Master Mariner

I am not local to Warwickshire, so probably not the best person to ask, but would recommend the "Wherefore art thou Wherigo" (GC25GJE) if you have not done a Wherigo cache and have the correct equipment. This takes you for a very pleasant walk through Stratford-upon-Avon.

Oh that's good. That's very good. Thank you, installed it. And I haven't even got MM yet! One last question (for now): I read on the MM website that you can record your track and then see how far you walked. And it looks as simple as generating the track and then clicking on it. Is it really that simple? If so, I'm sold, as I have been looking for an easy way to do that for a while. When you have MM on your PC you can Import the data from your PDA and any tracks you have will be displayed. You can, if you so wish, import GPX files from other devices into MM. I import mine on a regular basis from my Oregon. One thing that I also do, but have not seen mentioned here, is to open a Garmin Oregon GPX file in Google Earth. If you are using GE 5.2 or later you can show the elevation profile of your route and your velocity is also shown. Each can be turned on or off or shown, overlaid, together. I use Google Earth Pro so am not sure if the Elevation Profile feature is available in the free version. I have not tried that with a MM track yet.

It is possible that "The Chaos Crew", like myself, do not have all of the UK loaded into GSAK. If I am going to a "new" county I load a KMZ file of the county shape into Google Earth. I then zoom into the part of the county I am interested in and turn on the Geocaching Google Earth Viewer to show what caches are available. I can then use one of those caches as a centre point for creating a PQ file. This method also allows, if all the county polygon KMZ files are loaded, to see where two or three counties join together so you can (easily?) knock off a few counties!! As has already been mentioned, the polygons are not perfect.

Hi DrDick, well, what I have is coordinates only, and I cant find a place on google earth to type in these coords ? Click on the "Add Placemark" button. It looks like a yellow thumb tack and, on my set up, it is positioned just below the Google Earth menu bar. That opens a form where you can enter your position.

Having seen currykev's initial reply, before it was deleted, I was pleased to see that he echoed my sentiments exactly. Whilst I do not condone what is being done to the caches, or crime in general, I think that the advice given by the reviewers is ridiculous and could result in a total waste of police time and manpower - even if they just played along giving out a crime number. I would rather that my taxes were used by the police for solving more serious crimes and protecting the community. If, and I doubt that it would ever happen, I discovered that the police were wasting time and resources on "stolen" geocaches I would make my opinion known to the various authorities that control the police service. I also think that the new mod is being a bit zealous in his new job but that is just my own personal opinion.

I had one of my coins go missing for a long period. Emails were ignored and I gave up on it ever going into the wild again. Many months later I received an email from the cacher holding the geocoin. She had been very badly injured in a motor cycle accident and had spent the best part of a year in hospital. Once she had recovered, she eased herself back into caching again and moved my cache on. In this case, that I appreciate is the exception, "naming and shaming" would be totally unacceptable.

My nemesis cache was this one GCVF2Z. I found it eventually but only after many visits and, when found, it was so obvious!

The largest I have come across is this one that has been around for a few years now. The picture gallery gives an indication of size but, you know what they say, size isn't important!!!

Are you using the same format on your GPS and in GSAK, ie DD MM.MMM (degrees and minutes) OR DD.ddddd (decimal degrees). For example if you have Lat 51.35000N; Long 001.45000E (in decimal degrees) and you enter it as Lat 51 35.000'N; Long 001 45.000'E (the more normal degrees and minutes) then you will get an error of about 20 miles. Worth checking. Edited to add: Lat 51.35000N; Long 001.45000E = Lat 51 21.000N; Long 001 27.000E when correctly converted from decimal degrees to degrees and minutes.

I try to avoid the term "great circle" as that brings back memories of when I used my sextant and did spherical trignometry to get a position. We worked on a sphere in those days! With WGS84 the shape of the earth is now defined as an oblate spheroid, ie it is fatter around the equator than over the poles and that is why I refer to it as a geodesic. I think that Google reduce all the satellite imagery to WGS84 for x,y coordinates. I am not sure if they correct the imagery in the z (altitude) direction. If confused about that comment, look at the imagery of Canary Wharf in London docklands. On the south side of the tower, I think it's the south side, you can see the full face of the building. If you take the co-ords of the upper corner, and then the lower corner, beneath it, you get two different positions even though both points are in the physical x,y position - unless the building is leaning of course! If you measure between the two points you will see that there is a considerable error. Jsut some more food for thought!

I have used two points, one in the Himalayas and one in eastern England, to calculate two distances. The points are rounded to the nearest degree to avoid any input errors. 1. 28 00.000N; 087 00.000E 2. 52 00.000N; 001 00.000E Using a geodesic calculation the distance found is 7345.163km Using a rhumb line calculation the distance is 7688.558km A difference of over 300km. Having a quick look at Google Earth Pro, I guess that they use geodesic calculations for their ruler tool as the line appears straight on the geodesic. If it was a rhumb line then the ruler line would appear curved over that sort of distance. Key the above co-ords into your GPSr and see to which distance they come closest.

Same problem here. Using: Firefox 3.5.6 GreaseMonkey 0.8.20091209.4 I have deleted everything and installed FF, GM and scripts again from scratch with the same result. Other scripts are working OK.

