Lovejoy and Tinker

Some of the ones we've found wouldn't be improved by moving them a mile You can't really move a cache. You can change the coordinates if they are inaccurate but if a cache is moved other than a few metres to avoid muggling it should be issued as a new hide. Better to get it right to start with. Not every cache can have a reason to be there - beautiful location, historic place etc etc. In fact some of those roadside ones are good hides, needing stealth and cunning. I don't mind a good cache and dash. Wouldn't want to see them in the majority though just because loads of people want to see their name on a cache page and can't be bothered to put some thought into a hide. No flaming here

OK, understood. It's just that speaking for myself, I am still a bit wary of these forums as I have seen the way things can get ugly quickly so I try and stay out of the heated ones. To enter into a bit of a discussion and then have a mod jump in and seem to say: Couldn't care less - the popcorn thing You're opening a can of worms - (that one was obvious ) Heard it all before a hundred times <sigh> No point in discussing it yet again Been here, done this, find something interesting to talk about Go and talk about it somewhere else. was a bit disconcerting. Now I know I'm not quoting your words, and I now know that's perhaps not at all what you meant - but it did come across a bit like that. Sorry if I misinterpreted your words and images. But don't forget we're not all used to forum 'humour' yet and perhaps see mods as advisors who are serious when they say stuff. Good to know you are human I suspect this thread might not attract much more interest now and will go the way of the other thread in this section (about reporting crime to police) which suddenly took a dive and died a death after someone got all sarcastic and rather ruined the atmosphere. EDIT Oh pants, sorry, we've moved on, now I'm derailing the thread - it was all going on while I was typing. I'm not very good at forums am I, sorry.

I haven't seen a full discusiion about it before, I haven't been in the forms long, only seen it touched on in threads about other topics. So I haven't seen every possible opinion on the subject. I would be interested to hear what others think if they have an opinion, might even make me change my mind. If we are allowed to discuss something again that's been discussed over and over ?? You seem a bit dismissive of people wanting to discuss a subject you have seen done to death, is it bad forum etiquette for us to continue do so? Wouldn't want to tread on anyone's toes or upset the apple cart.

I agree with *mouse*. It does seem that standards are falling, looking at new caches published and how long: a ) They last before they are muggled (sometimes before they have even been found by a cacher) b ) They are left unmaintained after being reported muggled or damaged, often because the CO has already grown bored of the game and not logged in for ages. c ) It is before the coordinates have to be changed because the CO got it all wrong due to inexperience. d ) It is before they are archived. Going through GSAK each week deleting archived caches tells the story rather well when you see cache after cache that was put out by a new cacher, all keen and everything, then it goes missing, nothing happens for weeks or months and finally the reviewer steps in and archives it. (Okay I know some long standing cachers are also guilty of that but new cachers seem to be worse). And watching the 'getting started' thread, barely a day goes by without someone asking a question about some aspect of their first hide, then when you look at their profile, they have been a member less than 2 weeks and have less than 10 hides. They're not all going to be bad hides, and at least they come to the forums to ask for help, but you do just want to shout back at them "get some experience, know you are in this for the long term and understand the long term commitment of owning a cache before you feel the desperate need to place one" (But you are not allowed to do that in the getting started forum. What do you think the great rush is to put hides out there when someone has just started? Is it the thrill of seeing their name on a cache page? Is it to try and get away from their newbyness? Is it the thrill of knowing people are out there looking for something you have hidden? All I know is we were petrified about putting our first one out, desperately keen to get it right and not receive a slagging in the logs. Thankfully we had good mentors in The Two Bears who we went out with lots before placing our first hide, and used that time to learn as much as we could about everything. Even then we hit a SSSI with our first location and Graculus kindly spotted it and put us right. The first hide is not a great one but it does the job, we look after it. It's just not a great location. Our next hides we are a lot more happy with as by then we were even better at knowing why we wanted to put them out, where we wanted them and what would make them fun to find. So in my opinion, good hides do come with experience (and a little help from your friends) and I don't like seeing cachers with a one week membership desperate to start hiding. I wouldn't be unhappy with a minimum find count before hiding, or a period of membership under ones belt. But I also know a lot of people don't like the idea and will probably post here after me. But if the standard of hides and the number of unmaintained and disabled caches continues to grow then all the reasons for this happening might have to be looked at and solutions tried. Or it will spoil the game for everyone. Just my thoughts.

