scubagecko

I released one Travel Bug and it traveled a while and then someone started collecting Travel Bugs for some reason and they have kept mine so far (since August 2003). I saw a picture where the guy had 14 travel bugs he had found and had kept so far. And he had only recorded finding four. I hope he releases them all again now that the year is started. Or at least mine.

This topic is now dead because the problem has been solved with the addition of the Destroyed button. Now all my benchmarks are in the right category!

I got my eTrex Venture a couple months ago and it comes with hunting/fishing calendar and WAAS. It also comes with a cable to connect it to your computer. You will need a cover that makes it float no matter what you get even though it is water-resistant so you don't lose it slapping mosquitos while fishing. I think the Venture is just peachy.

why aren't you allowed to delete your own message? [This message was edited by scubagecko on October 25, 2002 at 11:31 PM.]

quote: Did I do something do deserve all this sarcasm? Perhaps if your original post was "can I show finds and not finds on my "my cache page" I may have understood the point of all this. Sounds reasonable. I'll see what I can do about adding this feature. You can currently see all of them listed when you "see your profile as others see you" and click on the benchmark link now. Jeremy Irish Groundspeak - The Language of Location Don't get all worked up, I'm just kidding around. It does sound sarcastic but I'm just kidding around.

quote:Originally posted by Jeremy Irish: quote:Originally posted by survey tech:Makes me wonder how many others may be deliberately reporting false info. It also makes me wonder how many other folks deliberately offer false info in the actual register. Until we add official "NGS-friendly" log types, there really isn't an official rule, per se. But indicating that you found nothing is, well, not right in my book. I'm just not exactly sure what it's supposed to mean. It's like saying that I didn't pick up a thousand pennies today, but I said I did. If we did add "NGS-friendly" log types, I guess your personal reputation is your indication of your own skill. We'll probably require actual photos of benchmarks that have been recovered as well. That won't even happen unless we get the blessing of the NGS in the first place. Jeremy Irish Groundspeak - The Language of Location ^ |----- Hey look! Its the big mucky-muck himself! I'm honored indeed to come to your attention. [i grovel at your feet and wash your feet with my tears of joy] I won't pretend to know how you have the info set up on your site but it seems easy enough to have the same yellow smiley or purple frown as appears next to the geocaches also appear next to the Benchmarks on the My Caches page to show the Benchmarks you have found and not found. Everyone wins that way. I also won't pretend to know what arrangement you have with NGS, if any, or what importance it has for them or for you. No one cares how many Benchmarks I have; I am not competing with anyone for the most finds. I look for them if I think about it and there are no close geocaches to find. No one has told me that my Benchmarking logs have any problems. Its _me_ pointing out the problem on the site that is forcing me to log a FIND when the Benchmark is gone so that I can see all my Benchmarks on the same page as my Found and Not-Found geocaches. You know how to make that happen. I am just your humble, fawning supplicant who has come to have you stretch out your mighty hand and cause it to be. scubagecko

quote:Originally posted by Cholo:First things first: pay less attention to that GPSr and more to your environment. It looks like you almost got "runned over by a durned ol' train". Yes, and now I don't look for benchmarks on railroad tracks anymore. Its amazing how dangerous it is. On LB2408 there are 2 reference marks and an azimuth that you didn't mention. If you'd found any one of these, it may have helped your 'creditability'. Sometimes it's good to view the original database for more 'anal' descriptions. I once searched an hour for an azimuth that I later found out was an airway beacon, most of these have been gone for years. Um. There is no train station. There is no white witness post within view of the horizon. There is no board fence. There is no benchmark. The house and the little concrete building are still there. I know exactly where the benchmark should be, it just isn't there now. I was very careful trying to get the 4 benchmarks I listed. Two of the other 3 even had white witness posts nearby at the intersections. Just no benchmarks. Since my cache page doesn't show all of my benchmarks as found or not found I will continue logging them the way I have been until the website is FIXED. Geocaching is a game. Benchmarking is on the game site. So Benchmarking is a game. If the NGS is relying on a game site for their data then they ought to expect to have to actually read the log files to find out whether the benchmark is found, not found, or gone. If they don't like it then they can get off their lazy behinds and look for them themselves and stop relying on my charity to accomplish their jobs. How's that?

