Fryguy1111

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll probably mark this one a 1.5D/2.5T. It's not really a climbable tree as there are no branches down low....so just a small stool, or lifting someone could reach it. But it could be possible that a very tall person might be able to reach it unaided (can someone over 6' tall reach 8' high?). I'm only 5'6", so that's just a guess, hehe. But I did forget about that new tree climbing attribute...could be appropriate too. Thanks

My proposed cache is very easy to get to...probably a 1, but to get to the cache itself (pretty obvious where it could be), some assistance or help may be needed. For example, the cache will be hidden in a tree (easy to get to as it's in a sidewalk), but the cache is placed in a small natural hole (2" in diameter in the trunk about 8 feet up (the only place it could be hidden, so it is pretty obvious). My 10 yo son spotted the hole and I lifted him up a couple of feet and says it's a perfect spot...so assistance from another person or a small stool would probably be necessary to get a hand up there. So before I submit my cache to a reviewer, I need some advice on how to rate this. What do you rate the difficulty on a cache where one knows where it is, but can't readily get to it? I thought the difficulty rating was finding the cache once at the GZ, not accessing the cache. Thanks in advance for your assistance.

To be perfectly honest, I have no desire to use a dedicated GPSr device. My Blackberry Storm2 gets me 99% of the time right on target...closer than both of my friends GPSr devices. They're extremely impressed with the CacheSense app I use and how it's totally paperless and fully integrated with geocaching.com. The ONLY single caveat I have to admit is the lack of battery life of the phone when using the GPS feature . Fortunately, a car charger has extended my cache hunting life many times . Oh, just thought of a 2nd caveat...weather and durability. If it's raining, I cover the phone with a baggie....and I've been VERY careful not to drop it either. So outside of those two things, I'm OK with just using my phone for my caching

For me it was the pocket queries and creating of point-to-point route PQ's. It's a great feature that my family and I use on our driving vacations.

My boys and I will hit our local "dollar" store to pick up some swag if we run out. Plastic bugs, army men, glass marbles, different sizes and types of bouncy balls, party favors, all seem to satisfy them, so I assume they'd satisfy other 9yo boys . Just last weekend, we even hit a garage sale and picked up a shoebox of good swag stuff for a couple dollars . Unfortunately, more often than not, the backseat of my car looks like a messed up dollar store, hehe.

I think he used a TB and carried it with him and logged it's movements as he cached. Then his TB's "travels" would mimic his caching.

Here's mine. I do this manually after every cache find. I'm not a power cacher so it's not too time consuming for me . I also use color coded placemarks to help me indicate they type of cache. I'm sure your My Finds give you the same info, but this is something I like to do. So start by going to http://maps.google.com and create an account if you don't already have one. 1. Then click on My Places, then click on CREATE NEW MAP. 2. Title it and describe it 3. Mark it Public or Unlisted 4. Now open another browser window (or tab, but a new window works best so you can alt-tab between the two faster) and go to http://www.geocaching.com and log in 5. Once logged in, click on Your Profile and select Geocaches 6. In the right frame, click on “List geocaches you own or have found.” Link. There you’ll see all the caches you’ve found. 7. Depending on how you want to enter them on the map, start at the last page and entry (first found) or current page (latest found). I started at the end (last page) and entered them in the order we found them. 8. Click on the cache link to open it. 9. Highlight the coordinates of the cache and copy them into your new maps google search box 10. Press enter or the search button and you may see a couple of pointers on the map. You’re only concerned with the green arrow as that’s the exact location of the coordinates. 11. Right click on that green arrow and select Add Placemark. If you don’t like the default placemark pin, click on it to select other styles and colors. 12. Number the placemark. I started at 1 for my 1st cache, 2 for my 2nd etc. and then copy/paste the cache name from the cache website you opened earlier. 15. In the next box, select Rich Text. Then I typed in the cache code (GCxxxxx) and then the date we did the find. To make the cache code a link, highlight it and then click on the link button. 16. Now go back to the cache page, copy and paste the URL into that box, press OK. And then OK again to close the location info box. 17. You’ll see the location in the left frame. Note that those location can be re-ordered by dragging/dropping in that column. 18. Once done with that entry or two, go to the left frame and click on Save (it’ll change to Saved). 19. If you’re all done for the day or the time being, click on the done button.

