Lieblweb

YES - and if you walk away from an area and go back - wait another 5 minutes for it to settle down again.

I can understand...we still have a Garmin emap from 2002. My husband said it took 15 minutes to find a signal. Never bothered to sell it since its soooooooooooooooooo old!! I can't even find any of the connectors that go with it!!

I'll have to slighty argue with you on this....and only becuase I've done volunteer work for other organizations/clubs in the past. The bottom line is - Don't voluteer for something if you can't get the job done. I don't know what the reviwers are required to do, but if they're overloaded with work (as you make it sound), then perhaps there needs to be more volunteers to disperse the work load. My first two hidden caches & the responses from the reviewers was exceptional. They have rules to follow and only doing their job and were rather quick in doing so. I took care of what I needed to and they were quick to get things moving. Kudos to the reviewers!! Obviously, the reviewers are not the geocache police. I don't know fully how the system works...but....they are the first step prior to approval of new cache hides. Do they actually visit the cache sites? Should there be more volunteers to visit the cache sites before approval? Or should we just let the logs tell the story? Surely, it's A LOT OF WORK. OR simply let the log notes tell the story. Question: Is there a REPORT button? Say for instance, you find (or don't find) a cache in a questionable area. You can hit the REPORT button to report something that is questionable and some reviewers (or other volunteers) can look more closely at the cache site and make decisions from there. Again, from a newbie looking in.

I've been involved with a lot of clubs/organizations and I also helped run fascilitate these clubs/orgs - so I can completely understand the need to put some limits/guidelines for first timer 'hiders'. I'm new.....however, I was exposed to geocaching 10 years ago - things were different back then and we never pursued it past 2 finds. Just this past week, we've gotten back into it hot & heavy. Found 35 caches in our first week or so. I've had a TB for 10 years sitting in my garage that we finally put in a cache last week. We hid 2 caches and waiting for approval. I would expect a certain amount of 'finds' be under ones belt before being able to hide one. However, this might be somewhat discouraging to some new folks. The last thing you want to do, is discourage anyone from getting involved. I would say - let that discision be up to the reviewer of the cache. They could take multiple things into consideration. How long have they been caching? How many finds? How many caches in their area? Are they logging in often or not? and anything else.... Because in all honesty - this hobby can be different things to different people. Work & family life can prevent someone from getting out and finding caches (or money). Who's to say that a new person can't hide a cache and sit back and just watch the activity and enjoy the hobby in that aspect....instead of being required to find caches. Is that so wrong? If any given cache is hidden and not 'maintained' via the owner's lack of resonsibility, then let the masses of geocachers make notes/reports about this in the logs. Eventually, the cache will get a bad reputation (and the owner). I'm new so I don't know how all that works....but you'd think, any given problem would eventually solved.

I must say, the iphone has allowed us to find 35 caches so far, so I can't complain. The iphone does have a lag time in updating your position - its something to get used to. However - doing recent testing - our Nuvi 660 seems to be more accurate and faster in terms of getting accurate coordinates for hiding a cache. We've learned to use the Nuvi to get coordinates or verify the iphone coordinates for hiding a cache. The Nuvi is older and I wouldn't use it to find a cache (haven't tried). Just yesterday something we also learned - these iphones don't work at all if you don't have a good cell signal. The GPS & cell signal work hand-n-hand (apparently). When out in remote areas with only 1 bar (Verizon), it sometimes just sits there and doesn't do anything. My husbands phone had to be rebooted. We ended up driving to find better cell signal and finding caches in those areas.

Question (and pardon - searching and finding exactly what you need is hard to do) We've been to several caches that had 'inventory' of bugs or coins but there was nothing inside. And again, pardon the wording. Should we be documenting that the TB's are not inside? Or is it better just to walk away and not log anything (other than finding the cache). Is it more likely that the TB's are missing? Or is it more likely these are 'in transit' and people haven't logged them yet? Thanks!!