Also, I haven't met anyone else who has tried to find a Benchmark so my tiny input is more than anyone else is doing around here. No one could care less about Benchmarks. And I AM _finding_ that they are GONE. Which is what NGS would want to know. Its not like Benchmarks are hidden like a geocache is. They are in an exact location which is spelled out in minute, anal-retentive detail in the description. So, if they aren't there any more then that is what I have FOUND. To prove me wrong, then go find one of these Benchmarks.

quote:Originally posted by scubagecko:I looked for a bunch of benchmarks today that were all missing. As in gone. Destroyed. I am going to click on "Found it!" so I get credit for it when the Benchmark no longer exists. I guess the reason that I am clicking "Found it!" instead of something else is so that it appears in my records on the site so I can go back to it later. I tried clicking "Couldn't find it!" and it didn't show up as any entry AT ALL on my page. I thought that was a dumb idea since the geocaches I have NOT found (and which I log that way Rubbertoes ) show up as me NOT finding them. In the description I explain that they were destroyed so that no one thinks it should be there. As soon as Benchmarks show up as NOT found on your cache page then I will be more than happy to switch to "Couldn't find it!". Here are the Benchmarks so everyone can see how I logged them: LB2408, LB0963, LB0965, LB0967

I looked for a bunch of benchmarks today that were all missing. As in gone. Destroyed. I am going to click on "Found it!" so I get credit for it when the Benchmark no longer exists.

I sent an email too but maybe this will get a sooner reply from someone? Soccerfreak32 and I (scubagecko) made and placed two geocaches and he logged on and we both entered the info for the caches and listed both of us as making the caches (Splish Splash Cache, and Triple Quest) but only he has gotten credit for them , I am listed as placing 0 geocaches . Its ironic that I got soccerfreak32 interested and bought the gps but he alone has credit for placing the geocaches when we both are listed as making them . Could you correct that for me? Thanks in advance.

I sent an email too but maybe this will get a sooner reply from someone? Soccerfreak32 and I (scubagecko) made and placed two geocaches and he logged on and we both entered the info for the caches and listed both of us as making the caches (Splish Splash Cache, and Triple Quest) but only he has gotten credit for them , I am listed as placing 0 geocaches . Its ironic that I got soccerfreak32 interested and bought the gps but he alone has credit for placing the geocaches when we both are listed as making them . Could you correct that for me? Thanks in advance.

quote:Originally posted by bigcall: I get the strong sense that there is still quite a bit of sensitivity to any sort of suspicious activity (sorry, geocaching qualifies here) anywhere near government offices - which is why I don't think we'll see any soon. The virtual ones should keep you busy for a while though - and you can walk to most of them. Ya know, it didn't occur to me until now how suspicious geocaching would look in DC, or near any government building anywhere by that matter. It wouldn't occur to me to put a little package near a government building anywhere else, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by the number in DC. I was just thinking of the area as being the grounds for the Smithsonian and a bunch of tourist-y things to see, and oh-by-the-way that's where the government is headquartered and you can walk by the White House to take a picture. And how interesting it would be to look for geocaches in the area. I guess that's not so bad for an outlook on the area, I'm obviously not worried about some tragedy happening again around there, they have things in control and I don't need to worry. And it shows that I'm not a security risk, it never even occurred to me that someone would WANT to do suspicious things in geocaching.

quote:Originally posted by Goblin:The zip codes change rapidly in the District. BUT, try 22211 for Arlington Cementry. Around the Mall you can use 20006 and 20004. There is a nice "buried" statue on Haines Point which is a virtual cache. Once you get the page for any of these just click on "nearby caches". It never occurred to me that anywhere would change their zip codes all the time. I hadn't thought about Arlington Cemetery either; I guess I wouldn't think about hiding anything in a cemetery. When I get there I'll have to look on a map for Haines Point; my guess is that its where the Jefferson Memorial was built on? At least it seems like I remember something about the land around there having a name and I think the water is called Tidal Basin. It takes a while to walk all the way over there. As I was trying to copy the listed geocaches in DC at geocaching.com I came to the realization that 30 geocaches is quite a few to attempt to track down, especially since I'm going to be mostly going to the Smithsonian. I was just expecting there to be hundreds in the area since there is so much to see. But the more I think about it the more I'm surprised that there are any in the area when you take into consideration all that goes on there.