I've been using the latest version 4.0.11 since it's release on my Storm2 and am not seeing this behavior. Are you using this version? Put up a post on the CS Forums and see what Bruce has to say.

Hi and Welcome! I'm a Cubmaster for our local Cub Scout Pack and we all love to geocache when we hike . Personally, I use a BlackBerry with CacheSense $9.99/life (or Blackstar Navigation which is free) and our other parents use some Android and/or iPhone apps, many which are also at a very low cost or free. They all work about the same and are pretty darned accurate. My BB has been as accurate if not more than some of our parents dedicated GPSr devices....and they marvel at the fact we can get all the cache info on-the-fly . Be sure to check out the new Geocaching Merit Badge and other geocaching offerings by the BSA. Scouts and Scouters even get a 1 month free premium Geocaching.com membership to check out. Good luck and have fun!

And it does work. My boys and I found a cache yesterday outside of cell range, but I still entered my log on my BB. Once we got in range, I saw it upload the log to geocaching.com automatically

CacheSense Geocache Navigator Blackstar I use CacheSense. You can log via CacheSense but I don't. I use it to record field notes per cache and log when I get home. I've used Blackstar and CS and with the latest CS (with live geocaching.com API), I'm sold on CS 100%. I'm totally paperless now and get my caches, log my caches, map my approach to caches (integrates BB maps and/or Google maps), and even automatically posts my finds to Facebook . As for logging my finds, I use CS and not my PC anymore. I enter a new field note right after my find so I have everything fresh in my memory. I have CS configured to automatically post my log to geocaching.com and to post a find note on Facebook. I used to do this all at home, but after 3 or 4 finds in an afternoon, my memory gets a bit jumbled...must be getting old

I used my BB with B* to hide my cache and it worked just fine. I just did multiple approaches to the GZ and averaged them out. But now that I use CacheSense, there's a feature you can use to save any number of satellite samples. I believe that if you plan on hiding a cache, you can let CS continually sample the satellites at the GZ and then press the "Save" button to save all the samples...I got up to 50 once to see how many it would sample . From those samples, you can get an average WP....not sure if you need to do that manually or if CS does it for you. I've not used this feature, but I believe that's what it's used for. Someone more familiar with hiding caches with CS can comment further.

I just noticed the CacheSense 'Quick Log' feature a few days. As a CO it scared me. It just posts TFTC, which has come to be known as another way of saying...."Your cache was not worth writing about". If you edit a TFTC log later, to say how much you enjoyed the cache, the CO does not get notified. It does as a default but you can edit that right on the blackberry if you are not to lazy to do so. We logged 3 caches on the 30th all of which had more that TFTC, not that I am a huge writer but I try to put something. When I got home I only had to go in to edit them not to change any text but rather to visit our personal TB to it. I still log each of my finds via CS with some text as I used to do from a PC. It's just easier as I can now do it from my BB at the cache site with the memory fresh in my mind and it posts immediately. And at the same time, I have CS set so that a post goes out automatically to Facebook announcing that I made a find, the caches GC number, and its URL. All done automatically.....mine says this "Has been out geocaching with the family and just found "Take a hike" (GC29WPZ- http://coord.info/GC29WPZ) using CacheSense on his BlackBerry Storm2!" It's very cool and highly configurable....I was in the closed beta and am still finding out features I didn't know existed