You can't edit other people's logs on your own cache. But you can delete them. On the bottom of each log there is a 'View Log' button that takes you to a screen where you can delete the log, or (and this might be useful) permanently encrypt the log - which would at least hide any offending text but will not hide the pictures. Beware deleting people's logs, it's generally not good form. Drop them an email first and ask them to edit their own log so as to remove any spoilers or information that might make the cache less enjoyable for future cachers.

175 in 10 miles of which 13 I haven't found yet. North Cornwall, SW UK

I couldn't possibly do it justice in my own words, but I wouldn't be without it now, it does so much and makes everything so much easier. Take a look here Edit: You don't really appreciate all the features and facilities until you have had it a while and think "I wish I could..." then you find that with all your caches in GSAK, you can. It's available as a trial version so you can test it out first. Don't do what I did - take one look at it and think "Crikey, that's way too complicated for my needs". Play around with it and think about sorting, filtering, exporting (In GPX format, as many 'PQ's" as you like, when you like), generating maps, using some of the many many add on macros... See, I told you I couldn't possibly do it justice in my own words, but thought I would give it a go anyway.

That's better

Straight forward. But then I have seen a couple of these before, so maybe that makes it easier. Won't spoil it by saying any more but I would imagine most people will sort it out pretty quickly. Maybe a bit more of a description n the text area would help, if you know what I mean, but I can see what you are trying to do. In this case, I think more description would be better. Like I say, don't want to say too much about what I think would make it better as it will spoil it. PM me if you like.

Sweet Aim for some large boxes and hope they have some children's type swag in them. Nothing more likely to put kids off on their first outing than film pots or sandwich boxes full of broken plastic. Unfortunately there are lots of those. We tend to ignore swag and dont ever swap anything, but then we are in our 40's and swapping crayons for a bouncy ball is not what we do this for. But I imagine that's going to be one of the main draws for youngsters. Have fun!

If you are as good at caching as you are at photography you'll have more finds than us by 3rd September, never mind reaching 200. Excellent shots on your flicker page. I'm 46 by the way

Wonder how much of this is down to new cachers being full of enthusiasm, doing some caches, picking up some trackables, keeping them in a bag at home, then life takes over, they lose interest and the box of TBs gets forgotten about. Odd that they don't receive and respond to emails though - unless they set up a special email account for their geocaching then never bother checking that either. Or maybe by the time they remember they've got them they think it's better to keep their heads down rather than admit what they have done. Or, they have some kind of bad experience and decide to walk away from the game without a care for those they leave behind. We have a similar situation here in Cornwall where a local lad really got into the game, did over 100 finds, set his own cache and ended up picking up a TB that is needed as one of three from which you get information to find a cache. The idea is the TB travels around the county and you have to get out and pick them up when they are close by, get the info you need then move them on. It's a great idea, and we managed to get all 3 and find the cache. But this lad has had one of the TBs for about 3 months and has stopped caching. He's on my friends list (don't ask, he wanted help many months ago when he started) so I have emailed him a couple of times to remind him he is holding up other people trying to get the 3 TBs (there are 16 people watching the one he's got), but I have never received a reply, and I haven't seen him around for ages. It's a shame, but some people don't have the same sense of responsibility as the rest of us. It's the same in a lot of aspects of life, and I don't know if it is getting worse or if I am just getting older and more grumpy and cynical about other people's attitudes to their fellow human beings. Actually, I do know, I am getting more grumpy and cynical. And older of course

Haven't had one of our own complete a mission .... yet. But, we finished a mission for a coin last weekend, and it was quite satisfying being the final link in the chain. The owner was quite pleased too I think: Excalibur Geocoin

Would be useful to have two accounts owning a cache. We're about to do it with some friends and came across the same limitation. If one team is on holiday or otherwise away, it would be great if the other team could do the maintenance, for example, and clear a NM log. Or simply access and edit the cache page to add or change content. I can see the benefits of dual ownership but I guess there are also reasons it can't or shouldn't be done - just can't think of any at the moment.

