VirusZero
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Posts posted by VirusZero
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So it's been a while since I've cached proper. Life gets in the way like that: work, kids, blah blah. I still make sure that I log something whenever I visit a new place...but again that's nowhere near maintaining a streak.
So with caches seemingly getting smaller it begs a question: are TBs and GCs still a thing or are they all getting stolen and the craze gone?
Last I tried sending something out it did something near 80k kilometers until it disappeared in Portugal, same with a lot of my other GCs. It was fun while it lasted, but why does one get the feeling the concept has retired?
Or am I wrong? I still have some rare GCs in my collection and I'd love to send something out if I knew it'll eventually return, at least to close proximity. Do I lose hope yet?Cheerio!
VZ-
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Hello fellow friends in the Middle East!
A few months ago you may have remembered me talking about my Geocaching TV show that I am producing. Well I am happy to say that Treasure Hunters (Ara: مستكشفو الكنوز ) is going to begin airing this September on DMTV (frequencies below) ! Catch me in a new adventure every Friday at 14.30 Dubai Time (GMT+4)
Join us on the facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/TreasureHunters and catch DMTV at the following Nilesat Frequencies:
Nilesat 201@7°W
Frequency: 11977
Polarization: Vertical
FEC: 5/6
Arabsat Badr4@26°E
Frequency: 12111
Polarization: Horizontal
FEC: 3/4
Hope to see you all there soon!
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Thank you,
Anything else?
How would you recommend the Crater Cache (GC2D12D) as an adventure?
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Hi everybody,
I am a cacher from Canada/Dubai who is the producer/director of a new adventure travel show about geocaching called Treasure Hunters. The show is produced in Arabic and will be travelling around the world to look at touristic international geocaches and make some interesting finds.
We will be coming in 2 weeks to Spain to shoot another program but we will also try and make an episode of Treasure Hunters while we're there. Specifically we will be in Murcia but we have the freedom to go anywhere we like in Spain. So we're hoping that fellow Spanish cachers can help us with recommending some good caches (large ones) that are in nice scenic areas with difficulty/terrain of more than 2 stars.
We are looking at GC2D12D, the Crater Cache in Ibiza since it is close to Murcia, but would appreciate a kind of cache that is similar in difficulty or scenic/geographic importance. Do you think you can recommend any?
If there are any cachers in Murcia who would like to meet up, please let me know. For more information on our show, please visit its facebook page!
Gracias! :-D
VirusZero
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I guess Pirelli's one cache we wanted to do that's going to get even more difficult :-P
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Agreed - it is in an area very seldom frequented of the Rub al Khali - very likely to be there - knowing masala88's other caches that are located in good spots and unlikely to be muggled.
More likely that any lock n lock is brittle and breaking from elements after 3 years - but not missing.
Hey VirusZero - how is the progress going and feedback from the station? I hope the project is still on track?
We're doing well so far, and yes the show is still on track to hopefully have a few episodes out on the air by September. I'm currently shooting for Sharjah's Jungle (GC15YJ6) and will go on that excursion on Friday (it was supposed to be this past Friday, but lo and behold, my very overworked cameraman overslept and we had to cancel it). I've filmed a preliminary scene for the episode in a skyscraper construction site in JLT (urban jungle, anyone?) and will be shooting throughout this week in the general Dubai Marina area in preparation for the Friday shoot. Anyone who's willing to help out with transportation or would like to join us for this shoot is more than welcome. As a matter of fact, we could use more people coming out with us and the 4x4 transportation.
The main problem I currently have is booking the shoot times and the budgets I have to work with. It's a rat race trying to get in the first-come-first-serve equipment and cameramen queue. Add to that the lack of transportation to those far off caches (the reason why I couldn't, for example, do the Red Dune cache with only the channel's help) will mean that things are slower than I had anticipated them to be. I truly do wish I had an assistant working with me full-time :-(
Aside from that, red tape is another large problem, which is why I'm focusing on those really far-out caches that don't require me getting shooting permits from Studio City or the government. Sharjah's Jungle is one, I'm going to aim to do Bygone Bronze Age (GC2JQV1) next week. Hopefully the weather won't turn to worse in the next few weeks...which is a problem in and of itself, how do you survive going out into desert and mountain caches when the weather can melt your shoes off your feet?!
