Chakthi

Definitely!

That's taking things a little farther than I had in mind. I had no intention of requiring anyone to log the value of their traded item(s). I only intend to request that people who take something of a certain dollar value leave something of equal or greater value. The idea is that I handle the initial stocking of SWAG items, but if each finder follows the rules of the game, then it will be continually stocked. No one has to do anything extra unless, by extra, you mean following the rules of the game. Those rules are meant to preserve the caches that are out there and therefore make the find enjoyable for the next person, are they not? I mean, I went out caching today and found caches that were in horrible states of disarray. I mean, there were a couple that had SWAG in them, but they were so nasty that no one would want to even touch the items unless it was absolutely necessary. One didn't even have a log, so not having one with me to replace it with (yet), I left a piece of Rite In The Rain paper in the cache so there's at least a temporary log for the next finder and we added a few toy ninjas to it so that there was at least a little something in there for any kids that happen to be part of the next find. It seems like many COs also aren't doing their part in maintaining their caches, at least that's what I'm finding as I go through the logs and compare when maintenance was last done (many times that would be never) with what I find. I don't think it's asking too much of anyone to do their parts correctly so that everyone can continue to enjoy finding these caches. Perhaps it's just in my area of Ohio, but it doesn't seem like there is any oversight at all over the caches in general. So, because of this, I intend to place my first cache inside Five Rivers MetroParks land (with permission) because they have very specific guidelines for caches placed within their borders.

There's an app called GeoBeacon mention here: http://arkgeocaching.org/archive/index.php/t-3523.html And I found this little guy here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/202691931123?ViewItem=&item=202691931123 Combined with a lightning to USB adapter, shouldn't that work to find a Chirp? I haven't checked for the app yet, but I will as soon as I send this along...

Yeah, I've been researching ANT+ just now. Doesn't seem like something easily found for iPhone, but I haven't checked eBay yet. So why haven't you put out a Chirp cache lately? lol

Well, I take my good friend's son out geocaching with me and he has an Android phone, so between the two of us, we should be able to find a Chirp beacon. I'm not sure that his phone is a Samsung but it's definitely Android. It doesn't have to be a Samsung does it?

That makes sense. Question though - I use my iPhone and the official app and Cachly to find caches. Is there any way to track a Garmin Chirp with my phone? The really nice Garmins are pretty expensive and having a phone that does GPS pretty well makes it even harder to justify the expense of a new GPS unit, especially if it's only to be able to track a beacon...

I'm thinking that any cache that I hide will be PM only at this point. I really didn't realize that there was so much going on "behind the scenes" until now. There are definitely moral and ethical issues here that I didn't foresee. I think maybe it's best to take the earlier advice of not letting all of this bug me too much. I just want to go out there and have a good time and if I focus too much on all of the negative, I'll never accomplish that. Thanks to you and everyone else for the insight though. I'm also reading the Complete Idiot's Guide to Geocaching to become more informed. Even realizing that the game has its problems, it's still one of the coolest things I've come across in quite some time. I'm not going to let the negatives keep me from getting my exercise and a lot of enjoyment out of it!

That's really sad. As you can tell by my avatar, I'm a huge Star Trek fan and I've read a lot of complaints by people who don't feel they should have to pay the CBS All-Access fee to watch the new Discovery series. Seems like too many people think everything should just be free. There are costs for most everything worth doing or having. It's just the way it is. Extracting their membership fee from caches is just plain horrible in my opinion. ?

Well, if I had to pay for something to play, I'd be more likely to make sure I knew the rules of the game. If, as cerberus1 mentioned, it's the free app and one weekend of treasure hunting that is the cause of TBs coming up missing, maybe it's also the free app that's leading to all the SWAG disappearing as well. People who are just out to take what they can find with the free app would be eliminated or, it would at least cost them a $5.99 membership fee for a month.

Thanks, I thought so, but just wanted to be sure.

Hmmm. I thought of that one day recently when a TB wasn't in a cache that indicated it would be there. I assumed though that the person who had found the cache and took the TB just hadn't logged it yet. But, yeah, I purchased a couple of Geocoins and, at least for right now, I've decided not to put them out into circulation for fear of them being taken. I mean, the coins are so nice! I'd hate to not get it back after it completed its mission. Has there ever been any discussion of making the Geocaching.com membership fee mandatory to maybe introduce a bit more honesty to the game? I paid the yearly membership fee for myself and my teenaged friend and I didn't find it to be what I would consider too expensive for what we have gotten out of it so far and we've only been going out caching 4-5 times in the past month. I can think of a lot of things that cost quite a bit more for less entertainment. It's also helping me get the exercise that I have been lacking the past several years and getting Lil_Guy130 out of the house and away from the Xbox and PlayStation. We're both having an awesome time!

I live in the Dayton, Ohio area, and we went to a small town, New Lebanon, Ohio looking for caches, and one, in particular, was devoted to painted rocks. Not having any painted rocks handy, we decided to skip it, but they apparently do exist, even in the midwest. Personally, I don't have any problem with people using painted rocks for SWAG so long as they realize that you can't really put a dollar value on a rock. That being said, we plan to paint some rocks in case we run into any other caches of that type. My partner in crime's sister is a bit of an artist and I'm sure she can make some nice rocks for us to use.

Hey, I'm about ready to go through the process of getting permission from a local park to hide a regular size cache. Everything is on order (lost in the mail at this point, but on order nonetheless) and when it arrives, I and my fellow geocacher are going to put together a nice puzzle to make it a bit of a challenging find. I specifically wanted to do a regular size cache so that there would be room for plenty of SWAG items. I plan to include quite a bit of SWAG to get it started, but I'm wondering if others have noticed that it seems like people must be pilfering the caches on a regular basis, because even caches that are listed as having had maintenance done on them and new SWAG left, when found, are nearly empty. Someone isn't playing by the rules of leaving something of equal or greater value - apparently a lot of someones if I'm right. Without giving away the name of my cache, I've been planning on including estimated values of the items included and specifying in the listing that anything taken must be replaced with something of equal or greater value. Yes, this will be my first hide, so I'm just trying to get some input from everyone on what I'm thinking. Good, bad or indifferent, it will help me to decide on the course of action I decide to take. Personally, I've never taken any SWAG from a cache, but my teenage cohort has, but we always leave a proper item(s) in the place of what is taken, but too many times recently, we've sought out regular and large caches and they're basically empty. My only interest is in moving TBs from point to point and solving the puzzles and well, of course, the actual find, but my caching buddy is often disappointed by virtually empty caches that should be brimming with items. Is this a serious problem in all areas or is it specific to certain regions within the US? We have only been looking in Southwestern Ohio and admittedly only have 20 out of 22 finds, but it is already becoming a rather evident and disheartening fact. Thoughts? Solutions? Also, one other question just to be sure - I have ordered a full-size FTF Geocoin to put in the cache. I'm assuming I should not register that particular TB before putting it in the cache, is that correct? As for the SWAG issue, I'm not trying to come across as a jerk or anything, but we have rules we're supposed to abide by and we are doing our best to make sure that we do our part and it's frustrating to find that others aren't doing the same...