all offers. At this point in my life I do not have a whole helluva lot of cash to throw to a big box store, so Panther in the Den suggested that I make a plea here. On a related note, how the hell do contacts in a sealed unit get dirty? Any advice/offers are welcome. Stay cool! NNick

<quote> Yeah, and add to that ivy ground cover, the worst. The best thing would be simply for folks to not hide caches there in the first place, ya THAT's gonna happen, right? LOL Next would be for responsible cachers to report these type of hides and the observed damage to the landscaping to the CO and then depending upon the reaction or lack thereof, then to their local reviewer who will take timely and appropriate action with the CO. Please do this and encourage others to follow your lead. This is one of the areas where the concept of "if you don't like 'em, don't search for 'em" falls short unless we take responsible follow up action. No one wants this game to get a bad rep with the public and property owners/managers. Amen! If responsible cachers report these carelessly placed caches to the owners, and if necessary to the reviewers (with photos), I think we could make this much less of an issue than at least some or us think it is. As an avid outdoorsperson as well as a geocacher, my philosophy is "always leave a place in better shape than when you arrived." Or, at the very least, "Take only photos. Leave only footprints." And CITO, always, btw. If you carry even one piece of litter away from a hunt, you are doing a lot more than the majority of visitors to most sites will ever think of doing. We cannot and should not force cachers to be careful about how they look for caches, but I think hiders have the responsibility to NOT offer careless geocachers the opportunity to mess stuff up.

For starters there is no guideline that would allow a reviewer to deny the cache. Second - there is generally no way in the world for the reviewer to know it was hidden that way. Finally - sorry to here about your experiences with such caches. That is not my experience. I've seen maybe 3 or 4 trees/bushes I could describe as damaged in any way by cachers. Out of at least 150 or more finds in such places. BTW - I generally dislike such placements as well. Yes, I realize there is no way for reviewers to know the nature of the hide. That was kind of a kneejerk reaction on my part, and I apologize to the reviewers. But I still think a guideline might help--at least a "helpful hint for polite hiding" or something. And I guess location matters, because my experience in Chicagoland has been more like over 50% damaged sites to your 3% or so. And I'm not talking about "cacher trails" here, but plainly visible damage to foliage from people diving into bushes. I suppose the best thing would be to encourage people to log these finds as DNFs with notes to reviewers about the conditions.

I think there should be a separate category for caches hidden in hedges/evergreens/dense bushes etc. Because I would filter out any cache like that. I generally give them a two-minute lookaround before giving up on them. But it would be very cool if I could filter them out and not have to waste my time on them. Common sense would indicate that hiding geocaches in such places is just inviting people to completely disrupt or kill these plants. Experience has confirmed this for me. I cannot count the times I have come to a GZ and seen a bush or shrub or tree or some sort of topiary that has obviously been raped by geocachers eager to get a smiley. But I suppose I am preaching to the choir here. At least I hope I am. I just wonder about some of the reviewers who approve these hides.

Having trouble exporting to csv. The file seems to generate, but when I try to open it with S&T I get an error message telling me the file has a bad format. I know I am doing something very simple wrong here, but cannot for the life of me figure out what. Can anyone point me to a post where it walks me through this process? Please excuse my apparent ignorance, but I only just downloaded the program. Also, and this is not as important, several fields such as last found and container type do not seem to upload from gc.com Cheers! -- YOP...

Agreed 100% I have been placing stash sheets in all the caches I find that do not contain them. It is stupid not to. It could give the sport a bad name, cause bomb scares, and whatnot. What's more, it would probably be prudent to lay off the ammo box and camouflaged things that look "military" as this could cause some serious scares, especially in urban locations. Even the GEOCACHE stickers that are put on some of these containers will not alleviate the paranoia of someone who knows nothing about the sport. My usual micro is a clear glass vial. Macros, usually transparent or translucent containers. You wanna be able to at least see something of the contents, if you find a cache inadvertently. -- Yop... Nicko

I forwarded the article to my sister who lives outside of Boulder. Here is the wee exchange (my sister is quoted); >Typical Boulder Nazism. > The only good thing is that it will be almost impossible to enforce. How > are they going to prove your out looking for or hiding a cache? That gives me an idea, Sis! If someone approaches you while you are caching, and asks what the heck you are doing, just totally deadpan (if this would be at all possible to deadpan): Be vewwy vewwy quiet. We're hunting ELMERS.

Simple question: Is it considered bad etiquette to leave something of my own, short of another cache, at a site where I failed to find the hide, as long as it is clear that this is not the cache itself? I am talking about something like a note or such that says, in effect, ha ha, I tried here too, better luck to you--keep looking. Thanks. Email responses encouraged. -- YOP.... Nicko

Heyo. Just a wee tip that maybe has not been mentioned. To preserve the "virginity" of the window of a GPS (or any other instrument with an electronic display) I have been using either transparent packing tape or laminating sheets. If you are very careful about laying the sheets down over the display (avoiding bubbles and such) you can cover the display with a few layers of this tape. And as the tape or laminate becomes marred, just peel off the top layer. Or, you can just keep a layer of the stuff over the display, and peel it off when you need to get a really good look at what is going on there, then press it back into place. This is something I started doing years ago, when I got my first digital camera and realized that it would be hugely expensive to replace the "crystal" over the LCD screens on my cameras.

I am pretty sure it is not a vole. I worked breeding voles for research for some time, and voles have very short tails. Also, the voles I worked with (Kansas, Illinois, and Meadow) did not have such long snouts. And a juvenile vole would be a fraction of the size of that mammal. I think it is a tumor. Or a pigeon without wings. HAW HAW!

Okay, I updated the pages with your advice in mind. I took some liberties with the way the original is written (you cannot take the writer out of me), and in fact when the sheets print out now they are almost perfectly aligned on both sides: http://kriho.com/cach/nongeo.html Thanks again for the support. Looking forward to a weekend of placing. Cheers! Nicko

Much better. Thanks for the heads-up!

Hi, I am pretty darn new at this, so I am taking baby steps. I put together this wee note to leave in future caches. I was wondering if it was a good idea, or whether someone had suggestions for different wording, or whether it was an awful idea in the first place. I copied one side of the text from another site. http://kriho.com/cache/nongeo.html Thanks. Nicko

I am at a loss as to how to connect my new Garmin Legend to my PC. I mean, the interface cable, I have. But the documentation that came with the unit offers almost ZERO advice for the newbie. I would like to know a few technical things, and I know these cannot be addressed by individual responses, but maybe someone can point me to a site that deals with the following issues: -How to connect my GPS to my computer in the first place -How to transfer data between my GPS and my computer (both ways) via the serial cable that came with the Legend -What sort of compatibility might my Garmin unit have with MS Streets/Trips, which I have found to be a wonderful program -What sort of Garmin software I actually MUST have to do the above, if it did not come with my computer I am neither a computer geek nor a computer illiterate, but this is a whole new world to me. Also, and finally (!) I know there must be places where geocachers get together and talk shop, and was wondering whether there is a forum or web site where I might access a listing of open meetings (either in real life--that would be cool--or on the web) where I might touch bases with experienced cachers. Thanks! Nicko