I did notice that 'after the fact' - and can get confusing to the newbies. I'm sure that won't be the last time I futz up the wording. And pardon if I screw the wording up below... The bug that we retrieved was listed in the cache at that time as inventory (hence why we were able to move it). Looking at the TB's webpage the next day, the entries in the webpage were somewhat out of order. I would just assume that's accredited to cyber world and computer-esque not updating the information. Afterall, the TB was placed earlier that morning and we retrieved it the same day.

Haven't noticed any 'bugginess' related to battery life. Overall - we've noticed these phones have a 'lag time' of updating your position. My husband and I both have iphone 4's and they just aren't that quick to update our position. You almost have to 'take your time' and allow it to update before walking around too much. Granted, we've been finding caches - so, we're still happy with using the phones for now. Our first day out - we got about 3-4 hours of battery life. From 100% down to 18% with constant usage. Since we have two phones, we've learned to use one at a time and conserve the other. Or - we plug both the phones into the car chargers inbetween stops. Just yesterday - in remote areas where cell service is sketchy (one bar), these phones ARE NOT good for geocaching at all. Can't access the geocaching APP to find caches and the GPS portion doesn't respond. My husband's phone just about locked up and it had to be rebooted. Keeping an eye on this as the phones are only 1 month old. (We have Verizon, btw). We ended up driving to find a better cell service and then continuing our geocaching.

Get your wife out with you!! My husband and I have been doing this together for a few days now. We're up to 35 caches now. We're waiting approval on two caches we've hidden and we're waiting for our first TB to be moved. We tried this 10 years ago and we lost interest. Looking back - I think it was due to bad GPS, and lack of hides and too far to drive. Now? These caches are EVERYWHERE!! I have atleast 3-4 of these things within walking distance of my house! It can get frustrating if you're not finding any. We've been learning a lot and I think you get better with experience. Although your GPS/phone will get you close - you still need to explore and get your eyes trained to 'see' things out of ordinary/out of place. You almost need the quick easy finds to keep your excitement yet the harder DNF's to keep the game challenging. GOOD LUCK!!

My opinion is only based on two or three times I've seen one used to mark a point and the experience of others on the forums. The few times I've seen it first hand, the marked coords were at least 60 feet off each time. Small sample and second hand information here. Actually....after doing some experimenting the last couple days, I probably won't use our iphones as primary GPS for getting coordintes to hide a new cache. We were using both Garmin Nuvi 660 & our iphones and comparing. The Nuvi was far more accurate in 'test' searches. The iphones seem to take way too long to update and/or get 'settled' (so to speak). They worked better if you just sat there for a longer period of time and took average from multiple readings. VS The Garmin, you could walk away multiple times and go back and get new coordinates to average. For searching for caches, the iphones are pretty good. Again, the lag time of updating position - something to get used to. But once you got withint a 10ft radious, you just needed to use your eyeballs. Oh, and today tried to geocache in remote areas where cell service is limited.....bad idea. First off, you can't access the APP and although the GPS was working, it must be accessing cell service for additional GPS averaging. We ended up driving away from this area to find some where our signals were better. So having a real GPS in remote areas is much better (and for longer battery life)

We have the iphone App and really enjoy it!! We were move than happy to pay the $10 to get out and geocache for a bit. We haven't purchased the premium membership yet - just getting into it as time permits. Question: After purchasing the premium membership, does that enable certain functionality in the APP? Or does the app stay the same?

We were out today and found a lot of caches that were supposed to have trackables in them - but didn't. We logged our visit and went on our way. We didn't make any notes about the 'missing' trackable under the assumption that someone didn't have enough time to log the entry yet? (or so you'd hope). What's the etiquette? EVerytime we visit a cache with a missing trackable - are we supposed to make note of that? Obviously, I don't wanna be the last person logged and assumed to have 'stolen' it (so to speak).

I'm new to this myself, but my husband and I do the same thing. We log it in 'immediately' on the phone while we're still there. Log it as we took it or we left it. Today was our first day dropping off our first owned bug. We also grabbed another one and placed it the same day. Everything was 'there' on the geocaching app as 'logged' and hence how/why we grabbed 'em. Other than that, I'd just leave it there if there was no log of it on the App.

