-Phoenix-

Wrong, it is not OK, and these machines should not be used to deface legal tender. When you do see these machines in the UK, they are supposed to supply you with tokens to 'deface', however, as we all know, they are used on actual legal tender.

I have no usefull advice reguarding caches as I dont cache in any of those areas. My usefull advice is to try and visit Avebury, even if it means giving Stonehenge a miss, Stonehenge is just a whistlestop, take a few pictures and youve done it, Im sure they will make great additions to the photo album, but in comparison its a very shallow experience, Avebury is an entire day out, there is 10x more history and context there than at Stonehenge.

I hope you Critics feel good now, what a nice welcome to our wonderful country you have gave her, and she hasn't even arrived yet. Angela, please don't be put off by our critics, I'm sure you will have a great time. As you will find out, the people of this country can be very welcoming, although you wouldn't think it from this thread. If you think there is anything that I should not feel good about, then your gonna have to spell it out, because my opinions and feelings have not changed one bit. Our American friends will still get what they paid for, they will have exactly the same experience, if they enjoy it great, if not then they have a right to be armed with information that will enable them to ask the right questions. It will certainly be a mistake to let anyone on such a trip feel they are experiencing the best or even a fraction this country offers, its clearly a whistle stop tour of the places that have been made popular by the media. The American equivalent would include New York, the Grand Canyon, Washington DC, Hollywood, the Alamo, Las Vegas, Mount Rushmore, the Rockies and Miami, I sure there are loads of people who would sign up to this trip! The only people who stand to lose out from critisim in any way are the tour operators, whilst their 'tourists' only stand to gain.

Stonehenge doesnt need an ambasador, you could open up a landfill at the site and it would still be the most popular tourist attraction for Americans comming to the UK! I work with a lot of Americans, and frequently arrange stopping points for UK tours. If someone thinks a 9 day dash along the length of the UK is good, then fine, if that the only way they can access this country then thats fine, but, I really wish these tour organisers would show some imagination, and try to educate their tourists beyond the Hollywood stereotype of this country. Stonehenge is a classic example, its only signifigance is its reletive completeness, but its got no context, you get no real sense of its history or purpose, where Aveburry is simply crawling with history and context, you get a real feel for people living there, and their culture. The problem is really down to education, Hollywood 'educates' one way, and the tour operators reinforce that, becasue its what the tourists are asking for, the only way to break the cycle is to reeducate. So, no, Im probably not avery good ambassador, certainly not for the Hollywood view of this country, consider me more of an educator.

Fifth day Yorkshire....... LOL Only one of the largest counties in the country! Looks like that a trip planned by Hollywood. Why is it that everyone thinks Stonehenge is so special!? if you want special you should really go to Avebury, park by Silbury Hill, take a quick walk up to West Kennet Longbarrow, then walk to Avebury, and forget about Stonehenge, drop into the NT shop in Avebury and buy a Stonehenge postcard, much better use of your time!

hm, if they plan on making some kind of long term buisness deal out of this then its VERY wrong, however, as a one-off 'suck it an see' session then, maybe I think the real problem is discipline, as cachers we tend to be carefull not to make the actual location of the caches too well known, and are descrete when jo public are about, however, a mob of 15 people searching an area is going to raise too much attention. Also, as cachers we tend to have something invested in the sport, and consequently exercise a responsibility (mostly), I find it hard to believe that 15 people from 'off the street' will exercise the same resonsibility, and I wonder how many will consider going back to rehide teh cache, 'just for a laugh' These people should be encouraged to place their own caches themselves, they can then chose to log them online or not, but, unless they have explicit permission from the cache owners then this is wrong.

Your initial question was why do people cheat, well, the simple answer is becasue they can, and can get away with it. Therefore, the only way to deter people from cheating is to make sure the consequences are not worth the effort.

I repeat Kirro dont do anything but make boxes and badges, everything they sell is off the shelf, the most technical thing Kirro do is pay their packers wages, and I doubt they pay much!

nope Ive got a Zire which has the bluetooth built in, has 1.5mb less useable memory than the Tungsten E, and a faster processor. However, when I was first using it I was running ViaMitchelin WITHOUT a memory card, and apart from having to be selective about the size of my maps, I had no functionality problems. You should find that when kitted out as a Sat/Nav/GPS unit your Tungsten will have at the least 15mb of its memory left, which should be sufficient to map 15-20% of the UK, in cache terms thats an area that would cover maybe 1000 caches (ie its plenty)

As already said, geocaching works on a trust system, this guy is blatantly violating the trust so a formal peer action is well justified, none of his logs can be trusted, so unless he goes out of his way to proove otherwise they should all be deleted, end of story. By setting an example and sending a strong message we make it clear that as a community we will not stand for this abuse of trust.