I am going on vacation, almost immediately, and will probably be in D.C. since I like going to the Smithsonian museums and all that. I looked to see the many geocaches that would be there and was surprised to see that there are only actually 30 in all of D.C.! I didn't actually look at the geocaches, I thought I would ask about it first. I was going to print them out to take with me so I can look for a geocache AND get my National Parks Passport book stamped at the different places that do that the way I ALWAYS do when I go there (I _really_ like going to the Smithsonian even though it closes awfully early). I realize that the Smithsonian is a National Park and you can't leave things in a National Park, and there are a lot of important buildings and people around "downtown" so I guess you'd get arrested for apparently hiding a package down there. How's tha for an understatement? It seems like there would be other places away from the important people and buildings where you could put a geocache that would be okay with everyone. I can't say I'm familiar with D.C. away from the tourist places though, except there are some pretty rough-looking places surrounding downtown. Are there actually geocaches away from downtown to find? I know D.C. is surrounded by Maryland and Virginia and the subway must go to areas in them. Right? But I wouldn't be interested in any other parts (except Virginia Beach, another favorite) that didn't have geocaches already there to look for, and I don't know what any zip codes would be to search for geocaches. To make a long story even longer , what zip codes or whatever do I search under to find more geocaches in the area to choose from? It would be nice to have a geocache close to the National Zoo to look for, or two or three, also and that is the only tourist-y thing away from downtown I know about. So, can someone help me with some info? Thanks.

quote:Originally posted by ArtMan:There are many, many benchmarks that are not in this site's db. Probably all states and many localities have their own stations that are not included in the national NGS database. If the disc has - as it should - information about what agency placed it, you can contact that agency. If not, try your county engineering or survey office, or the state GIS agency. My county (Arlington, VA) has datasheets that can be downloaded from the web that include maps - far more user-friendly than many dscriptions in the NGS database. Good luck! The title of my original post was what was on the Benchmark, and it was in all capital letters on the Benchmark so that is why it is that way in the title. I'll look in the phone book for something similar. I doubt if Indiana cares much if a Benchmark is recovered or not on a bridge over a stream, there is certainly plenty of water around. Oh well.

quote:Originally posted by peter:There are lots of free or inexpensive programs available for downloading routes, waypoints, and tracklogs. I'd recommend starting with G7toWIN ( http://home.attbi.com/~g7towin/ ). I also recommend another free program - Doug Cox's USPhotoMaps ( http://jdmcox.com/ ) which will let you see your tracklogs superimposed on excellent satellite photos of the area. Thanks. I downloaded both programs. The USPhotoMaps program is amazing, or at least the pictures are amazing that it uses. The G7ToWIN downloaded my data but it doesn't seem to output it to anything usable by me since I don't have a Street Maps program. Is there anything that I can save the stuff into that uses a free program to display the data in? I'm not really sure what I want to do with the data other than save it as to where I went, when, and the route I took. Its awfully late. I better stop and go to sleep. Thanks again.

We went to a bridge in the boondocks of Indiana to get the coordinates of a Benchmark on a small concrete bridge over a stream. The Benchmark seems to be from 1959 and seems to be in good condition and seems to have a single thin layer of yellow paint on it. We did a rubbing on the Benchmark to get a little proof we found it. The coordinates do not match a Benchmark on the Benchmark website and the description does not match a Benchmark near the coordinates (they don't seem to be near a stream). The Benchmark seems to be named on itself starting with SHE then a number then 1959; that doesn't match anything that I see on the Benchmark site. Where it says "Elevation" there is no elevation evident on the Benchmark, but my new eTrex Venture gave the elevation just fine using 11 or 12 satellites. My question is, what does this Benchmark represent and how do I get it included with the others on the site or wherever?

I'd like to remove the paint and expose the (suspected) benchmark while posing minimal risk to the mark itself. Any suggestions? Thanks! Len. Well, if you want to try doing it yourself I'm certain that turpentine wouldn't hurt anything made of brass. Or any non-caustic solvent by that matter. If you can expose some brass then the solvent can slip underneath the layers. If there is new paint over really old paint then the really old paint has to be awfully weakly attached to the brass by now and would just need the solvent to loosen it so it can be peeled away. I found a benchmark from 1959 that is not listed on the site and it has a layer of yellow paint over it but scraping with my fingernails removed a little bit. Fortunately the benchmark is easy to read. Do most benchmarks NOT have the elevation listed on the benchmark itself? This one doesn't have it that we can see but the eTrex Venture gives the elevation so that isn't really a problem. I came to the forum to find out how you go about reporting a benchmark not listed on the site. I'll go post that separately now.

Do most travel bugs vanish like this? So far I haven't decided whether to get one or not because I figure some bozo will take it and do nothing with it.

I bought an eTrex Venture today and want to save my route and waypoints and whatever else it collected. How do I transfer into from the GPS to my PC if I don't have MapSource software? I don't need info about restaurants and all that so I see no reason to by the software, but I do want to save info about what i did today. How do I do it? Thanks.