Blaidd-Drwg

Just throwing in some more info. Yes, we in the US Army have used the term klick to mean one kilometer. This was common when I first entered the infantry in 1976. The use of metric for distance measurement is common and is the measurement method that UTM coordinates utilize. So if you look at a northing in a UTM coordinate, it tells you how far you are from the equator, while the easting portion is a little more confusing, but is a distance based on a Gridzone centerline. The comment by 6dogteam (1/2 half a "klick" out would be 500 metres.), appears to me to be a reference to the WORM formula (Width over Range = mils). So in the artillery or mortar worlds, the relationship between these can be used to determine the other parts of the formula. For instance, if I see a vehicle and I know that it is 8 meters front to back, I can measure the two azimuths to the ends of the vehicle and determine an angle. For instance, 4 mils. Using the WORM formula 8/4 = 2. This would mean that the vehicle is 2 km away.

Here in Oklahoma, there are currently two major events per year 'Fallfest' and 'Springfling'. These two events take place over a weekend and are normally held in one of the state parks. Folks normally will start showing up on the Thursday before the weekend. Official events are ran on Saturday thru Sunday morning. Organized meals are furnished for Saturday Supper and Sunday breakfast and lunch. There are normally at least two separate adult games plus a childrens game to participate in during the official time. One game is normally set up by one individual or several. The second game is normally a bring and hide a temporary cache. This gives cachers a chance to show off their cache design skills. The temporary caches are collected and displayed during the Sunday lunch. Prizes are awarded mainly on a random draw basis. To address other issues brought up. Since this is a weekend long event, folks have plenty of time to cache and also to socialize. Many a tall tail have been told around a campfire, or at one of the furnished meals. I can't begin to describe my enjoyment at these events. While there are the two major events, there are also monthly events. I live near Oklahoma City, so I have attended the one held there. It normally consist of a gathering at a local eatery and consist of mainly a short chance to visit. Another enjoyable event that I attended was in London. It was held in one of the old pubs and was attended by many of the local cachers. Of course, being held in a pub meant a more adult atmosphere. So to sum up, yeah, what everyone else said.

I wasn't the first, but I wasn't the last either. A neat stat.

Changing only one side of the size is going to distort your map, making it king of squatish. Also, by specifying a size, you are forcing it to be displayed at that size on all monitors. I would suggest substituting width="75%" height="75%" This will cause the map to display at 75% of the screen width for all users, no matter what size screen they use.

OK, here goes my opinion. Your questions are all valid. As for what brand, it's your choice between Garmin or Magellan. Both have their advocates. As for other brands, due to limited mapping software, I would avoid them. If there is a local geocacher group, I would visit with them and ask to compare what everyone else is using. You will probably find one model which has a screen layout which is more pleasing for you. As for memory, I use the Garmin 60CS and the internal memory is sufficient for my needs. I have a large part of Oklahoma and part of Texas loaded currently. If I traveled to the far reaches more often, then the extermal memory might be nice, but I'm not sure. I like the built in compass. When I get to a cache site, I can set the GPSr down and the compass will more consistently point to the cache, even though I'm not moving. There are folks who will swear that a quad helix is better. I believe this is true for the Garmin line, but I have no experience with the magellan line. An important point to remember is that once you've chosen a line and started to purchase mapping software, you will probably forever be locked into that line, just because of the expense of the software. I've got several hundred dollars in mapping software for my Garmin line and just can't imagin changing. Again, try to look at other folks GPSrs and see which one you like.

I also started with a Garmin 12, moved up to a Yellow Etrex, then onto a Vista, and now I've got what I consider the best of the best, a GPSMAP 60CS. I love the long batterylife and it works fairly well under overhead cover.

In August after reaching my 2005 goal of 365 caches in 2005 for a Cache Per Day find rate of 1.000, I set my goal for 2006 to reach a cpd of 0.900. I'm currently setting at 0.759. It doesn't sound like much of a difference between 0.759 and 0.900, but when you consider that I've been cache since February 2002, it takes a lot to move up. To reach the 0.900 level by the end of 2006, I will have to average 43 caches per month for the next 14 months. To reach the solid 1.000 caches per day, I would have to find about 56 caches per month. My cache page shows my progress towards my cpd rate.

That is all true, but the existing headers are only wrapped with <b>..</b> so if you're going for consistency, use that.

I just tried combining all of the three sections into one. It resulted in an error message that only 5000 characters, including HTML could be in a section. I guess I'll leave the three sections for now. There is a overall limit of about 6400 characters for the entire page. I received the error message for it several times.

Thanks for the tip about leaving a section blank. I wasn't aware of that. However, let me throw a little bit of html at you for new section headings. Use <h1>xxxxx</h1> or substitute h2, h3, h4, h5, or h6 for the h1. This is the html for a header. The use of h1 will result in a large header, while the others result in a progressively smaller header. The header will also be Bold. Examples of the use of the header html can be seen on my current profile page, along with several tables. By the way, the header will automatically put a break in after the header, and you can then put in your paragraph notation or as in my case the table.

Like JPenn said, the OKC geocachers will be meeting soon. His link to the page shows the next meeting on the 12th. There are usually between 20 and 30 or so cachers at the meetings. Depending on your work schedule, you can often find someone ready to go caching.

I would suggest the ability to select to not include the three standard entry boxes, or at least the ability to suppress the titles The titles are a nice suggestion, but there are times when I would like to use the space for different areas. As a side note, does anyone know if each text entry box has a size limit, or if the size limit is for the entire page?