Apart from that, there will be a time either at the end of this month or in July that I will travel to Jordan and do a special 4-5 episode special trip to Petra and Wadi Rum to do all the ones out there. Red-tape is still getting us late on that one, as we need to send our info out to the Royal Film Commission for help.
So yeah, there you have it! *sigh*...it's a mad world...
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How about this bad boy http://coord.info/GC1HACX
It's been published and ready for 3 years with no logs. i doubt it's still there.
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Hey folks,
Follow us on our new Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Treasure-Hunters-%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%83%D8%B4%D9%81%D9%88-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83%D9%86%D9%88%D8%B2/191114177597916
..and spread the word!
I'm still trying to get a permit for this week from the Omani government to go up to do Dibba's Lost City. Seems like we won't get it in time, but I'll confirm it soon. If not, it'll have to wait until next week. It seems like the recent tensions in Oman are going to delay things a tad. In the mean time, any suggestions for adventurous caches down here in the UAE?
Cheerio!
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I moved to Vancouver for a few months for work between September and November of last year. I lived on Seymour & West Pender. Being Torontonian I had to acclimatize myself to the new geography of the city (not as clear cut as Toronto thanks to the beautiful geography of the Pacific Northwest). The best way to do so was doing every single cache within a 2 or 3km radius of my home. As soon as I got to know the town better, I started doing the ones further away in Stanley Park, etc.
I highly recommend that you do it that way, and all the ones in the downtown core are very easy.
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I'm taking 2 weeks leave - so if you give us a bit of time - we can try arrange to be at both!
Pending permissions granted from the ministries of Information and Tourism in Oman, we will be shooting Dibba's Lost City before the end of the week. We have been advised by the other tour company that is helping us with water transportation up to Khasab not to come up to do Telegraph Island and Port Entrance for another two weeks as it's currently Jellyfish season and we won't have much to shoot by way of marine life.
That could mean that we can still do that one with the presence of Skyjuggler.
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An even better update:
We are looking for a convenient date between Saturday and Thursday to go up to Dibba Oman and do Dibba's Lost City Cache (GC18PP9). We have a barter deal with a boat tour company who will take us on one of their dhows up to the site of the lost city so we can film there and find the cache. The boat can accommodate about 20 people. We're hoping to get a good haul for this.
Once this episode is filmed, at some other point in time we're taking the other end of Musandam up (again by boat) to do a two-cache episode, Port Entrance (GC19RKY) in Khasab, and the Telegraph Island Earthcache by Carbon Hunter. Once again you're invited.
As for Pirelli, we're aiming for a shoot of that one the weekend of the 8th of April.
Of course not all of these will be filmed in the same week, Lost City and Pirelli at least, so I hope that some of you will be able to make it at some point in time or, if you know someone who'd be interested in joining us, please do let me know.
Cheers once more.
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Anyone else?
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me N u, I'll grab confirmation from the channel that this is possible within budgets and what not, then let you know through e-mail or private message.
As for the general cachers in the region: we would like to pursue Pirelli as a caching team effort, and you're all invited to make this a big rockin' convoy! How are next weekend or the next looking for people? *fingers crossed*
Edit: We're talking Friday April 1st or Friday April 8th or Saturday April 9th.
Please say yes...
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Here's another teaser for you, an actual excerpt from the show. Yours truly narrates and hosts :-)
Actually gpsman, send me a private message. There's a geocaching mission that's coming in from Boston in the next few weeks that I will need some Kuwaiti assistance with.
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The pilot episode has been approved and we're going into business. It will be screened in front of a proper test audience to determine its success, afterwhich we can see how the direction of the show is going to go.
I am meant to be scouting locations for the next few episodes throughout this week. Now that Cycad1 has mentioned that military barracks are being built at the site of Hercules, I think it's safe to say that one's out of the running.
I would appreciate the help with the location scouting, and if it is successful, we should be beginning to shoot the episodes throughout next week.
I hope this topic's not becoming too tedious for some people. But being new in town it's rather difficult to network with other cachers and I'm still testing ground to see what fruit we would collectively reap from this networking.
Thanks
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Just happened to see this topic. Chances are most people looking at this section of the forum do not read English. You may get better results posting in the Geocoin Discussion section of th forums.
With all due respect, you'll notice that every single topic in this section of the forum is written with an English title and discussed in English. I would imagine that, logically, evidence of English writing is evidence of English reading. To make such a boldly outrageous comment such as this takes away much of the community spirit of geocaching, don't you think?