Im not wrong, the combo I suggest is perfectly useable as SatNav and Geocaching, I use it myself with the addition of Cachemate, Cachenav and Cetus GPS, the only fault I can find with my system is Fugawi, but thats anotehr story Via Mitchelin is completely bug free and has given me two months of perfectly stable, fault free SatNav You dont have to use the slots for the maps, but it is reccomended, in which case using bluetooth may be an issue, without the use of an expanded menory you will be very limited to your map size and will always be fighting for memory space USB connections are irrelevant when it comes to Bluetooth units, if your GPS connects to your PDA via a cable then its not bluetooth, and it may be a much older package, in which case paying £200 was way over the top, since I paid £200 and got the PDA, bluetooth GPS and software. The BT-308 can take an external antenna, which I reccomend for car use.

Actually, given the weight of evidence Id say he should be named and shamed, and then everyone systematically delete all his logs

The kirro GPS system is just a rebadged BT-308 unit which you can freely buy elsewhere, and readily available. Then they use ViaMitchelin software to drive the SatNav (which is Tungsten E compatable), in fact all kirro have done is take a bunch of off the shelf items and box them together. heres a couple of links for a diy Kirro kit http://www.easydevices.co.uk/pp/Receivers/...S_RECEIVER.html http://www.shop.viamichelin.co.uk/shopexd.asp?catalogid=502

I think you will find Grenwich is somewhere about N50ish

Are you saying you placed the cache close to the equator?

Thats a common mistake probably made by a lot of new GPS users, its akin to the old habits that new compass users used to fall into, and the cause of many accidents where an inexperienced walker whould step over a cliff because they were paying too much attention to their compass! With a compass this was a much more serious problem, because walkers who would walk with their eyes on the compass were usually completely unaware of their sideways drift. Frankly, unless you are within 50m of the cache then there is no need to keep looking at the GPS, there are two very simple tricks that will help Firstly, and the most obvious is to sight on a landmark thats in the direction you are going, of course, if you are on a path then you can ignore this, just follow the path. Secondly, count your strides, do some experimentation and find out approximately how many strides you take to walk 100m, note how this figure changes when you are walking uphill or down, you can then use your stride rate and the distance reading from the GPS to calculate approximately how many strides it takes to cover the distance (dont forget to make allowances for path twist) To make the calculations and counting easier instead of counting every individual stride, only count every other left step, ie on level ground I make 110 strides to 100m, which is 55 left steps, so I know that by counting every other left step, then when I get to 27.5 Ive covered 100m Next, carry a knotted string or 'Rosary' in your pocket (every wondered where the term knots comes from?) whe you have paced out your first 100m then hold the first knot or bead, then on the next 100m move to the second knot, this way you dont have to remember much more that counting up to 30 Generally speaking, Ive found that over 1000m, I can calculate my distance travelled to within 50m, and can cover considerable distances without having to refer to a compass or GPS.

Pity, with all the incresed publicity and attention its now we need to put a positive front forward, and whilst getting land owners behind us is good, getting land owners and general public in one go is much better!

Sorry folks I will be giving this one a miss as Im working nights this weekend, have a great time

Am I correct in assuming that this idea is now dead?

Its definately an issue with Firefox Ive got GC.COM as a tab in this Firefox browser Im using ATM to write this, and its dead, meanwhile Ive got GC.COM working fine from IE.

forget that, it turns out to be a firefox problem GC.COM works fine with IE!

Ive been completely unable to log my finds for two hours now, the whole GC.COM site is as Dead as a Parrot! Who forgot the feed the Hamster!!

Supporting Skype is supporting Credit card fraud! Their payment system is constantly abused by credit card fraudsters as they have no way of tracing who actually made the payment, chances are if someone gets your credit card details over the internet they will run up a hundred pounds of skype charges before you even know your card is being subject to fraud!

£80 for a Yellow Etrex.... thats expensive, I paid £80 and got a Venture! If you are on a budget, you wont have to pay more than £50 to get a basic, maybe a little older with shorter battery life etc GPS, there are plenty on Ebay, just bide your time, let the fools pay more, and snipe yourself a reasonably priced one...... ....of course, the mistake in buying a cheap GPS is that before long you will be wanting something bigger and better with Sat/Nav and mapping, and you linitial Cheap GPS will find its way back on Ebay

apart from being a blatent 'lets start a thread for the hell of starting a thread' thread, what in your opinions are the best, most signifigant caches in the country? heres my starters, of course they will be limited to only those Ive done, but hopefully we may reach a concensus.. Crocodile Hill, a great view over Llandudno and the irish sea. Abbey road, a great walk up a valley with a lot of interesting industrial archeology. Denbigh Delights #2 - Bath in the Woods, one of those completely unique places that nobody would ever find were it not for Geocaching 5 Bridges Llangollen, youve got everything here all within a few hundred yards, this place is a real discovery every step of the way. Hockenhull Platts (Cheshire), very unique location