After glancing through a few pages of this thread, I agree with many of the suggestions. There is one suggestion for a method to transfer data from a PDA, without mentioning any method. There is another response that recommends BlueTooth. I would recommend Infrared. Even most of the oldest Palm based PDAs has IR, while only the more recent expensive units support BT. Additionally, for BT to be active would impose a large power drain on both units, decreasing battery life significantly. Another common request is for a SD card slot. This will be great if there is a sturdy dirt proof, water resistant cover on it.

Another method for finding cache density is to use GSAK. <FILE><EXPORT><HTML> and on the right side select the cache density box. When you select OK, you will get a cache density file.

Just my $.02. Although it is fun to see a distance of 0.0 to the waypoint, it really doesn't prove a whole lot. I have probably found as many caches with readings of 10-20 feet to waypoint as I have 0-5 feet. It all depends on the satellite reception, the model of GPSrz (both hider and finder), tree cover, atmospheric conditions WAAS and probably a lot more techo things I don't know about or have forgotten. My technique is to follow the GoTo arrow until I'm as close as the reading will get. Sometimes this may be 8 foot or more. When it starts increasing, I normally set the GPSr (Garmin GPSMAP60CS) down and start looking around. Again, since these aren't surveying instruments we're dealing with, expecting to reach 0.0 consistantly is almost impossible.

I heading down in March 2006 and I've purchased maps from Brett's NZ Maps. They seem to work well in my Garmin Mapsource software and on my GPSMAP60CS, but I can't speak about the Magellan version. My cost was $US88. You may also find other sources if you search through the New Zealand Forums I know there is also a free mapping source for Garmins, and there may be a source for Magellan as well. I haven't tried the freeware, as I'd already purchased the maps from Brett. Good luck and enjoy your trip. As a side note, I've found that to get all the caches on the SI, you will need to do two PQs. Also, there is something wonky about crossing the longitude line too far east of NZ, so pick your PQ centers either on the west edge of the island or keep the radius smaller, should you run into this problem.

Or yet another possibility is that the program you are using to open your PQ has the preference set to KM vs miles. If you are using GSAK go to <TOOLS> <OPTIONS> and in the righthand upper corner select <Miles>. This wil cause GSAK to display in miles and not KM. If you are using EasyGPS, then go to <FILE><PREFERENCES>, select the <Units Of Measurement> and select <Standard> This will result in miles being displayed.

I've also used wooden dollars and nickels. I'm now using up my last 100 nickels and supplementing them with personalized carabiners. After putting out over 800 of the wooden coins, I kind of figure that anyone who wanted one has had a chance to find it. I've actually found them in caches I haven't logged.

As was mentioned above, you, as a non-premium member, need to check the GC website frequently to catch when a new cache is posted. For just checking your own local area, go to your 'My Account Details' page and in the right hand column should be a list of ways to do searches for caches. For instance, mine says to check for newest caches in Oklahoma. I'm not sure if this is a premium feature or not, since it's been there for so long. Of course you could just search for caches from your home coordinates, using the normal 'find a cache' functionality and look for caches without a date posted and annotated as 'new'. If you live in a cache deprived area, like I do, then the above techniques will work for you. For an area of about 20 miles from my home, if someone post a new cache, I can take my time getting around to it , like within a day or two sometimes weeks, and be the FTF

I think it goes for 100 miles, regardless of how many or how few pages it is.

With my 916 finds, page 43, which starts at 95 miles. One of the pages only has 3 finds, but there are finds none the less. As for folks out there reporting numbers way up there, my results of closest caches stops at 45. How do you force a display of more? Just wanting to know for future worthless stats questions.

My avatar use to depict one of the ships used by Prince Madog to discover America in 1170 (See my profile for more details). Now it shows one of the mastheads with Madog spelled out in Anglo-Saxon Ruins

OK, a techie thing that I've been playing with. I get a lot of enjoyment out of trying new things on my profile page. I've been reading via the web, that certain items that use to be allowed in HTML code are being phased out. Specifically, the <center> tag, which was the old method for aligning an item in the center of the page. During my reading, I've found that although not completely unsupported, the use of the alignment tags has been deprecated (fancy way of saying frowned upon). The prefered method now is to use a Cascaded Style Sheet (CSS). I haven't managed to get this to work, either through my own ignorance or the point of this topic. Does anyone know if CSS is supported on the profile pages. I would normally think that it is, since it just says how to display the HTML, but I don't know the whole story behind how GC implements the display of the profile pages. A long way around to a final question. Does anyone use a CSS in the modificatoin of their profile page?

My past year finds went like this 2002 - 52 2003 - 101 2004 - 347 For 2005, I started with a goal of finding an average of 1 cache per day. I reached the year goal on 14 August, when I passed the 365 find level. To date I have 383 finds for 2005. My goal for the remainder of the year is to find the remaining 40 or so caches in the OKC, Edmond, Moore and Norman, Oklahoma areas that I haven't found.

I recently had some carabiners made at this Place with my Caching name and state on it. I figure that these are usable by anyone who finds one, as well as identifying that it is my sig item. For the last 600 or so finds I've used wooden nickels or dollars, but I'm sure everyone who ever wanted one, could have found one by now. The website I mentioned also does a item similar to Bison Tubes, which I'm considering for my 1000+ sig item.