Most geocachers living in the Arabian Peninsula are expatriates from countries such as Great Britain, The United States, South Africa, Canada, and the European Union.
More importantly, there also many cachers in the region who are Arab and have superior command of the English language.
Caching may not yet be as popular in the Arabian Peninsula amongst Arabs but it's getting there, and if you read just two topics down you'll know of my initiative to start a geocaching-based TV show here (in Arabic), which I happen to be the producer/director of: an Arab-Canadian cacher who moved back here for work.
Your comment was unnecessary and highly judgmental. In fact if the coins sees its way from Boston to one of my caches in Toronto, I can see that it reaches me here in Dubai and I can send it off to Kuwait with the other cachers who frequently travel to the region.
I would hope an apology is not out of the question.
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Skyjuggler told me about this last night. I'd love to go to a CITO event since I've never been before. But more importantly it would make a great episode for my show. Something with camping and what not sounds like a great idea.
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Skyjuggler and I met up last night and did a few easy ones in my neighbourhood. He also had the privilege of being the first cacher to watch the full episode. I hope he comes up and puts his opinion on what he saw soon. :-)
But more importantly, this announcement.
Fellow Cachers:
For the second episode I would like to try either Da Bones (GC1GXQY) or Hercules (GC2KT6Y). Both have the potential to be extremely rewarding trips and an interesting perspective on the nature of the UAE's wilderness trails.
The show will aim from now on to invite any and all interested parties (already-established or would-be cachers) to come along on these trips and join us in the search. This way we can not only increase people's attention to the show and the hobby, but hopefully maintain the true community spirit of the sport.
Of course, if anyone knows or is in touch with these caches' owners, I'd love to be able to speak to them on camera for the episode as well.
Any readers who frequent this thread: you're officially invited. There is still no date set for this excursion but I'd like to do it soon before the heat really gets going in the inner regions of the desert. If you or a friend of yours is an avid 4x4 off-roader and can help out with transportation, it's sure to help out both logistically and in attracting sponsorships from your car's dealership ;-)
I hope to hear back from you on this very soon!
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The pilot episode is complete and awaiting the CEO's viewership to see what changes need to be made for subsequent episodes. People who've seen it so far have said that it was great and that a program of that sort is much needed in our channel/on TV these days. I hope to live up to the standards of Michael Palin's work someday, so here's hoping that it attracts the numbers. I'm currently working on the subtitling to give you guys a chance to also tune in and watch the show when it's broadcast (if you're living in MENA). Just remember to help me keep my numbers up, tell people about the show (and shop the promo around to other geocachers in the region who haven't heard of it yet). I don't wish to network or spread it on facebook just yet because the promo needs final approval from the CEO before we can make it official, but a little underground work won't hurt!
It's getting really exciting. I can't wait to start hunting for the next cache!
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Hi VZ
How did the next session go? I trust it was better.
It was indeed. We left earlier this time and met up with Cycad1, a lovely couple from Belgium, who took me and my crew out to the wadi again and helped us with the hike. I decided the night before, seeing as my eTrex Legend failed me, that I could afford a new unit, so I bought the GPSMAP 62s. With Cycad's help, we both discovered that the reason we couldn't find the cache the last time (aside from it getting too dark) was that the coords were off and we'd hiked 1km further into the wadi than we were supposed to. It was fixed this time around and once we zeroed in they left me to my devices to look for it by myself, and surely enough...FOUND!! And an FTF to boot!
Problem I'm now facing is trying to get my channel to go beyond the pilot episode, as I think the CEO is changing her mind (she's only seen the promo, none of the cut footage just yet) and won't let me scout for the second episode (I wanted to do GC2MM2V but to rent a dhow, Michael-Palin-style, and cruise along the coast to get it rather than take the road. I hope that's not the case once she does see the first cut, but I might need some support from the community if it does collapse...just to show her that the idea is worthwhile to both cachers and none-cachers. *shrug*...who knows...I'm a worrywort, but for a good cause.
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Thank you all for the support.
It's a bit short-notice I know, but anyone in the general Dubai area care to join us for the rest of the episode's shoot tomorrow. We take off from Dubai Media City at 6.30am to hopefully reach RAK at around 9 or so. My last co-host bailed out on me (too tired and it was his last week of work at the station) so I'll be going only with the crew. We're meeting Cycad1 and they'll be helping out with the hike...but personally speaking, aside from my crew, I could use the company
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Thanks for the efforts VirusZero.. keep us posted.