That's Great to hear!! My husband and I have been playing 'hide the cache' between us. We both have iphones. We're doing this to get some caches hidden and check our coordinates between us before officially submitting. I also have an old Garmin Nuvi that I might use today to verify. He had trouble finding one of my caches - so I want to make sure the coords are OK with the Garmin. Or perhaps its just a really good hiding spot. He'll have to take the Garmin out and see if he can find it with that. There's a really neat App called "Perfect Mark" that we've been using to 'mark', average, & save coordinates. It's $.99 but well worth it (I think). This has been so much fun and I can't seem to get enough time off to do it!!!

Degradation of the hobby? Seems this hobby has exploded since the last time I did it 10 years ago. Technology of GPS's and phones has greatly improved. The ease of having a phone & GPS wrapped up into one unit is the best thing since sliced bread!! You say they're inaccurate - well - I've been finding a lot of caches, so it can't be all that bad. We'll see how this hobby ends up in another 10 years. The degradation of this hobby won't be due to inaccurate devices, it'll be because of our own ignrance & laziness.

And something else I learned from this site (THANKS!!) While doing 'test runs' of hidden caches and using google maps as a method to find them, you can type in: cache@coordinates (cache@ plus coordinate) in the search feature. My husband just tried that yesterday and it worked pretty good. Prior to knowing this - I couldn't get google maps to navigate me near enough to a cache. It would pinpoint an address (when near a roadway). Lots of stuff to learn! Having fun in the process!

I'm new to all this also, but if you click on MAP IT and press some of the buttons at the top...you get more 'stuff'. I just discovered this myself but if you click the 2nd button in on that page - it'll give you the coordinates of your current location in decimals. This is probably really handy when hiding your own caches.

Other than that.... Have some fun and hide some things that aren't on the geocaching website. Give her the coordinates. Surprise her with something inside it.... Someone I work with got engaged by a geocache. He put the ring inside the cache.

I agree. I wouldn't put anything of value in a cache or it'll disappear. Sounds like a invitation for someone to abuse it. On the other hand - if you did something like this, you'd have to check the cache/account daily to make sure its not being abused. Perhaps put a 'limit' on the usage before it shuts off completely (somehow). And - allow it to have 'mobileme' or some other tracking source. If someone stole the phone - you could spend a day tracking the phone, and finding the dumb a** who stole it!! Wow....phone caching....??

An injury, battery dies on phone/GPS, and getting approached by creepy or unfriendly muggles.

I can't complain about our iphones, aside from the battery life. We geocached probably 10 years ago with an old Garmin emap (we still have it!!) originally. Lost interest and now we're back playing with our iphones and the geocaching app. Having the phone with all the other goodies attached is definately nice. Expensive phone, yes... but we don't seek to find really difficult caches. If we need both hands to crawl or climb to get to a cache - we simply bypass it or put the phones inside a secure pocket. And again, we have the old emap plus we have a Garmin Nuvi too. In fact, today I'm going to hide some 'test' caches using all 3 devices and see how the coordinates compare. My husband will try to find them using his iphone (before we register the cache online). We were out caching the entire day on Saturday. We got about 3-4 hours of constant GPS usage before the low battery warning came on (18%). The good thing is, we both have iphones. Next time - we'll stick with using just one iphone at a time. Use mine for 3-4 hours and then switch over to using his for another 3-4 hours (while charging mine in the car inbetween stops). A good 6 hours of geocaching is enough for me.

After 10 years, I didn't even know it had its own bug page. I wasn't even sure if it was activated. My husband was able to get it transferred last night - so now we can get this thing going!! Thanks!

I have a travel bug from 10 years ago that I never 'set free'. It's owned by my previous (old)account. My husband and I started a new account and want to transfer it. I already tried the 'adopt' webpage - but the numbers I input are 'not found' (so to speak). This bug only has a six digit number (no letters). I even tried using TB in front of the 6 letters - no luck. Emailed some folks and I'm awaiting a response. Thanks!