Does this mean it will work without having to DL PQ's into my phone. We do all the PQ stuff for our GPSr and basically wanted our BB's to be usable if we were somewhere without our GPSr and had time to kill. So we could just boot up program and find nearest cache at that moment, I know there is one like that for the iPhone (not cachesense) as our friend uses it. Let me check that out as I haven't had to use a feature like that and will report back once I've had a chance to really work it out. But just today, on the spur of the moment, picked up my two boys from daycare and decided to try it out on-the-fly, so to speak. I started CS, clicked on "Pocket Queries", it connected to my account at geocaching.com and presented me ALL of my currently downloadable PQ's. I selected the one in my area and it downloaded it to my BB. No muss, no fuss . I clicked on "Nearest Caches" to my GPS location and in a few seconds, I had a list of the 20 closest geocaches from that PQ. But I'll do some playing with it to see what it can do if you don't have an active PQ available. Good question Got an answer for you and it's "Yes!" . When selecting "Nearest Caches", there's an option button that you can use to tell CS to use information from geocaching.com instead of one of your loaded PQ's. This feature allows users to go ANYWHERE and immediately start geocaching on-the-fly

Does this mean it will work without having to DL PQ's into my phone. We do all the PQ stuff for our GPSr and basically wanted our BB's to be usable if we were somewhere without our GPSr and had time to kill. So we could just boot up program and find nearest cache at that moment, I know there is one like that for the iPhone (not cachesense) as our friend uses it. Let me check that out as I haven't had to use a feature like that and will report back once I've had a chance to really work it out. But just today, on the spur of the moment, picked up my two boys from daycare and decided to try it out on-the-fly, so to speak. I started CS, clicked on "Pocket Queries", it connected to my account at geocaching.com and presented me ALL of my currently downloadable PQ's. I selected the one in my area and it downloaded it to my BB. No muss, no fuss . I clicked on "Nearest Caches" to my GPS location and in a few seconds, I had a list of the 20 closest geocaches from that PQ. But I'll do some playing with it to see what it can do if you don't have an active PQ available. Good question

Just a heads up on CacheSense. Just today, they've announced that this latest version 4.0.0.5 uses the new Geocaching Live API. So now not only is CS great for paperless geocaching, anything that involved geocaching.com is done live and direct. Though this is a beta version, but I've been using it for a few days now with no issues what so ever. They hope to release it "officially" next week.

My boys and I (my wife too on occasion, hehe) really enjoy geocaching and trading swag (Stuff We All Get). The rule of thumb I tell my boys is that the item you trade should be something of equal or greater value than what's in the cache. Most items we encounter are less than $1, but cost isn't an issue for my boys...it's the item itself that determines it's value. So after picking an item, I'm often getting asked "Dad, is this an OK trade?" . My boys just make sure they each have a swagbag available at home and in our car for those unplanned hunts . Every now and then, they'll also hit our local dollar store to stock up on kid swag with their saved allowances. I have my own swagbag too, but of things of more value that I come across at home or in the garage. I've dropped off some extra computer mouse(s), some flashlight keychains, and other more "valuable" swag...hopefully, finding some use at someone elses home Also, so you're not disappointed, be sure to look for caches marked with a difficulty/terrain rating of something like 1.5/1.5. I wouldn't go much higher than that for your kids and your first few hunts. Size of the cache is important for beginning hunts for your kids. The larger they are, the easier they are to find...and of course, the more chance of holding swag . So stay with the "regular" sized caches, but often, the "small" caches will have room for some small swag too. Enjoy the hunt and the finds

I did something similar too....I just created my own google map and enter the coordinates of the cache, then save it as a placemark, noting my find number, the GC code link in the description and my find date. Very easy to do. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=202722057966264967130.0004a785f2e56a4254791&msa=0

