bear&fox

Africard, are you referring to TB Never return to CH?

Thanks Baa! Lots of nice goodies left to make it worth your while rushing out there. Let the record state that espresso is good geocaching fuel. Enjoy! B&F

We are still trying to teach our hounds to sniff out difficult-to-find caches

Well, we have at least three lined up... B&F

Compass.

Yep, that too.

Yes, I agree that there are some technical issues to circumvent here. But G, F and C have done just a fantastic job with the current site that I am sure they'd figure out a way around this in due course. It's just a game after all, but if the ranking site is to have any credibility then we should all place close attention to the unwritten rules. It is considered bad form to log one's own cache as a find, or to log multiple finds. And a find is if you sign the log book, not see the container. Likewise, virtuals exist with the sole purpose of getting you to the site, not solving it by means of deciphering the clue on the internet. Anyway, my 2c.

Keen to see feedback and opinions on the following: a) Should archived caches - or more specifically redundant caches - be counted as Caches Placed? (Naturally, the functionality of the ranking site may not be able to handle this [yet]) Should cachers be allowed to log multiple finds on a single cache? c) Should you log a Find on a distant Virtual if you can solve the riddle without getting to the site? What's your opinion on these questions? B&F

Nice one Bob! The weather's good for Frodo's... Let us know how it went.

G'day cachers, It puzzles me that caches found yesterday are listed as found "Today" when I log on in the morning. In other words, the GC.com site runs on one of the US time zones. My profile's timezone has been set to the correct zone - but that does not appear to make a difference. Any ideas how this can be adjusted? Thanks, bear&fox

And banning them outright will become more common as more folks own GPSrs. The main reason, if you ask me, is the terrible world of litigation. Imagine there was the slightest of suspicion that a GPSr brough a commercial airliner down - the survivors, or their families, will sue the living daylights out of the airline company (for not preventing it). dadgum, life is complicated.

Excellent idea!

I recently sold my Sportrak, and the person who bought it is a commercial bee-keeper. He is now using this unit to keep track of all his bee hives. I've only used mine once for kayaking, and it's great to have a 'speedo' on deck. I keep the GPSr inside a plastic pouch, and found the receiver to be drenched when I got back to the beach - consequently found two stress cracks in the clasp... Very keen to take it sailing, as I would like to see in numbers what my boat can do. Navigating a busy shipping channel in dense fog is great fun when you are ensconsed in a leather seat (below deck) facing a multitude of electronica. The key feature being a large flat screen display with GPS and Radar. Leave the helmsman out in the damp outside... I also use mine to log running and walking routes, to have an accurate idea of distance covered. Would love to strap it to the dog once...

... man, this had me spitting coffee all over the place! Haven't laughed this much in a while! Thanks.

We all know, of course, that your trusty GPSr can be used for many things aside from hunting down geocaches. So let's take a common GPSr - a non-mapping unit like the eTrex - and list activities or functions you can perform. Some folks created tracks on their PCs and then mow a picture on a large field. Or you can measure distances walked/driven. I use mine as a speedo and odo when I drive long distances, and will often overlay my track on maps in mapping software. Just out of interest sake. What uses do you have for your GPSr?

I was just a muggle! Found a cache purely by chance. Registered with geocaching.com the same day and bought a GPSr within 24 hours...

Geocacher, Yep... but I'll send another! B&F

Hmmm... I cannot see the Parks Board agree to allowing caching either. Sadly. Stealth mode!

Why can the powers-that-be not rather work WITH cachers. It does, after all, lure people into the wild.

I used to have the Sportrak. Now I have the GPS 60. Say no more.

Yep, a tip of the 'ole hat to Rat and TV&M. I fine achievement indeed. Roll on 1000. B&F

Here's my experience with Magellan: I had the Magellan Sportrak. It was quick to find a WAAS lock (under 2 minutes), and seemed to almost always remain locked, unless I was under heavy foliage cover. What I did notice though was that most of the time my coords were a couple of meters off the posted coords of caches. And the tracks were not quite as crisp as one would expect from a WAAS lock - so you walk/drive the same route out and back, and the track doesn't match. Then the "averaging" feature seemed to average itself into a corner. Sometimes I'd get a feeling it was off, switch the unit off and back on again, and found different coords once it had received a lock. I just don't believe in the "averaging" feature. So I bought a Garmin GPS 60. It doesn't tell me when it gets a WAAS lock, and the overall EPE doesn't seem to be as accurate as the Magellan claimed (WAAS=/<3m). But the tracks are crisp and far more consistent. More caches appear to have accurate coords (most folks around here use Garmin as well) and it never averages itself into a corner. All in all, the Garmin does give me better service. The only downside is that I doubt that the GPS 60 will handle water as well as the Sportrak did (with all the ports at the back, and their scant covers). My opinion: don't like position averaging, prefer GPS 60's consistency. Bear

Gee, that's nice, many thanks. I'll give you a buzz geocacher.co.za B+F

A couple of weeks ago we spent the day in Ceres and decided to try to get to Highest in Western Cape. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? Our cachemobile of choice is a 2 tons of steel, eguipped with a very thirsty V6. The drive up Matroosberg was, you could say, somewhat worse than expected. It was sopping wet and badly gouged by wheelspin. After the first two tough sections my car battery went dead... open the bonnet... ah. It's broken. Yes, broken. The force of the 4WD shaking as it bounced its way across the boulders cracked the entire battery casing in four places. We managed to urge another start from it (with battery fluid now draining off into the engine bay (and I did not even want to think about the gasses...) and continued up the mountain. We parked when we ran out of road (couldn't see, as we had spent the last vertical 3000 feet in dense cloud), facing downhill for the run strat! Followed the GPS needle as we slipped over the iced-up sections and easily located the cache. The final insult: the pen didn't work. We stratched a faint B+F into the paper and left before the wind blew us off. The cost for this one cache: Petrol: R400 New battery: R800 Entry to Matroosberg: R250 Total: R1450 (plus usual wear and tear stuff) And it was awesome! B+F

I have the GPS 60 and am very happy with it. I happened to look at a working version at an outdoor store one day, then got rid of my trusted Magellan Sportrak and bought the GPS 60! The Magellan claimed to lock on to WAAS satellites with more ease, but the 60 gives me more consistent tracks and I find that cache coordinates are, erm, a little more accurate! I seem to think that the onscreen WAAS-lock display on the Sportrak's satellite screen did not mean it (still) had sat lock. I also think that the Sportrak's Averaging feature does it more harm than good, as it seems to average itself out the picture when under tree cover... But enough about the Sportrak - the GPS 60 is nicer in every way to use, and it has more features. Compared to the Etrex it features newer everything (including WAAS) and will also allow you more routes (and tracks etc). A little extra money, but a great unit with a very good following. The USB cable is also a plus (compared with serial). The Etrex is a great little unit, but I think most will agree that the 60 is a better option. Good luck!