Works on my Oregon 550t and, as they say on the TV advert, simples!

Firelanterns has the following paragraph in the description for GC1N4X2 (Flonopoly Cache 28 and Final - GO ! ) obviously knowing that some containers may go missing. "If you are struggling for numbers from any missing caches, you can find a cheat sheet here - please not ALL the flonopoly numbers are on here, including Jail - but you'll still have to work out the coords yourself ! - please ONLY use this if you have attempted a cache and find it unavailable - your right to a flonopoly pathtag is only if you have at least attempted to get round them all ! www.londonframed.co.uk/flonopolycheatsheet.pdf" If you are missing a number, or just an out-and-out cheat then have a look at the cheat sheet! I have replaced some containers but it would appear that Firelanterns has abandoned this series.

... how, when you log a DNF, the next person always finds it!

Is the "Status Bar" turned on? To check click on "View" and there should be a tick to the left of "Status Bar". If there is no tick then click on "Status Bar" to turn it on.

Had to work Easter weekend but managed a couple of caches. On my way to Malta on Thursday, from London City, I had a flight change at Zurich so managed a webcam cache in Zurich airport. In Malta there was a cache within a short walk of my hotel so felt obliged to do that. Weather good to start with. On Good Friday went to sea to test some submarine cable tracking equipment off Mazara, Sicily and got back to Malta later than planned due to some very rough seas and very wet weather and then flew home so no more caching opportunities. Spent today writing reports.

Spot on - your go!

Moving to the far east. What is the tower and the cache? Both have the same second name. Couple of clues: 1. Alleged to have the fastest elevators in the world. 2. Has a 600 tonne damping ball to reduce vibrations

What if I do this to help with the location...... Next one is in a charming little area, it's on the right hand side in a manner/manor of speaking. But witch cache is it? and an extra clue to help with the cache itself - think of butterflies I reckon that will be Carroll Avenue, LA. Series is Charmed and the cache is Los Angeles' Painted Ladies.

I set a nano a year or so ago and put a paper roll in with random three letter codes. The idea was that the finder would cross out the next code and email the code to me as part of the logging process. My thinking for this was that the roll would last longer than it would with some cachers trying to write their life history on the roll. Eckington was a reviewer at the time and he replied with the following to my submission: "Sorry to take so long to get back to you. I have looked at the cache, as have my colleagues, and I am afraid we can not let it go live at the moment. The requirement is for cachers to SIGN the logbook. The code word idea you have used is against the guidelines. If you replace the code word roll with a similar roll and ask the finders to simply initial the log and date it this should suffice." My reply to Eckington was: "Regarding "<Cache name removed>". Your comments are noted. If I ask for the finder to initial OVER the next code and then send the code as part of the logging requirement then I assume that is OK as the signing requirement has been complied with." To which he replied: "That is an excellent idea ......., mail me when the cache page is updated and I will continue with the review." I emailed him and the cache went through. So, with the "old" reviewers, and I think Graculus was one then, you had to have a physical log to be signed.

I would like to add my comments here as it was a request, made by myself, for permission to hide caches in Greenwich Park that has resulted in the caches being archived. Those of you that like to do research will note that I "owned" one of the caches (Prime Meridian Cache) that I archived as requested. I adopted this a few years ago when the original owner was unable to maintain it so do not know if permission was granted - or not. As to whether other cache owners received appropriate permission for their caches is unknown and only they can answer that. Without the salutations, the email read: "Thank you for your e-mail. Unfortunately due to our change of computer system we were unable to access the Greenwich Mailbox system until today. With reference to your proposal, our Landscaping Team regularly scavenge the park and the placing of these boxes will be an increased security risk. So it is on this basis that I cannot allow this activity in Greenwich Park." As the statement was unambiguous, I felt obliged to make the UK reviewers aware of this - hence this topic. The request was based on the GAGB standard letter so the park was totally aware of what Geocaching is about.

You can try this page to see all coins near your home but I do not think you can be selective.

Apologies if this has been asked before. When using the Wherigo "player" in the field there is a "Map" option that shows visible zones and the user's location. Is it possible to geoftiff a map or aerial shot and get that to display on the map so the user can see where (s)he is in the real world? The reason for asking is that I am developing a cartridge in an area where there are several streets and I would like to be able to give the user an indication of where they actually are. A geotiffed image from Google Earth would be an ideal overlay. Thanks in advance.

As the crow flies, the two locations are about 3km apart. Walking from one to the other is mainly through Hyde Park and around the back of Buckingham Palace. If you want to view the two places in Google Earth or Streetmap.co.uk the first location you mention is at approximate position 51 30.938N; 000 10.536W and the second at 51 29.866N; 000 08.578W. If I was in your boots, I would go for the second location as there is a lot more touristy things within a 30 minute walk. Don't forget to "do" Greenwich whilst your here so you can waych your GPS go from west to east! Top travel tip, whilst in London, is to buy Oyster Cards as they will save you money and avoid having to wait in line to but tickets. Did you also want advise for your honeymoon? Edited to add: I am not a real Londoner but live in London.