geognerd

Just remembered a program that I showed some teachers how to use. ArcExplorer Java Edition for Education is a free GIS (geographic information system) data viewer that lets you create points from lat-long coordinates in decimal degrees from a text file. Basically make your own map of your found geocaches. You can export your map to JPEG to post on your profile. You can't make any fancy map layouts, but the program is free. You can get the program at ArcExplorer You may have to mess with the map projections setting in the program to get your points to display right. If anyone has questions on how to use it, I can help.

Being good at math, could the original poster figure out what would happen if everyone placed one new cache for every 10 found? It would be kind of like figuring out population growth. We would have an unbelievable saturation problem. Remember, quality, not quantity! I'd rather have someone hide one good cache that brings me to a nice spot along the river than 5 quick-and-easy magnetic keyholders. Not to say that there isn't a place for the quick-and-easy cache that satisfies you when you're really jonesing for a cache.

I use this name for pretty much every piece of electronics I come in contact with. Those who know Frank Barone are familiar with it: Stupid stinking hump.

I always snicker when I see this instruction on a TB. That's the whole point of a TB! Pick it up and drop it off somewhere else. A TB without a tag is just more swag for a cache. If a cacher intended their Matchbox car or keychain to be kept by a visitor, they wouldn't have put the TB tag on!

What helps is when the owner of a TB attaches a laminated tag with the TB's goal. If I see that I am unable to help the TB reach its goal, I won't grab it. But if I grab a TB without such annotation, and in the course of logging it see that I can't move it in the right direction or a great distance, I drop it off where I please. One nice strategy I used was moving a TB in the wrong direction, but placing it in a one-day old cache, expecting the cache to have lots of visitors due to its newness and thus lots of folks to hitch a ride with. I doubt most TB owners would be upset if a TB doesn't move far or moves the wrong direction, as long as it wasn't held for too long.

Um, this may be some sort of flamebait, but what's the big deal about the Jeep TBs? I was surprised to see two people log visits to a cache near me saying they were just trying to get the White Jeep that had shown up in it. I only take good-looking or unique TBs, and the Jeeps definitely look good. Am I missing something? What's so hot about these Jeeps besides looking good?

If you click on the Geocaching.com Maps link for a geocache, it will pull up a map of caches in the area. Ones that YOU have found are supposedly marked with a red check mark if you are a premium member. Personally, I would consider it more valuable to be able to read another geocacher's not-found log entries. I know that was brought up in this forum recently. As for seeing caches OTHER people found on their profile, you can look at my geocaching.com profile and see a map I made showing all of my cache and benchmark finds. I made it with some expensive software (ArcView) that I use in my work. Too expensive to buy just for geocaching. Perhaps some folks know of some cheaper solutions.

Geez, Jeremy and I were writing the exact same thing at the same time. Great minds think alike.

Why not just enter the approximate coordinates for the area you want to place a cache into a search on the website? It'll give you the distances to caches near the set of coordinates you entered. Your idea is nice, but not really necessary.

What happened to the TBs (if any) that were in the geocaches confiscated by Winnebago County FP district? How big are the official DuPage stickers that are supposed to be on the cache containers? How would you officially mark micros such as an acceptable opaque 35mm film canister? The stickers might be too big. The clear container rule bites, as it would prevent placing the ever-popular black plastic magnetic keyholders. Otherwise, obtaining permission to place a cache is no big deal. That's what you're supposed to do in the first place!

Anyone know how many geocachers actually use the UTM coordinates provided for caches? I'm familiar with the coordinate system through my job, but never bothered to try geocaching using UTM instead of Lat/Long. I might try using UTM this weekend just for a change. Anyone out there prefer it over Lat/Long? And if so, why? Just curious.

Perhaps it is just my profession that causes me to find 2-year old imagery to be old. I develop and maintain geographic information systems in a rapidly developing area. I find the 1-yr old aerial photos from my county to be too old! Lucky for me, a group of governmental agencies funded a flyover of the Chicago area in April. Free new 1-ft resolution aerial photos by the end of this year/early next year. Woo hoo!

I do this fairly often so try this: If you want hints, first decrypt them. Then go to the print-friendly version of a cache page. In your web browser (I'm using Firefox), go to File, then Save Page As. Use Text Files as the file type and give the file a name. I use the GCXXXX identifier as a name. Procedure should be similar in IE. Then you can get the cache's data from the text file. I go through the text file and get rid of extraneous descriptions, leaving the bare minimum data for a cache, and print out 3 cache descriptions on one page. Saves paper.

Just remember that the satellite images aren't up-to-date. Despite the 2005 copyright, the imagery for my suburban Chicago neighborhood is at least 2 years old. Another nice tip for those of you who don't know is that you can enter decimal degrees in the search box on Google Maps. For example N41 45.000 W88 15.000 would be entered in the search box as "41.75, -88.25" (without the quotes of course). Found this feature helpful with my geocaching, seeing where to park and where trails are. Currently the MapQuest link on a cache page will bring up a map for the cache's coordinates. Hopefully the same will be done for Google Maps.

One cacher logged a DNF on one of the caches on my watchlist. He mentioned something along the lines that it was a bad caching day for him and to see his other posts. I wanted to see how icky his day was and what happened at other caches. I went to his profile and viewed all cache finds, not realizing that it wouldn't show DNFs. Being able to see another's DNFs would allow fellow cachers to follow one's geocaching trip for the day, good (found) or bad (not found).

Lots of excellent responses, which is what I was looking for. The Hungarian geocaching site rules mentioned seem sort of authoritarian, but fair. Good point about rural areas. My old hometown in Texas only had a handful of caches 6 months ago. Now it looks like they've got well over a dozen. So in rural areas, a 20-25 find requirement would make things tough for geocaching to grow. Someone has to plant the first seed, so to speak. I think our sport does an excellent job at policing itself, and you would have to agree that geocachers do look out for each other and the health of the sport.

Just wanna get opinions about this idea: Require a geocaching.com user to have logged at least 25 finds before allowing the user to place a new cache. A new geocacher in my area placed a couple of caches in questionable locations, one of which was removed by the land manager. I feel that if a person has more experience geocaching, they are more knowledgeable of the rules and customs, and thus less likely to place caches that will be removed or muggled. Thoughts?