Here's a teaser ;-)
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Well, we shot the first part of the pilot episode...
My camera crew and myself went out to a cache on the border between Musandam and RAK just yesterday (GC2NYGF). The cache was placed by Cycad 1 in Wadi Baih and was a 3km hike from the nearest "civilization" to the cache itself in the middle of the valley (thank goodness for cairns is all I can say, you'll know what I mean in a bit).
We got to what the GPS said was GZ as the sun was setting and couldn't search for long before it got dark. And it did! A team of 3 people with a camera trying to reacquire their path in pitch black darkness was a difficult and nerve-wracking experience all its own. Somewhere along the route we got lost but managed to get ourselves back on track thanks to the cairns.
By then the channel had been worried about us because there was no Cellphone coverage in the area and had to call the police. Once we reached the area at the beginning of the wadi where there was Cellphone coverage we managed to alleviate any worries from friends and family and channel colleagues that anything had happened to us and reassure them that everything was okay.
Because of this massive failure to find the cache for the first episode, I thought it would be interesting to make this a two part episode where we use the help of more experienced cachers/hikers in a second part of the episode where we return to this area and actually find the cache. In reality, we will really need the help of more experienced hikers and mountaineers, as physically this is a very demanding hike and climb. I would say that this may be a 5-star terrain difficulty, also considering the wildlife in the area (we heard hyenas and found several dead animals that looked like they were eaten there.).
Help, consultation, and volunteering from anyone in the area would be highly appreciated. You will of course be featured on the show and even interviewed! So here's your chance to spread cache fever to the world by doing what you love to do most!
You know how to reach me! ;-)
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Hello everyone,
I'm happy to announce that my channel has given the green light for a pilot episode of the show to be filmed here in the UAE very soon, and Groundspeak's Marketing team has already expressed their excitement about the prospect of a show like this introducing caching to new audiences. I'm happy that these advancements have come to be and look forward to hearing more of your opinions as to how this program can be developed.
For the time being, here is what we have started to work on:
Treasure Hunters is a documentary adventure series that aims to explore and promote the sport of geocaching in the Middle East. With many scenic, difficult and challenging caches in the Arabian Peninsula alone, the show will assemble a team of cache explorers that will attempt to find certain caches each episode and explore the history of the area in which they are placed.
Since most caches are placed in an area of historical and/or geographic significance, the show can act as both an outdoor adventure show as well as a history/culture program. The method therefore is sure guaranteed to attract demographics of the audience that are interested in many aspects: the adventure-seekers, the auto enthusiasts, those interested in history, and the technology-savvy who would like to combine all three of the above aspects in their own search for a captivating and challenging hobby.
The show will assemble a team comprising of adventure seekers who are the said combination above and, with the aid of an off-road vehicle or a combination of transportation methods, will attempt to explore and find caches in different areas of the country. Along with the hunt itself, the fundamentals of geocaching can be explored (usage of the GPS device, how to find the cache and log it) as well as hints and tips. The program may also contain features that explore the history of the area in which the cache is hidden to allow for multiple dimensions of exploration. This will make the show akin to a combination between Top Gear, the Michael Palin’s travelogues and tech show.
The show will be formatted into episodes of 30 minutes each, broadcast once a week for a year. In each episode, the assembled cache team (and any guests that would like to join in, e.g. celebrities) will pick a cache to explore and find out its history and the history of the area in which it is placed. With the help of the designated cache vehicle, the journey to the cache is documented and the search itself as per the descriptions and the hint provided by the cache hider will be found. It is possible that some caches will take several days’ journeys and/or guests who are more physically capable than the regular cache team, and so these will be researched and provided for prior to the actual taping of the show.
Snippets during the program that highlight the history of the areas explored or any events of significance that occurred in said area, for example Petra in Jordan, the Wabar Craters in Al-Hadida, Saudi Arabia; or the ruins of Palmyra in Syria.
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TBs & GCs: What's the deal?
in All Nations
Posted
Believe me, I've been doing this long enough not to be optimistic anymore. The point is back in the day they used to actually travel long enough to keep track, and you *could* keep track. These days it seems that either people don't send them out anymore or they immediately go off the radar the moment their owner places them somewhere, and that's my point. So yeah...