Well done. I rely on battery operated gadgets to make up for my lack of sense I quite like the idea of having Joanna Lumley announcing "you have reached your destination darling" when arriving at a cache. Must install tomtom on my HD2 and give it a try

Ours is a big old chunky one too, one of the early models. Still works great and use it all the time to drive to parking points and do roadside cache and dashes. I have a HD2 smartphone with GCzII on it which we use for getting all the cache details, photos, reading previous logs, checking a cache hasn't been disabled since the last GPX download, checking TB's missions etc. If I am in the mood, i'll use it to post logs in the field, but not always, especially if it's raining (don't want to get my baby wet) Then Tinker has an Etrex Legend which holds the same data as the tomtom (waypoints and hints for every cache in a 100 mile radius of home, downloaded from GSAK based on weekly PQs). It's usually the best at locating GZ (though the HD2 is pretty good), is waterproof(ish) and has great battery life for those long days away from the van. So each device has its advantages and disadvantages as each is built for a specific purpose, which it does very well. You can get by with any one of them, as long as you accept each has its limitations. But the Blackberry with Trimble on it is probably not far off a dedicated GPS (probably similar to my HD2) with the only drawbacks being battery life (carry a spare) and dodgy accuracy sometimes (just let it settle when near GZ and it should normally get you within 10 feet, which is good enough). If you decide to resurrect your tomtom for getting you to locations, just google "convert gpx to tomtom poi" - you'll find some useful software to get your GPX files onto the unit - just copy the resulting POI file into the maps directory and the caches will show the same as picnic areas do on the device. (Or get yourself GSAK and the free tomtom POI macro bolt on - it's even better as it gives each cache type its own icon so you can choose to be warned when driving near a traditional but not when driving near a puzzle). Sorry, I'm going on a bit, I have a habit of doing that

Have never used a Magellan, but the key thing you need to be able to do is navigate to a set of coordinates. On the older tomtom units (though I have heard it's been removed from the newer versions) there was a menu option to "Navigate To.....Longitude/Latitude". From there you can input the coordinates and it will take you to the nearest point on a road to those coordinates. Actually, that's another problem with car GPS devices, even if they know where the cache is, they don't know where the footpaths are. So they will calculate a point on a public road that is nearest to the cache. But the footpath entrance or other way in might be some distance away, or even the other side of the field. That's why car devices are not that great for caches that are not near the road. What they are great for is finding recommended parking waypoints (providing the cache owner has entered those as a distinct waypoint rather than just writing it in the text, and many don't sadly). You can just Navigate To...POI...POI near you... and select "Parking' as the POI type. Takes all the hassle out of getting to the starting point. But again, you do need a way of converting the cache waypoints (in the form of a GPX file) into something the satnav recognises. I would imagine the Magellan can use POIs the same as Tomtom can, but the file format might be different. (Have just checked GSAK and there is no built in export for Magellan POI, but there is one for a Magellan Explorist and SD card, though I don't know what that is).

Duplicate post, silly forum

Yep, I think you will run into battery problems at least - admittedly mine is a very old Tomtom ONE but the battery, when disconnected from the cars umbilical chord, lasts about an hour tops. Not much of a walk in the forest. On the other hand, although tomtom won't show you driving down forest paths, as it knows they are not highways or byways, it does usually show the layout of the forest tracks (the big wide ones used by the FC). So technically, if the caches are placed near to those tracks, you could get a bearing on them and have some success finding them with the tomtom. But probably only enough to give you a feel for the 'game', and there would have to be a lot of "move left 20 feet and see if you are closer, move back 10 feet, then another 5" until the cache icon stops moving and you can take a bet you are close to it. And that's assuming you have the geocaching icons loaded onto tomtom. As far as I know there is only one way to do that and that's to export a Tomtom POI file from something like a GSAK database. There is a way to convert a GPX file to a tomtom POI file but it was so long winded that I bought GSAK in the end, mainly to do just that. For less than £60 you can get a cheap handheld GPS that will work fine. If you can stretch to about £120, you can get a nice colour screen Etrex Legend (or similar) that will allow you to download GPX files straight into the device. It's money well spent, in my opinion. You'd spend a lot more getting similar days worth of entertainment and adventure using theme parks or computer games And once you are adicted, you will never need another reason to get out in the fresh air and enjoy some exercise with the family. All the best Lovejoy

