ScoutingSquirrel

Thank you so much! You've no idea how frustrated we were when we couldn't get that to work 'in the field' yesterday ... Dad has only been using his GPS for recording hte location of photographs he has taken, we're just introducing him to geocaching! (thanks from Dad too, who is now busy plotting a geocache in for this evening's walk) Helen

Hi, my father has brought his Garmin Etrex out to Sweden on holiday, and I have one on order from Amazon ... We can mark the location that we are standing at but ... I can't work out how to type a co-ordinate into it so that we can navigate towards that co-ordinate ... Adding a waypoint just seems to register, and save, the place where we are standing and not the place where we want to go! Can anyone help? (Manual is no help .... can't find a screen where we can add numerical values using the up and down keys ... websearch seems to have no references ...) Thanks, Helen

Interesting to see that there are others of you with ancient machines. The Magellan is taking an hour to find one satellite ... otherwise it's pretty much like SVIKING was describing! LOL! We've got the 'standard starter model' Garmin Etrex on the way from Amazon and in the meantime we've done an Earthcache and are trying to find a couple by mapreading alone! Helen

I'm a new cacher ... though I have taken the boys letterboxing previously - but only the 'drive up to a Dartmoor beauty spot and see how many we can find' type ... We have found 3 geocaches here in Sweden where we are now living, and hidden one which should be online soon. The reason I decided to hide one with the boys was as part of explaining to them what the boxes are, how people have to site them carefully and check on them, look after them, write the co-ordinates and clues ... etc. In other words to build their (OK the 6 year old's) respect of what goes into placing a cache so that he appreciates what both sides of the game are like. I have planned a series of three letterbox caches, having bought three related ink stamps, and these will be at local but little known beauty spots near here that are favourites of our family. I am not personally prepared to take on the responsibility of caring for more than that! I think if I had more finds I would be absolutely in agreement with (many of) you about having a minimum number of finds before being able to place a cache ... but under the current rules it has served me very well to introduce both sides of the game to my boys (6 and 2.5) at the same time. Hope that helps explain why some newbies are posting caches almost immediately! Helen

I'm intrigued by the secrecy angle of caching .... Is it normal for caches to be damaged or stolen immediately after a cacher has been seen visiting? I suppose with kids it would be irresistable for them to go and find whatever it is that the cacher has just found ... and I'd agree (having worked with them, and enjoyed doing so) that teenagers of either gender find it difficult to see the wider picture - cache is part of an international game - rather than the immediate entertainment - let's kick it all around the field and then it'll be really hard to find. I'd better be thankful that we were a reasonable distance away from our first cache when my 6 year old was first heard by someone as he sang 'I found the treasure' at the top of his voice ... luckily too that we're living in Sweden and it takes most folk a few minutes to reguster and translate what that rapid high-pitched excited child voice was actually saying ... Helen

My husband says our GPS is one of the very first hand held devices ... a Magellan GPS Pioneer Needless to say it is past it's best and having waited over an hour for it to find and lose one satellite I've told him that we need a new one - Amazon here I come! But it did occur to me that there might be collectors out there for some of the very early models? If you would like this, just let me know! A frustrated, new to geocaching, Helen

Interesting ... I was thinking how boring the TFTC entries were and hoping that our own cache would generate some more interesting comments ... I toyed with the idea of adding this as a request on my listing but in the end I decided this was unfair. I can see now that this was probably the right course of action - I am thinking of family groups with small children wandering around three or four caches, appreciating beautiful hidden spots, and having a picnic or two along the way ... ... and here I'm reading of 'express' cachers racing through 50 caches a day - in which case I can understand them writing TFTC to merely acknowledge their visit. One of the caches we found had a tiny sticker in it giving a cacher's name and the flag of their country (different from the country the cache was in) and I thought that was rather nice. As we come from the British, (Dartmoor in Devon) tradition of letterboxing we carry inkstamps with which we sign the log, but we do write our membership name as well. Due to the finds being small ones with just a scroll of paper we have reserved our comments for the online log so that we don't use up too much space on the paper scroll. Is this about 'right' ? Helen (and the little squirrels)