Mark+Karen
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Posts posted by Mark+Karen
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Only had it happen once, I was walking up a road approaching a cache when someone was closing the gates across the road - which confused me, why would the cache be there? He said "Can I help you".. to which I responded "I'm looking for the footpath", to which he motioned "Over there" and I went on my way. What he thought I was up to I don't know!
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Of my 117 finds I've logged a total of twice without signing the log, both because I didn't have a pen and I didn't want to go all the way home to get it. I don't think it's a problem as I *found* the cache on both occasions, and 2 out of 117 isn't bad.. I think
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£1.40 a litre here - that's $8.12 / US gallon.
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“One should always have a definite objective, in a walk as in life. It is so much more satisfying to reach a target by personal effort than to wander aimlessly” - Alfred Wainwright
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What a massive difference. I kinda like the current version better.
Really? My first thought was - bummer, it looks almost identical!
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The most important thing with nanos, but the log back into the top of the container and then screw the bottom onto that! Do it the other way around then you won't be able to screw it back together!
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The most I've found in a day is 8, but that's because it was a leisurely drive and the actual caching was only about 2 hours or so. If you have an area with a lot of caches such as the English Lake District you could easily get a couple of dozen in a day without too much trouble.
The biggest problem is usually finding where to park, perhaps a mountain bike would speed things up.
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I wish to place some Geocaches ... how accurate is the iphone's coordinates for this? I fear my new goecache is going to be rejected due to inaccurate coordinates of my iphone. Should I get a more accurate device for this purpose, or is iphone sufficient? If a GPS, please advise on specific models. Thanks for helping this newbie! We are having such great fun!
Simple, if iPhone 4 then yes, it's fine, I've placed all my caches using this and not had any trouble.
iPhone 3G/3GS - no, not accurate enough.
But the reviewer won't be able to tell if your coordinates are accurate or not, that'll only happen when people try to find your cache.
Unfortunately there's still a view on this site that iPhone coordinates are poor - based on the 3G/3GS which were poor, that all changed with the iPhone 4, but most posters don't clarify which iPhone they have so it's still assumed that iPhone = inaccurate.
*I've no doubt that a 'proper' GPS will be more accurate than an iPhone 4 however in most situations the iPhone is perfectly adequate for finding and placing caches.
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i would like as many people as possible to comment on this what u think is the best mobile to use for geocaching hope it brings help to alot of people...
I'd say any with the official Groundspeak app, which is Android or iPhone. I don't know about the various Android offerings but only the iPhone 4 has the required GPS accuracy for a good geocaching experience.
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I have the twitter link set up but it appears to have stopped working, around the same time as they took the smilies away. I'll wait to see what happens after the downtime before I start complaining.
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Ditto for National Trust, I had to contact them and they were very accommodating.
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Personally I think working out how to get to the cache location is all part of geocaching. Do we really need the cache owner to hold peoples hand saying "park here" or "get the number 23 bus from this place at this time?". We all have access to the internet and this information is readily available together with satellite photos, birds eye views, google street view etc etc.
My biggest pet hate as a cache owner is of course empty logs or "TFTC", even "Nice easy find" is better than that. A CO'ers only contact with their cache is from the logs. There are some that are very easy caches such as Motorway Mayhem, but even then I've had ones like "On my way to Beamish", "Driving up to Scotland for the weekend", which at least tells me something about who found it and why they went looking for my cache.
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That's perhaps true, but I think the idea of going to a geocaching event is a bit too much of a step up for most people.
For example for me, I don't really want to go to any particular geocaching events, but I do have a couple of friends who are geocachers and I'd like to see what they're up to.
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I have a similar issue, I did note down the tracking number but must have noted it down wrongly as it doesn't accept it. So now I'm stuck, I've emailed the CO but no reply.
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I very rarely see a NM, 99% of the time if for example a log book is full then this will be posted in the found log and left at that.
There is a fear that the cache owner will take offence at the NM log. The one and only time I posted a NM I got a very irate email back from the CO, so I won't likely do it again.
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But if you seperate power trails into their own category and then finding them all only gives you 1 find...
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I'd also like to add that many of the people against change on this thread seem to say "Yes, geocaching is a social activity", so while that is the case why not allow that social activity to take place through GC.com rather than relying on external means.
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Haven't read all the thread but many seem to be confused thinking the site should turn into facebook, of course it shouldn't but there are certain things you expect of a site such as this which are currently lacking.
First of all the front page, this should give me much more information than it does - presently the only information relevant to me is my number of finds, and erm, that's it
There could be several boxes there (for logged in users only) which has things like
* Your recent finds
* Your friends recent finds
* Recent logs on caches you own
* Recently published caches close to your home location
* Events close to your home location
* General geocaching news
And so on.. This isn't social networking really, it's just presenting information which is already available in a consolidated form. Like the difference between looking at a graph and a sequence of numbers..
An internal messaging system is a must, even the free forum networks have an internal (private messaging) system which doesn't rely on emails. Users could then choose to be notified by email if they have a message waiting, or keep their inbox clean and only read messages when they visit the site.
Of course there are several other improvements I'd like to see but I agree with the OP that gc.com really needs to be torn down and completely rebuilt on modern principles.
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I too would vote for 0.25 miles, there does seem to be a cache around every corner in some places! In reality what's 162 metres really? It only takes a couple of minutes to walk that distance.
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People need to be aware of the limitations of their device, and use them appropriately. Ignore the haters, particularly the ones who have not used these devices.
But it does cause a problem, especially when there are still calls to ban the iPhone for cache hides. And a Groundspeak employee rejecting the ability to mark a hidden cache using the app as the iPhone is not accurate enough.
Now I've no doubt that a 'proper' GPS might well be more accurate, but the supposed maximum accuracy of GPS is around 10 metres anyway and my phone always gets me well within that sort of range, at least in open terrain, under tree cover it's less accurate, but again I've not idea of a 'proper' GPS would do any better.
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Happens more often than people realise.. But more often people change their job and/or email address, move to another part of the country or just lose interest.
Personally I have a cache in York where I work but in a couple of months I will no longer work here and have no plans to return, so I'm not sure what to do with my cache, at the moment I'm planning to leave it in place as it's been there for nearly a year with no maintenance required, and archive it when it has a problem.
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I never assume a cache isn't there, there was one recently where we just couldn't find it, but found it after our third attempt - over a space of about three months!
Equally however, when a search turns up nothing after a while there's always that thought that it may not be there, and quite a number of occasions have revealed that the cache had indeed been muggled, which is why it's important to post a DNF even if you think you haven't looked properly.
edit: There was a cache I DNF'd on this Sunday as I was running late I didn't put much time into it, so considered not posting a DNF, but I did anyway and looking back now mine was the 2nd of now 4 DNFs so perhaps the cache is missing after all!
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Personally I wouldn't.. While you can go geocaching with automotive units they'll give you a bad first impression of geocaching!
I tried it with my TomTom and it always wanted to lock onto the road, didn't give a clear idea of which direction the cache was actually in - no proper compass! And the biggest problem was that it was too big to hold in the field and if I put it in my pocket it would end up pushing things on the touch screen which meant I lost my settings..a bit of a faff indeed!
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can get an excellent app (only a few $'s) called MotionX GPS. This turns the phone into a 'hand held' GPS and has the advantage of showing you which signal the phone is picking up and an accuracy figure too.
The Groundspeak app shows the accuracy too.
English Heritage
in United Kingdom and Ireland
Posted
The important thing for both is to have an extremely detailed description of where the cache is located, such that their wardens / rangers can go an inspect the cache location without having to search for the cache in the way a geocacher would. They also required coordinates in national grid format.