I use both Blackstar Navigator as well as CacheSense on my BB Storm2 and they both work very well. I like the cache listing screen as well as cache detail screen in CacheSense as the display is colorful and easy to read. But I prefer the actual navigation screen (compass screen) that's on Blackstar. A small bug I found in CS is the time it takes for CS to get satellite locks...sometimes over 10 minutes, but this may only apply to the BB Storm2. The recommended fix is to use the option to keep your satellite lock on all the time rather than only when you go to the compass/navigation/radar screen. BTW, this is how CS conserves battery power better than B* where B* has a satellite lock as soon as your application starts. Keep in m ind that there is a small bug that's yet to be fixed in Blackstar, where the cache size doesn't appear in the cache detail screen. The easy fix is to edit the PQ to replace all instances of "container>" with "size>" before uploading it to your BB. Then Blackstar will display the container sizes for all your caches listed in the PQ. Since I have both applications on my BB, I don't worry about the cache size in B*. But I use B* to find my cache (it lists the caches faster....important when you have 500 in your PQ ), then use CS to get the details of the cache. I hunt with B* compass as it's easier to see...and for night caches, B* has a wonderful night compass display (orange on a black background). Since B* is free, it's the app I used exclusively for over a year until I discovered CS that costs only $9.99 with a lifetime of free upgrades. Just my 8 cents worth

Hi everyone. I searched the forum as well as the website feedback areas for any info on whether or not cache map tracking has been brought up and didn't find any thing. Is this something that might appeal to the masses? I'm thinking it would display your finds/DNF's on a map very similar to the way a TB map is displayed...showing the route of the TB. Of course, in this case, it'd show ones own travels between caches. I only just thought of this we know a family that's on a vacation road trip and they've been geocaching for the past 2 weeks along the way. It was cool to see their logs as to where they've been, but would have been a bit easier and much more nifty to see it graphically represented with those cool purple lines between their finds/DNF's. There'd have to be a little work on this to differentiate single cache finds between your home location and a find vs finding a number in a row, say on a power-cache hunt in a single day. But just a fun thought. Thanks *Edited...er, tried to edit the subject title info...it's huNts, not huts <sigh>

Hi Jimmy and Em. For what's it worth, I cache with my BB Storm2...and it works flawlessly. For the past year, I've been using free app Blackstar and I've been completely satisfied with it. But I've been using CacheSense for the past 21 days (my free trial is almost over, hehe) to see if that's an option. I like CacheSense because of the very nice graphics and the fact the GPS is only on (and hence, draining your BB's battery) when actually using the compass or radar...a nice feature. The easiest way is to use it with a Premium Membership. Then you can create the pocket queries you want...even a route say from point A to point B, that you can download to your BB then import it to CacheSense. So there's lots of pluses for getting that membership...plus you get all the Premium Membership Only caches too. But if you choose not to upgrade, click here and here to see how to use CacheSense with the basic membership. But the key to using CacheSense is patience . Once you select a cache, then you select "Compass"....and then wait, and wait, and maybe wait some more to get your satellite locks. Once you get some (you'll see three buttons appear..."OK" is one of them, I think). Press the "OK" and the compass will start to point you to the direction that the cache is located. That's about all I know using CacheSense for the past 21 days . But I do plan on purchasing it....for a $9.99 one time purchase with free lifetime upgrades, it's a good deal. For me, spending $200+ for a good GPS solely dedicated to geocaching is a bit out of my financial range right now <grin>.

Thank you all for replying...though not with the answer I had hoped . Maybe this is something that could be requested as a new feature. The default could remain the way it is with the review automatically posting the cache upon approval. But maybe there could be a box that says something like "Upon approval by the reviewer, I will post/activate this cache". Then the CO could click on some button on the site to turn the cache posting "on" at their convenience. Something to think about, I guess. Thanks again. --Ray

My boys and are are going to hide our first cache and we have a pretty simple question. We've gone over all the rules and are pretty sure we won't have any issues with the reviewer and it will be allowed to be hid and posted. But here's one issue I haven't been able to find out on the geocaching website or the forums. Once we submit our request using the Report a New Cache form, I know it'll get approved (as we got the approval from our towns Parks Department). But once it's approved, is the cache listed automatically and immediately "turned on" and available on geocaching.com for everyone to find? I need to know if there's a way to make it available at a certain time or at my own convenience so that my boys and I can meet the FTF geocachers. Just placing our own cache is a really exciting event for my boys, but they really would like to meet and congratulate the FTF for our first hide Any information on how we could do this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time. -Ray