Two classes of cachers? Those who actually physically happen to look in the right hiding place and spot the cache while the rest of the group are just standing around chatting, drinking coffee and generally doing nothing. (Or they could be checking out the other equally likely hiding places, maybe, I don't know) And those who don't actually physically happen to look in the right hiding place and spot the cache and the only thing they contribute to the finding of the cache is planning the day, preparing some maps, driving the team to a suitable parking spot (identified the night before as part of the planning), walking with everyone else to GZ, helping to agree the identification of GZ and which side of the path the cache is probably on and helping to hunt in all the other likely hiding places other than the one the cache is actually hidden in. Lazy lot that second group, and I can quite understand why their find log should be deemed to be of lesser 'value' than the person who first puts their hand on the cache. After all, caching is about looking under the right rock and finding the box. None of that other stuff is necessary or enjoyable or part of the 'game' really is it. Bad idea in my opinion. You knew I was going to conclude that didn't you

I would agree with you for urban caching where you are never far from a road like the caching you are doing. Get out onto open moors or parks and I think the limitations of the tomtom will soon show themselves and give a very frustrating experience. At a guess, probably about 10% of the caches I have found could have been done comfortably with tomtom, and perhaps another 10% less comfortably. The rest, even with the caches loaded via GSAK would have proved problematical. Depends what kind of areas you mostly cache in I suppose.

I use a Tomtom One in the car, with every cache in a 100 mile radius loaded as a POI (Like picnic areas are). As we drive around, caches pop up on the screen depending on my warning distance settings for each cache type. From time to time, when a cache is on the roadside, in a layby, in a car park, the tomtom will show me exactly where it is and we can jump out of the car and find the cache without switching the GPS on. Most of the time if you can get within 10 or 20 feet of the cache you will find it. So if the cache is within 20 feet of a road, tomtom will get you there. However, I wouldn't use the tomtom out of the car. I have heard that some people do use vehicle satnavs to get them started, but I think most people swap to a handheld GPS once they see the limitations of the tomtom. Such limitations include battery life (a tomtom won't see you through a 4 or 5 hour circular walk) and lack of proper directional instructions. On the road the tomtom is great, and Joanna Lumley or Aussie Ken will tell you to turn right, turn left, cross a roundabout until "you have reached your destination". But have you ever hunted a cache down a footpath? Tomtom says you have reached your destination when you reach the road end of the footpath, as it only recognises roads. From there you are on your own and you just have to try and keep the cache icon on the screen and head towards it. A handheld GPS gives you a proper radar or compass screen which will show you the direction you need to go even if the cache is still a mile away. My advice would be do some caches near to roads with tomtom to start with and if you think the game is for you, get whatever GPS you can afford and upgrade later as and when you feel the need. Or if you have a smartphone with built in GPS you can get some excellent geocaching software, mush of which is free. Hope that helps Lovejoy

That's because my instructions are in plain English, whereas the website uses American English

It's all done from the cache logging page. Go to the cache page and select a log type (Found it, Write Note). Underneath the space where you write your words will be a list of all the trackables in your possession. Alongside the one you are dropping, use the drop down menu to select "Dropped Off" and post your log. The trackable will be dropped into that cache. Use the Write Note option if you have already logged the cache as a find and are just dropping the TB (i.e you forget to drop it when you do your 'found it' log). Hope that helps.

Oh don't, I was trying to be kind. Would be the ideal garment to go looking for this one though: GCQ53D